Nutritional Status of an Individual - Case Study Example

CASE STUDY: NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF AN INDIVIDUAL Lecturer: CASE STUDY: NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF AN INDIVIDUAL 0 Introduction There is a common adage that you are what you eat. This adage has scientifically been proven to be justifiable as the food we eat and the nutritional status of such food goes a long way to determine several variables about our life and health, including our growth pattern, mental activity, social perception, and level of immunity (Rodriguez, 2009). It is based on this understanding of the effect of nutrition on the life of a person that this study has been conducted on Patient Y (name withdrawn for ethical reasons) to critically describe and evaluate findings on the patient’s nutritional status and the consequential state of health, resulting from the findings made. The study will further more propose strategies that will be used to resolve the identified problems with Patient Y as a means of achieving prescribed goals by the doctor. The study is divided into various components including methods, findings, discussion and conclusion. The emphasis shall however be on the findings and the subsequent discussions that will be made as these sectors shall focus primarily on the description and evaluation of findings, and proposal for strategies to resolve the problems respectively. 2.0 Methods This was a quantitative study that was undertaken by the use of case study research design. As part of the case study, the nutritional status of Patient Y was critically investigated through the use of clinical investigations and assessment, which comprised diagnoses from the doctor and results of various laboratory tests. The study involved only one respondent in the sample for the reason of achieving highly critical focus on the case. The selection of the respondent was done through a purposive sampling technique, which did not involve any randomisation procedures. The reason for doing this was because the researcher wanted to land on a respondent who possesses all the variables that were presented as part of case to be studied. In line with the objective of the study, which was to identify a problematic nutritional status of an individual and wage an academic campaign in correcting the wrong, using a random sampling procedure could have resulted in the selected of a very health respondent who did not have the nutritional variables that were being investigated. As part of the quantitative research method, the researcher designed a checklist that was used to collect specific quantitative data on the nutritional outcome of Patient Y. The checklist was therefore the major research instrument used for the study. The checklist was composed of key health and nutritional variables including body mass index, blood glucose, skin fold, overall body fat, body water, overall muscle, pattern of diet, and many more. Data collection was conducted through primary data collection where data on the respondent was collected from an identified health facility. Below is a description of findings collected through the checklist. 3.0 Findings The findings section of the study is purposely dedicated to describing and evaluating the nutritional information of Patient Y. This will be done through four major themes as presented below. 3.1 Nutritional and Anthropometry data counts A number of nutritional and health information were collected from the respondent, based on which these findings were compared with national averages given by the Food Standards Agency and the Departments of Health (2013) for adults of the age and gender of the respondent, which is 25 year old female. Table 1: Nutritional and Anthropometry Data Summary Variable of Nutritional Status Patient Y National Average Energy intake 4.1MJ 6.27 MJ Protein intake 35.8g 63.7g Carbohydrate intake 180g 196g Fat and fatty acid intake 31.2g 59.8g Body weight 57kg 62kg Height 100cm 161.9 cm Overall body fat 27.7 35.5 Blood pressure 124/76 90/50 to 110/75 Body water 36.5% 73.6% Overall muscle 17 pounds 20-25 pounds Metabolic rate 1199 kacl 1500 kcal Key parts of the data in the table can be graphically represented as below. Fig 1: Graphical Representation of Nutritional and Anthropometry Data From the table and figure, it can be noted that in all cases, the patient records nutritional and anthropometry data that are far lower than the national average. 3.2 Nutritional factors influencing health status The doctor diagnosed the patient to be having some key health risks and health status, which includes protein energy malnutrition (PEM). From existing literature and from further laboratory information, it was noted that there were four key nutritional risk factors that are accountable for the health status of the patient (Bernard, 2010). These nutritional factors are not independent of the nutritional and anthropometry data given above but can be said to be thematic nutritional factors that influence the health of the patient negatively. These four nutritional factors include poor dietary practice and micronutrient deficiency, which are dominated by excessive consumption of cassava based dishes including ɛba, fufu and gari, which are all local meals for the patient. Meanwhile, these cassava dishes which are dominate in carbohydrates are not well balanced with protein and other food nutrients to guarantee diet. There are also nutritional factors influencing the health of the patient such as chronic diarrhoea and malabsorption syndrome. 3.3 Changing pattern of nutritional requirements throughout life span Through the review of secondary data, it was gathered that there are very key stages in the life females through their life span that require specific changes to their pattern of nutritional requirements. Vinci (2007) identifies some of these changing patterns as being necessary during menstruation, pregnancy, gestation, and menopause. However, from data gathered from the respondent, it was noted that Patient Y did not have the adequate knowledge of such changing pattern of nutritional requirements through life span. As noted by Arnheim and Prentice (2003) once such changing patterns of nutritional requirements are not followed, patients experience key health risks that could range from mild to several health complications. This was evident through some physical outcomes on her body such as brownish discoloured hair, protuberant abdomen and swollen limbs. 3.4 Factors influencing food choice Having noted that the respondent had major problems with food choice, which affected her state health, the researcher went a step ahead to investigate key factors that influenced the food choice of the respondent. This was done by suggesting and explaining four key food choice factors, after which the respondent graded them from the least influencing to the highly influencing factor, causing her not to eat healthily and thus live a healthy life. the scoring was done by rating the highest cause with 4 and down to 1. The responses gathered from the respondent are given as follows. Fig. 2: Factors that influence food choice Fig. 2 shows that the respondent lacked sufficient information on nutrition and nutritional variables. This was followed by economic factors, social factors and religious factors respectively. Economically, the respondent pointed out that she did not have the means to afford most forms of balanced diet. Socially, her work prevented her from giving sufficient time to her body and diet, whiles religious and cultural factors prevented her from eating some kinds of food. 4.0 Discussion 4.1 Assessment of and guidelines for individual nutritional status The nutritional and anthropometry data of Patient Y shows very deplorable statistics when compared to the national average figures. Meanwhile, Zawila, Steib and Hoogenboom (2003) outlines the impact of most of these nutritional and anthropometry data counts to the overall health of a person. As a female of the age of 25, Rosenbloom, Jonnalagadda and Skinner (2012) also stated that recording very low nutritional and anthropometry data could open the way up to several disease threatening events, particularly problem with the body in combating diseases. It is not surprising that after the doctor’s diagnosis of the patient, the doctor was displaced that she looked too small for her age. The fact that the patient has for a very long time not been able to combat the symptoms of diseases she is faced with to her nutritional and anthropometry data, which does not promise a very actively working immune system that can guarantee that the body will on its own have the power to handle some of these symptoms. At age 25, Abood, Black and Birnbaum (2004) note that some of the anthropometry data such as height may not be able to recapture. However, with improvement in her nutritional lifestyle, there are hopes that some other components of her nutritional and anthropometry features can be regained, including her weight (Jacobson, Sobonya and Ransone, 2011). 4.2 Challenges on Received Opinion As seen in the data collected about the factors that affect the respondent’s food choice, it would be noted that there is that general opinion that it is expensive to live and eat healthily. To a lot of people, they have to have a very formidable economic means before they can assure and guarantee themselves of buying the best of food that is rich in all the nutrients they need to survive. Lundell (2013) also laments on the belief that a person needs to depend on expensive medications and food supplements as a way of achieving healthy nutritional lifestyle. These opinions will however bee challenged as not being accurate and helpful. Even though a person would need to have some level of financial or economic power to purchase food, the person must not be necessarily of the high social class to maintain a healthy meal. What is important is proper planning, by which the little amount of money at hand can be adequately distributed to cover all forms of food items with balanced nutrients in their right quantities. Currently, Patient Y has an opinion that with little amount of money, she has to have so much of carbohydrate in her meal so that she can fill her belly well to carry her through her active day. This is however a wrong approach to diet because it is important to have a little of vital nutrients including protein, vitamins, fat, carbohydrate and water in each bowl of meal she takes. Instead of making the emphasis carbohydrate, unless there is so much money to spare, every little amount must be well utilised and spread among various nutrient types. 4.3 Solving the issue of public malnutrition through proper advocacy A key element that showed up in the case and research through primary data collection was the fact that there are low levels of knowledge on the concept of nutrition that can be considered as adequate, proper and healthy. It is not surprising that when several aspects of nutritional education were given to the respondent, she came to admit that she did not have sufficient information on her nutrition. As an intervention to this problem, the use of public advocacy and education on nutritional health is recommended. Such forms of public advocacy and education could be made to start from schools, where nutrition will be introduced into the educational system at an early age and maintained to a very high level of education. It would be noted that even though nutrition is taught as a subject in most schools, these are taught as optional or elective subjects (Kopp and Young, 2003). These subjects are also available only at the higher levels of education. This approach can certainly not be said to be effective. This is because for most people who decide not to choose nutrition as an elective subject, they hardly come to be informed on proper nutrition. The public education and advocacy can also be extended to open air education at the waiting areas of hospitals, market places, in churches, and at other public places of interest. Sponsored television and radio programmes on nutrition must also be taken very seriously. 5.0 Conclusion Based on the findings and discussion, the context of the bigger picture of nutritional status of individuals can be identified. This picture is that there is the need for there to be continuous education on the relevance of nutrition to a person and ways in which individuals can achieve health nutritional status. As outlined by Kunkel, Bell and Luccia, 2001), the level of knowledge of most people on the nutritional components of the food they take in is very minimal. There are also people equate the fact that they are belly-full to being nutritionally satisfied. For all such people, it is important that there will continue to be public education and awareness programmes to bring those to up to speed with best practices in nutritional intake. Until such a time that this objective is achieved through public campaigns in hospitals, public information services, mass media publicity and modification of school syllabus, it can be concluded that the need to give sufficient public education to the citizenry, based on which people like Patient Y could have had ideas about the right nutritional information has been a failure. References Abood D. A, Black D. R and Birnbaum R. D. (2004). “Nutrition education intervention for college female athletes” J Nutrition Education and Behavior. Vol. 36 No. 3: pp. 135-139. Arnheim D. D. and Prentice W. E. (2003). Principles of Athletic Training. Brown & Benchmark: Madison Bernard B. (2010). “The importance of nutrition in sports” Positive Health. Vol. 50 No. 2: pp. 35-38. Hendersen L, Gregory J and Irving K. (2013). The National Diet & Nutrition Survey: adults aged 19 to 64 years, Food Standards Agency and the Departments of Health, Vol. 2 No 1; pp. 9 - 106 Jacobson B. H, Sobonya C, and Ransone J. (2011). “Nutrition practices and knowledge of college varsity athletes: a follow up” J Strength Conditioning Research. Vol. 15 No. 1: pp. 63-68. Kopp S. D and Young J. C (2003). College students’ knowledge of basic nutrition information. Research Quarterly Exercise Sport: Washington, DC. Kunkel M. E, Bell L. B and Luccia B. H. D. (2001). Peer nutrition educations program to improve nutritional knowledge of female collegiate athletes. J Nutritional Education. Vol. 3 No. 2: pp. 114-116. Lundell L. (2013). “Nutritional knowledge, attitudes, and practices and the actual dietary intakes of female college athletes” Int Institute Sport Human Performance. Vol. 2 No. 2: pp. 32-44 Rodriguez N. (2009). “The role of nutrition in injury prevention and healing” Athletic Therapy Today. Vol. 4 No. 6: pp. 27-31. Rosenbloom C, Jonnalagadda S and Skinner R. (2012). “Nutrition knowledge of collegiate athletes in a division national collegiate athletic association institution” J Amer Dietetic Assoc. Vol. 102 No. 3: pp. 418-420. Vinci D. M. (2007). “The training room: developing a sports nutrition game plan” Athletic Therapy Today. Vol. 7 No. 5: pp. 52-53. Zawila L. G., Steib C. S.M. and Hoogenboom B. (2003). “The female collegiate cross-country runner: nutritional knowledge and attitudes” J Athletic Training. Vol. 3 No. 8: pp. 67-74. Read More