Question

On what criteria the niutritional processes differ

Answer 1

Answer:

Introduction

In this session you will learn about the nutritional needs at different stages of the lifecycle. The nutrient requirements during the four main stages of the human lifecycle vary considerably. What infants and children require is different from what adults and the elderly need. In addition, there might be specific nutrients which a pregnant women and lactating mothers need in higher amounts than adult men. Therefore, as a Health Extension Practitioner, this study session will help you to give the appropriate messages to different population groups.

Explanation:

3.1  Why it is important to know nutritional requirements

You need to know nutritional requirements of an individual or group for two major reasons:

Prescriptive reasons: that is, to provide or dispense food supplies; for example:

to procure food for national consumption

to secure food for institutional consumption

to run nutritional supplementation programmes.

Diagnostic reasons: mainly to identify whether a group or an individual is suffering from malnutrition of any kind; for example:

to evaluate nutritional intervention programmes

to determine whether the food available in the stock is adequate to feed the household or nation for a certain duration of time.

In order to estimate nutritional requirements of individuals or groups, we need to consider the following factors:

Physical activity — whether a person is engaged in heavy physical activity

The age and sex of the individual or group

Body size and composition — what the general build is of a person or group

Climate — whether a person or group is living in hot or cold climate

Physiological states, such as pregnancy and lactation.

Based on these factors, nutritional requirements in the different segments of the population can be classified into four groups. These correspond to different parts of the lifespan, namely (a) pregnancy and lactation, (b) infancy and childhood (c) adolescence and adulthood, and (d) old age. You are now going to look at each of these in turn.