Nutrition and Health

• Good nutrition is critical for well-being of society and individuals within society.
• Quality, quantity, variety, cost, and accessibility of food as well as patterns of food consumption all affect health.
• Until the middle of the 20th century, deficiency diseases were common.
• Infectious disease and malnutrition remain serious problems in developing countries.
• The infectious diseases death rate of children under 5 is 54%, per the WHO.
• Nowadays, nutrient deficiency diseases are uncommon.
• This is because of abundant food supply; food fortification; enrichment to replace certain nutrients lost while processing; better methods of determining nutrient content in food; improved sanitation; access to safe drinking water; vaccine development; better health care; plus increased the quality and quantity of food available
• Reduced prevalence of infectious disease in developed countries and less nutrient deficiencies.
• An Excel version with more data years and standard errors can be found at https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/hus/contents2017.htm#019

Chronic Diseases

• Chronic diseases have now become epidemic
• Increased life expectancy, a higher living standard, and overabundance of food all are factors
• Decreased physical activity also contributes
• Many of these diseases relate to the excess consumption of high fat foods/alcoholic beverages.
• The diseases also relate to an inadequate consumption of foods high in complex carbohydrates and fiber.

Surgeon General's Report

• Diet contributes in major ways to development of diseases, and dietary modification can assist in their prevention.
• Disproportionate consumption of food high in fats often at the expense of foods high in complex carbohydrates and fiber.

Good Nutrition and Nutritional Assessment

• Chronic diseases plus heightened public/professional interest in the importance of nutrition have created an increased need for health professionals proficient in nutritional assessment.
• Ongoing nutrition related diseases necessitate that health professionals determine the nutritional status of individuals.
• Nutritional assessment and counseling, prevention and intervention, and finally improved health have been identified as core categories.

Nutritional Assessment vs Nutritional Screening

• Nutritional assessment is evaluating the nutritional status of individuals or populations using measurements of food and nutrient intake
• It allows to identify people at nutritional risk
• Effectively enhances health status through improved nutrition
• Nutritional screening is identifying characteristics known to be associated with nutritional problems
• It helps to pinpoint individuals who malnourished or at nutritional risk

Nutritional Assessment Methods

• Four methods:
• Anthropometric
• Biochemical
• Clinical - Dietary

Anthropometric Measurement

• It is the measurement of physical dimensions and body composition
• The actual measurements are height, weight, head circumference, percent body fat, lean tissue, skinfold thickness, body density, and bioelectrical impedance.

Biochemicals

• Include the measurement of a nutrient/metabolite in blood, feces, or urine.
• Examples are testing for albumin, hemoglobin, ferritin, and blood lipids.

Clinical

• Used to detect signs and symptoms of malnutrition.
• Observations made by a qualified examiner during physical examination.
• Medical history and physical examination are both important.
• One clinical approach for assessing nutritional status that relies on information collected by the clinician through observation/interviews is Subjective Global Assessment (SGA).

Dietary

• Surveys used to measure quantity of food and beverages over course of days/months.
• Data on intake of nutrients or specific classes of foods.

Importance of Nutritional Assessment

• Helps to identify diet-related disease.
• Helps identify persons at nutritional risk.
• Allows greater knowledge of the relation between nutrition and health.
• Provides expanded ability to alter the nutritional status of person in need. Essential for nutritional epidemiologists and other nutrition researchers to assist with linking diet and health

Diet, Maternal and Child Health

• Well nourished mothers produce healthier infants
• Maternity care needed at beginning/periodically during pregnancy and during lactation

Opportunities in Nutritional Assessment

• It creates significant contributions to health care via many programs.
• They are: Healthy People 2030; Nutrition Care Process; Health Care Organizations; Diabetes Mellitus; Weight Management; Heart Disease and Cancer; Nutrition Monitoring; and Nutritional Epidemiology.

Healthy People 2030

• Comprehensive, nation wide health promotion/disease prevention agenda designed to improve health of all people in the US
• Promotes health and preventing illness, disability, and premature death.
• More information can be found at https://odphp.health.gov/healthypeople

Health Conditions, Health Behaviors, And Social Determinants of Health

• These are just some of the many topics available that involve healthy people and their health.

Nutrition Care Process

• Includes Screening & Referral System, Economics, and Evidence-Based Practice.
• Also includes Code of Ethics, Practice Settings, Dietetics Knowledge, Nutrition Assessment & Re-assessment, Nutrition Diagnosis, and Nutrition Intervention.
• It involves Relationship Between Patient/Client/Group, along with other important factors.

Health Care Organizations

• Involves physicians' offices, urgent care clinics, emergency rooms, acute care hospitals and even long-term care facilities.
• Identifying patients at nutritional risk ensures cost-effective medical care to help contain health care costs in general.

Diabetes Mellitus

• It involves American Diabetic Association.
• Nutritional assessment is an important component of managing the disease.
• National surveys provide important nutritional assessment data (prevalence of overweight and obesity).

Heart Disease and Cancer

• Dietary factors play role in heart disease.
• Nutritional assessment is important to decrease the risk for heart disease.
• Two-thirds of cancer deaths in the US can be modified via changes at the individual and societal levels.
• Nutritional assessment is significant here too.

Nutrition Monitoring and Nutritional Epidemiology

• Nutrition monitoring provides timely information about the contribution of food/nutrient consumption and nutritional status to the health of the US population.
• Nutrition epidemiology involves nutrition research undertaken by universities; private industry; and government which involves some aspect of nutritional assessment.