Nutritional Assessment Project

Nutrition is an essential part in everyone’s life. It helps us stay healthy and energetic, look nice and be in a good mood. It plays a great role for the overall condition. And there is a great difference what you eat and how many vitamins and useful elements every food item includes. The analysis of the daily nutrition record helps realize whether a person consumes the right food in the right quantity. A woman aged 40 years has the following characteristic: 5 ft 4 in and165 lb. These characteristic features are essential in the course of analyzing the nutritional data as they allow forming certain set of recommendations and diagnosing the errors and inconsistencies in the food choice. The activity level is sedentary. This means that a woman should reconsider her way of life and start go in for some kind of sport or at least take some walks in the evening. It is not only useful for health but also helps with digestion and metabolism. BMI is the next crucial point. It slightly exceeds the normal ratio. Besides, the woman gains usually 1 lb per week. This is a positive figure as the normal ratio amount not more than two lb per week. It is important first of all to analyze the correlation between the nutrient elements that were consumed by the woman in comparison with the dietary graph recommendations. It is obviously that she consumes too much fat, especially saturated one. It affects negatively not only her weight, but also her health in general. Besides, she consumes too little dietary fiber – it constitutes only 53%. It is desirable for her to increase the amount of consumed water as it comprises only 70% of the daily need of a person and to decrease the amount of protein consummation. The woman should start consuming more vitamins, especially vitamins D, E and A. Still such vitamins as B1 and B3 seem to be excessive to be consumed as an average daily amount. The best balance is achieved in consumption of vitamin B12 – it amounts to 99% and is very important as it regulates growth, maintenance, and reproduction of all of the cells, including nervous ones, and results in increased energy and improved overall condition (CyberRecovery, 2006). It is highly recommended for a woman to increase the amount of consumed calcium as it is only 34% of the daily norm while the use of sodium should be necessarily reduced at least in three times. It is necessary to analyze the products this woman usually eats. There are two days’ descriptions. She has for breakfast coffee and creamer, for lunch – cheeseburger, French fries and frozen dessert, then for dinner – fish and fried shrimps, and finally for supper – pop-corn and water. The other day she has the same breakfast while the lunch is larger and includes mashed potato with pork chops and sauerkraut, soda and water. Her dinner consists of mushroom turnovers, sandwich, steak and Tater Tots. She has a vanilla ice cream as a snack later and no supper. It is important to analyze the options the woman should increase in her daily diet. It is necessary to increase the consumption of dietary fiber that is included in the following products from the list: sauerkraut, mushroom turnovers, and in little quantity it may be found in Tater Tots and ice cream. So she should eat more vegetables to supply the organism with necessary amount of dietary fiber. To increase the amount of vitamin A, that one day is completely absent from her diet, the woman should eat more potato, carrot, greens, and especially liver as it is number one among the products that contain this vitamin (HealthAliciousNess). Apricots are also a good source of vitamin A. In order to increase the amount of calcium the woman should eat more meat – but not fast food. The best variant is steamed meat dishes. The fast food items should be excluded from the diet at all as they lack indeed useful and healthy elements though are abundant in harmful ones. One more essential aspect comprises obligatory use of fruit and vegetables. Regular grain consumption is also important. The woman does not follow these recommendations in her daily diet: there are at least some vegetables present, but there is complete absence of fruit. Protein consumption is enough, though the diary products are still needed. Green and orange vegetables are the best choice. Moreover, it is strongly recommended to reduce fats and sugar consumption as it interferes with the healthy diet approach. The presence of beans and peas is also essential. The question of consumed calories presents the following data: one day the calorie level amounted to 1993 calories while the other day presented the figure of 2773. The average figure is 2383 calories per day. The most caloric food item was cheeseburger (790 calories). The least caloric product except water and coffee with creamer was sauerkraut and then mashed potato (100 and 125 calories respectively). Thus, the woman’s average daily intake of calories is 2383 calories. The average daily intake of calories is supposed to be 2000 calories for a woman while for a man the figure is 2500 (NHSchoices). Though, this figure greatly depends upon the peculiarities of lifestyle and age. The conclusion is as follows: the average intake is not excessive, but the choice of food items should be carefully reconsidered taking into account the recommendations according to the reduction and increase rates in product list. References Cyber Recovery (2006). What does vitamin B12 do in your body? Retrieved from http://www.cyberrecovery.net/forums/showthread.php?t=317 HealthAliciousNess. Top 10 foods highest in vitamin A. Retrieved from http://www.healthaliciousness.com/articles/food-sources-of-vitamin-A.php NHSchoices (2012). What should my daily intake of calories be? Retrieved from http://www.nhs.uk/chq/pages/1126.aspx?categoryid=51