321 W12 Nutritional Assessment

Nutritional assessment

Nutritional assessment is a way of interpreting and collecting information before making a decision about the nutritional status of a person for knowing health issues a person may suffers with. For the current analysis (nutritional assessment) I would make a report on my younger brother as many changes are being noticed in his health and diet. Key observations are given below:

Nutritional status of the person

Nutritional status of a person includes both external factors (food safety, social and cultural factors). On the other hand, internal factors include physical activity, sex, age and nutrition etc.) My younger brother is sixteen years old and is facing few of the nutritional issues. Being in the growing phase of life his nutritional needs are totally against what he used to eat. He is facing issue of nutritional deficiency. Since last year, he suddenly started getting fat, even he tried losing weight, despite exercise and dieting, he failed to lose weight. Then sudden an unplanned drop of weight was observed. He is underweight now. His height also stopped at a point. He is not growing as his other age fellows are growing. It has been observed that most essential nutritional components are missing in his diet as most of the time, he takes junk food that lacks key nutritional components that are important for proper growth. High amount of calories and sugar intake gives us an indication that he may be suffering from diabetes as suddenly he comes in the list of underweight adults. For the last couple of months, fatigue has been observed.

Nutritional components (undervalued or over-valued)

There are numbers of nutritional components that are missing in his nutrition. Most common nutritional deficiencies that have been observed in my younger brother are of calcium, fiber, iron, victim E and magnesium. As already mentioned being a youngster one of the most fascinating thing for him is the junk food. As there are various under-valued components mentioned above, likewise there are some nutritional components that are over-valued as well. Over-valued nutritional components are salt, sugar, calories and fat etc. (Aparicio-Ugarriza,et,al,2019, p. 1-17).

Medical conditions

Though he is living a normal life but since early childhood he was suffering with some eating disorders i.e. bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa and binge eating disorder. Since last year, he started gaining some extra weight and tried some inappropriate ways of losing weight. In last four months he is facing a problem of unplanned weight loss that has now become a problem for him.

Sensory alterations

Sensory alterations are the changes noticed in a person’s reception and perception of a thing. No major sensory alterations has been witnessed (loss of hearing or losing sense of smell) but a minor change has been reported. For the last four months, he is making a complaint about the blurring of his eye-sight.

Diagnosis

There are various diagnostic tests that could be used for knowing the nutritional health of my younger brother. Following are the diagnostic tests that would provide us more information about his health status:

First his height and weight must be calculated for measuring his body mass index (BMI). Calculate the final score.

Secondly amount of unplanned weight loss must be calculated, calculate the score.

Any of his mental and physical health condition should be identified. Calculate the score.

Calculate the scores of all the above three calculations for having a final score.

Blood and sugar tests should be done.

All of the above mentioned diagnosis would give us some additional information about the nutritional status and health conditions of my youngster brother.

References

Aparicio-Ugarriza, R., Cuenca-García, M., Gonzalez-Gross, M., Julián, C., Bel-Serrat, S., Moreno, L. A., ... & Mouratidou, T. (2019). Relative validation of the adapted Mediterranean Diet Score for Adolescents by comparison with nutritional biomarkers and nutrient and food intakes: the Healthy Lifestyle in Europe by Nutrition in Adolescence (HELENA) study. Public health nutrition, 1-17.