Human Nutrition

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The objectives of the study are to:

1. To identify factors that contributes to under nutrition of children below five years of age.

2. To examine whether children that attend clinic for nutritional rehabilitation are actually benefitting from it.

3 .To identify reasons why those children that are not benefitting from the clinic are not doing so.

3. To examine whether the locally available food items that are being used in the clinic are beneficial to the children.

SECTION TWO

AN OVERVIEW OF HUMAN NUTRITION

Nutrition is the study of nutrients and other substances in foods and the way the body handles them. Nutrition plays an important role in human life. It continually affects human health in many ways depending on the types of foods we eat.

Humans make food choices every day. In fact food choices are being made several times a day and the choice affects one’s health either positively or negatively. If it affects health negatively, it does so little at a time. If the harmful choices persist over weeks, years and decades, the consequences become a major one and vice vasa. Many people do not know that the choices they make or their food habits can affect their health negatively. There are many others that know this fact but will prefer to choose food that can be

The nurse has a key role to play in the assessment. The following parameters can be measured when doing the monitoring; the weight, height, chest and head circumference, upper arm and maximum thigh circumference, skin fold thickness. All these parameters are also called anthropometry. It has to be compared with established norms. Other methods that can be used to assess nutritional status of a child is by observation, feeding history and biochemical tests such as taking blood samples, urine, hair and nails to determine the vitamin, protein and mineral