The main food groups are-Carbohydrates-These are the main energy source for the brain. Without these, the body wouldn’t be able to function properly. Foods that you will find within this group are- potatoes, pasta, fruit, bread, whole grains, vegetables and sugars. You need whole grains and fruit because they are full of fiber and they reduce the risk of heart disease and helps maintain normal blood glucose levels.Proteins- These are the major part of cells and are responsible for the building and repairing of the cells within your body. Protein is broken down into amino acids. 35% of your diet should come from protein-based foods. Protein based foods are meat, fish and eggs, nuts, seafood etc.Fat-You need to consume fat to gain energy. When Fat is consumed, it increases the absorption of fat soluble including vitamins A, D, E and K. 20%-35% should be your daily intake of Fat.
You should limit your intake of high in fat foods such as, high in fat meats and full fat dairy. For example- oils, butter, margarine, nuts, seeds, avocados, olives, meats and seafood.Vitamin C- You need Vitamin C to help with the structure to blood vessels, bone and ligaments. Rich sources include, citrus fruits, strawberries and peppers. Sodium-Sodium helps to maintain fluid volume outside of cells and helps cells function normally. You should keep your sodium intake under 2,400 milligrams per day. Potassium maintains fluid volumes inside and outside of the cells. Rich sources include bananas, potatoes and tomatoes.Water-Water helps maintain homeostasis in the body and transports nutrients to cells. Water also assists in removing waste from the body. Adults should drink about 2-3 litres of water a day. Explain the role of essential nutrients for health (5416 1.3)
The role of essential nutrients-
• Tissue growth and repair.
• Immunity against infection.
• Production of energy.
• Muscle strength.
An essential nutrient is a nutrient that the body cannot synthesize on its own or not to an adequate amount and must be provided by the diet. These nutrients are necessary for the body to function properly. The essential nutrients include carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, minerals and water.Evaluate the impact of poor diet on health and wellbeing (5416 1.4)Poor diet and nutrition can have an impact on our daily health and wellbeing and reduce our ability to lead an enjoyable and active life. You need to ensure that you are consuming all the food groups to ensure you keep your body healthy. In the short term, a poor diet can lead to stress, tiredness and our capacity to work. It can also contribute to the risk of developing an illness. Other health problems are being overweight or obese. Tooth Decay. High blood pressure. High cholesterol. Heart disease and/or stroke. Diabetes. Depression. Eating disorders and some cancers. Explain what adaptions to a balanced diet may be required for different groups (5416 1.5)
Different groups could mean whether someone is religious, or from a different culture or they have allergies or intolerances. Other examples may be whether someone decides to be vegan or a vegetarian. Someone may be diabetic which means they need to balance their sugar intake.
Balanced diet will be different for everyone depending on your age or any of the factors mentioned earlier. Within the service that I work at for example, we have an individual who only eats Halal meat so whenever he is staying at the service, we ensure that we order in halal meat to ensure that we are respecting the family and individuals wishes. This individual is also able to eat plain pasta or chicken so these alternative options are always available for him also. Summarise current national nutritional guidelines for a balanced diet (5416 2.1)UNSURE ????Explain how to access additional support and information relating to nutrition and hydration (5416 2.2)
Additional support and information relating to nutrition and hydration can be access from the individual themselves, from family and friends or even their carers. You can also get information from colleagues, nurses, doctors, GP, dietitian if they have one, speech and language therapist, etc. Within the service, we have many individuals that have SALT guidelines to follow in regards to nutrition. We have individuals that have thickener in their drink to ensure that they do not choke on their drink. Explain the importance of a balanced diet to an individual (5416 3.1)It’s important to ensure that individuals have a balanced diet and good nutrition because it ensures that your body will function properly. It will support you in keeping a healthy weight and will lower the chances of any illness. Keeping a good nutrition and diet will ensure that you’re body gets enough energy to participate in day to day activities.
Ensuring you eat well throughout the day and exercise well will also help you sleep better which will give you a better quality of life. Plan an appropriate balanced diet with an individual (5416 3.2)Appropriate diet- Although I haven’t sat down and created this meal plan with an individual, as a weekly job within the service we are required to include a menu plan which needs to include two options every day for individuals to choose between. We also ensure that we respect any wishes of the individual for example, we have an individual who is religious and only eats Halal Meat so whenever this individual is staying at the service, we ensure that Halal meat is ordered in to ensure theirs and family wishes are respected. We also ensure that we have a vegetarian option at LEAST once a week, this is to ensure that individuals that don’t have the voice to say they don’t want meat, have the option to choose a vegetarian option. example-Toast, Cereal or Fruit for breakfastOmelette or Jacket Potato with choice of filling for lunch
Vegetarian Pasta or Chicken, Potatoes and Vegetables.
This is just an example of what a menu plan might look like on one of the days within the week.
Evaluate the effectiveness of different ways of promoting healthy eating (5416 3.4)
The different ways or promoting healthy eating is through public health, public policy interventions. Staff within the service choose to eat healthier options to be good role models to the individuals. Staff encourage individuals to choose the healthier options by explaining why it’s better. Staff choose tasty and colourful options so individuals don’t necessarily think they are eating healthy options, which helps with their choosing. Families can have a huge influence on helping individuals eat healthy.
If families all eat healthy options every day, then the individual won’t think twice about choosing a healthy option as it will become the norm for them. GP can help promote healthy eating through conversations and explaining why it’s important to the individual and families. Posters, leaflets and pictures can promote healthy eating to individuals by showing them that even though a meal is healthy, it doesn’t mean it is going to be boring. Showing individuals side effects of why something could be bad for them will give them a better understanding. Explain the importance of hydration to an individual (5416 4.1)It’s important to ensure that an individual drinks enough throughout the day to keep them hydrated because water regulates your body temperature and lubricates your joints. It helps give your body the nutrients that it needs to function properly to keep you healthy.
If you don’t drink enough to keep yourself hydrated, your body won’t be able to function at the correct level that it needs to. Not drinking enough can make you feel dehydrated, you can experience fatigue, muscle cramps, dizziness and quite possibly more serious symptoms. Describe signs of dehydration to an individual (5416 4.2)Dehydration be vary depending on how dehydrated you are. For example, some symptoms are not as severe as others. Signs of dehydration could be the colour of your urine and how thirsty you feel. You will become very tired and will lack in energy to be able to participate in day to day activities. You may also experience dizziness and muscle cramps. Your body will try and increase the water intake and decrease water loss if you are becoming dehydrated.
Evaluate ways of supporting and promoting hydration (5416 4.4)
Carers and families have a vital role in supporting older, more dependent and individuals to maintain healthy hydration levels. They can do this by ensuring individuals are offered plenty of drinks throughout the day or even just ensuring that they are available at hands reach for individuals so they don’t have to ask or wait to be asked. Carers to ensure that drinks are available throughout the day and throughout the night.We have some individuals within the service who need a lot of encouragement to drink and they have their own bottle which is filled with a drink of their choice and their goal is to get through one or two of those bottles a day depending on the individual. These individuals will not choose to take a drink and staff need to encourage the individual to have a drink even if it’s a sip every 20/30 minutes. We have an individual who has a fluid chart and needs to drink so much fluid every day and this individual is encouraged as much as possible throughout the day and the drink is available for him to reach whenever he is ready.We have an individual who used to find it difficult to drink throughout the day but has now recently been given thickener. This individual finds it much easier to drink throughout the day and happily asks for a drink.
Carers within the service are aware of how much this helped the individual, so staff look for these signs with other individuals and report it to Team Leader/Manager whenever needed to try and support this individual. We have another individual that drinks plenty throughout the day and can easily let you know when he needs more to drink, for example, will pick up a bottle and throw it in your direction to let you know he is thirsty. Staff will offer drinks to this individual throughout the day but otherwise will leave the bottle available in sight or the individual to let you know himself when he is ready.
Explain the factors that may affect nutritional intake (5416 5.1)
The factors that may affect the nutritional intake are-Financial Status- some individuals may not be able to afford to get themselves the correct nutrition needed throughout the day. Some individuals may need to cut down on the food that they can buy, especially if they need the money for medication or household utilities.
Appetite- Some individuals don’t like a lot of food or generally don’t have a lot of appetite towards food and may prefer to just snack throughout the day. Dental Health- If an individual is suffering with dental problems, for example lack of teeth or poor fitted dentures, this will make it difficult for individuals to eat or chew.Ability to swallow- An individual’s ability to swallow is an important part of nutrition. Difficult swallowing can result from a stroke or other conditions, this can lead to individuals not getting the nutritional intake that they need. Individuals in this case, will need a feeding tube. Eating alone- Some individuals feel isolated and this is a factor because individuals feel more happy about eating with other individuals than alone. However, we have an individual in the service who prefers to eat alone than with others around him.
Mental and Psychological Health- If an individual is suffering with depression, this can cause weight loss and loss of appetite. Stress and Anxiety can also be a factor.
Disease- Individuals, especially older individuals may be suffering with a disease such as parkinsons disease, stroke, cancer, an overactive thyroid or respiratory infections. These could effect their nutrition as they may not want to eat for different reasons. Medications- Medications can affect nutrition by causing side effects such as loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting. Other symptoms could be, dry mouth, diarrhoea or alterations in taste and smell.Taste and Smell- The ability to taste and smell foods are an important part of appetite and nutrition. Reduced ability to taste may also result from a decreased number of taste buds. Explain the risk factors that may lead to malnutrition (5416 5.2)Factors that may lead to malnutrition are whether an individual is unwell and suffering with a disease such as cancer and could be on different medications. Factors listed in the previous question can lead to malnutrition. Other individuals that have a limited knowledge about nutrition usually follow unhealthy options that don’t have enough nutrients in their food, not enough vitamins, so are therefore, at risk of malnutrition.
Describe the signs of malnutrition (5416 5.3)
• Signs of malnutrition are-
• Weight loss
• Being tired and lack of energy
• Being less able to participate in regular daily tasks
• Changes in mood, for example being more snappy or stressed or depressed.
• Loss of appetite- not being interested in food or drink
• Poor concentration- not focusing as they usually do, may need more time to understand what is being asked of them and taking longer to respond.
Explain fortification of foods and drinks (5416 5.4)
The original purpose of food fortification was to decrease the occurrence of nutrient deficiencies. Adding different nutrients to foods, for example milk is often fortified with Vitamin D and Calcium may be added to Fruit Juice. Many refined grains are enriched for example wheat flour, may have iron and folic acid added back in after processing, this is intended to restore the original vitamin levels.