Katie Ask FScN 3612 November 16th, 2012

Nutrition Makeover For my nutrition makeover project I decided to look at the older adult female population. I talked to Sue Ask, my mom, a female in her mid-fifties struggling with obesity. Sue is definitely in the majority with the nutrition issues she is struggling with. According to the Center for Disease control, 25.7% of adult Minnesotans are currently obese. By completing this project, I found that obesity is a multi-dimensional issue encompassing self-esteem, individual body image, nutrition, and physical fitness. For this makeover, I interviewed Sue to assess her current nutrition status and situation, educated her on a diet focusing on complete adult nutrition, helped her set measurable and obtainable goals given her situation, and did some reflecting on how I felt the intervention went. Before any habits can be changed and action can be taken, or any goals can be set, a detailed background of the client must be obtained. In order to obtain this information, I conducted an interview with my mom. It was very beneficial to do a client interview for two reasons. First, it taught me a lot about interviewing within the nutrition profession, and second, it allowed me to develop a sense of understanding for what stage of change my mom is currently in. The book Communication and Education Skills for Dietetic Professionals Fifth Edition outlines the five different stages of change. These stages are as follows: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. My mom fell somewhere between preparation and action, which means she was looking to find out more information about how to set goals and make changes to her lifestyle and about being ready to take action

and put the information and goals to work. This stage is one of the best places for nutrition professionals to step in, because the client is ready and willing to change. By interviewing my mom, I learned a lot about how her food and fitness choices have been impacting her life. She is currently a fifty five year old female who is five feet and three inches tall and weighs 167 pounds. With these measurements, by looking online at the Center for Disease Control web page, she falls just on the low end of being obese or on the high end of being overweight. Her current goal is to lose forty pounds over time. She has no specific fitness goals but does desire to get out and do something active such as walking around a small lake or being able to take the steps while she is at work. When surveying my moms diet, I noticed that it was much like the diet of many Americans today. Many of her calories were coming from grains and cheese and chicken. She had very few fruits and vegetables in her diet and also tended to be missing good high quality protein sources. She also had a very low intake of water. An article by the USDA, profiling the food consumption in America, stated that Americans today consume 24.5% or 530 calories more per day than they did in 1970. This large increase can be attributed to the large amount of available processed, calorie-dense foods. My moms diet is much of the same; rarely does she meet the dietary needs of someone of her age and gender. I also looked at her physical fitness level, and she stated that she exercised less than once a week. This again is not abnormal in this country. According to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services and their physical activity guidelines, 80% of adult Americans do not reach the guidelines of aerobic and musclestrengthening activities each week.

This is where the intervention takes place. From the background information, I determined that my mom was an obese individual with a low nutrient and high calorie diet who also has extremely low activity levels. The first thing I did was show my mom how to navigate the USDA my plate website. This started to give her a good idea of what a balanced diet looks like by incorporating more fresh foods and less processed foods. Although it was beneficial for her to hear how to change her diet, there was still a lot of work to be done for this to seem realistic for her to accomplish in her day-to-day life. After doing a brief introduction on nutrition, my next objective was to help my mom set goals for her weight loss. It is very important to set specific, measurable goals with a timeframe. My mom and I talked a lot about different ways to increase her nutrient intake. She said that she did like many fruits and vegetables but was unsure of which ones to buy in which season and how to prepare them. One of my goals for her was to buy and try one new fruit or vegetable per week. I also wanted to increase her dairy intake, so I set a goal for her to try to consume a glass of milk at least once per day. As far as exercise goes, my mom works on the fifth floor of her building, and one of the goals we set was for her to start by taking the stairs to the second floor and then taking the elevator the rest of the way up, gradually increasing the amount of stairs until she can walk all the way up to her office. Another fitness goal we had for her was to stand up and walk around the house during commercials while she is watching TV. As these goals are met, follow-up will be done in order to construct new goals until my moms weight loss goal of 40lbs has been met. Overall, I feel that this intervention has a lot of potential to be successful but will take a lot of time and dedication. Changing food habits that you have had since a young age becomes harder the older you get. After this intervention, I do feel that my mom does have the correct

tools and resources needed for this to work for her. I think it will be extremely important for her to take small steps and acknowledge all of the small triumphs long the way. Another thing that I stressed with her was that this is a lifestyle change and not a diet; learning to eat clean and healthy food is something that will affect her every day for the rest of her life.

References

1. chapter2.pdf. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.pdf 2. ChooseMyPlate.gov. (n.d.). Retrieved November 16, 2012, from http://www.choosemyplate.gov/index.html 3. Holli. (n.d.). Communication & Education Skills For Dietetics Professionals (5th ed.). 4. Obesity and Overweight for Professionals: Data and Statistics: Adult Obesity - DNPAO - CDC. (n.d.). Retrieved November 16, 2012, from http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html 5. Physical Activity Guidelines. (n.d.). Retrieved November 16, 2012, from http://www.health.gov/PAGuidelines/ 6. Strategies for Success | Nutrition.gov. (n.d.). Retrieved November 16, 2012, from http://www.nutrition.gov/weight-management/strategies-success