Nutritional Recommendation: Patient’s Current Dietary Habits

Nutritional Recommendation
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Subject and Section
Professor’s NameDate of Submission
Overview
Patient’s Current Dietary Habits
Strengths
The patient has reasonable control over food consumption. During the past week, N.K. was able to reduce her caloric intake by consuming smaller meals. She reduced her take-out meals from 7-10 during the past two weeks to 5-6 meals daily during the past week. She saves half of the take-out meal to eat the rest at a different time of the day. Her alcohol intake was also limited to 2 drinks per week.
Areas of Improvement
Due to the lack of time to buy healthy food, N.K. continued buying take-out food high in preservatives (i.e., Chinese, Mexican, Mediterranean) in the past week.
Aspects of the Diet that are Concerning for Health
Chinese food, depending on the number of servings, is generally below the recommended lower limit of total fat intake, which is twenty percent of the daily calories. Mediterranean diet is generally rich in fruits, vegetables, nuts, olive oils, seeds, legumes, and beans. This is an extremely selective diet that almost totally excludes whole grains. The sources of protein in this diet are seafood. Moreover, it limits the overall meat consumption (Katz & Meller, 2014). Mexican diet may be traditional or a combination of Native Meso-American and Hispanic food. These are typically corn-based with added onions, garlic, herbs, chilies, squash, beans, citrus fruits, meat, rice, and lard. Santiago-Torres et al. (2016) revealed the traditional Mexican diet enhanced insulin sensitivity by fifteen percent, decreased the serum IGF-1 by four percent, and decreased the serum IGFBP-3 by 6% (Santiago-Torres et al., 2016).
The drastic reduction of the amount of food eaten by N.K. is also a significant concern because it may become unsustainable, and it may lead to crash diets and binge-eating habits (Perignon et al., 2017).
The Patient’s Daily Life and Environment that Contribute to the Dietary Patterns
The major contributing factor in N.K.’s overall well-being is the stress incurred from her work as a teacher. This leads to overtime, resulting in a lack of time to care for oneself, including in one’s health and recreation.
Nutrition Recommendations
Patient’s Background
The patient is a teacher who works 40 hours a week. She lives alone in an apartment in the same city where she works.
Personal Needs and Concerns
The patient needs adjustments for her health that will not meddle with her daily, hectic schedule. She also has a history of type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol in the family, anemia, and a current complaint of difficulty in falling or staying asleep.
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