Nutrition

Part 3

Importance of Nutrition and Dietetics in Nursing

The word nursing  from the same root word 'nutritious' means to nourish , to cherish, to protect , to supply . It also means to train , to educate and to supply with the essentials growth. We can define nursing as comprehensive as possible that nursing is process of recognising , understanding , interpreting  and meeting the health needs of any person or society.

Nurses constitute an important component of health care system and they are supposed to provide comprehensive services to community. When we say nursing each meeting the health needs of the people , we must know the health and factors affecting it . Today's nutrition is considered as one of the important factor affecting the human health and malnutrition is one of the leading causes of mortality and morbidity in India. Diet is as important as medicine in the treatment of diseases .

We can say that the diet therapy is very important part of treatment.  Nurses should give more attention to the nutrition of patients, otherwise the prognosis of disease will be poor. In   metabolic disorders, diet plays an important role and to some extent we can control such type of diseases with therapeutic diets without medicines. So it has become very important for nurses and other health personnel to study the subject of nutrition during their education so that they can apply the principles  of nutrition and use their technical skills while working in hospital and community.

Objective of Learning Nutrients in Nursing

After completion of the study of Nutrition student nurses will be able to___

- Apply the principles of nutrition and dietetics in health and sickness.

- Make the nutrition as an integral part of their daily nursing practices.

- Recognise the values of nutrition in maintaining personal and patients health.

- Educate the patient and his family about normal and therapeutic diets.

- Plan and prepare the normal and therapeutic diets for different types of patients.

Function of nutrients in nursing

1. Promotion of health

2. Specific protection

3. Prevention of nutritional deficiency diseases

4. Early detection and treatment of deficiency diseases

5. Modification of diets

6. Preparation of therapeutic diets

7. Health education and counseling

1. Promotion of Health

Health promotion is the process of enabling the people to increase control over and improve health. Nutrition is an important factor affecting our health. So nursing efforts should be directed towards pregnant and lactating mothers. These efforts will include nutrition, education, distribution of supplements ,extra protein, calcium , iron and folic acid these can contribute to promotion of health by the following ways :----

* Promotion of breastfeeding

* Development of low cost weaning

* Measures to improve family diet

* Encouragement for kitchen gardens and Home economies

* Guide about cheap and best sources of nutrition , method of cooking and preservation and feeding practices of the people.

2. Specific Protection

While guiding the parents , nurses should make sure that child's diet must contain bodybuilding and protective foods in required amount milk, cheese, eggs and flesh fruits if possible.

    Nurses can guide them about the methods of food fortification to supplement the nutrients. Proper immunization along with vitamin A a prophylaxis can prevent vitamin A deficiency diseases and provide immunity.

3.  Prevention of Nutritional Deficiency Diseases

Number of nutritional diseases can be prevented in the community by nursing efforts. Premature deliveries , low birth weight , abortion and congenital malformations and stillbirths can be prevented by improving the diet of pregnant women. There number of National Nutritional Programs but people are not aware of these programs . Nurses and other community workers can provide proper awareness about these supplemental programs. This can help to reduce the prevalence of protein energy  malnutrition,  anemia , thyroid , disorders , rickets, osteomalacia and xerophthalmia, etc.

4. Early Diagnosis and Treatment

Because the nurses are direct care provider in the hospitals , health centres and in the families, they can detect the malnourished people   in the families as well as in the baby clinics, antenatal and postnatal clinics.  School health nurses have good opportunity to detect  undernourished children.  There are a number of anthropometric  measurements such as weight, height ,arm circumference, head circumference etc. Which   can be used to assess nutritional status of the children "Road to health" cards can be used for the purpose . Other methods are periodical surveillance, early diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases , oral rehydration of children suffering from diarrhea, deworming  the infested people , developed of   supplementary feeding programs during endemic.  After diagnosis , nurse can play a vital role in the treatment of such cases . These can guide them to prepare therapeutic diets and the different ways of diet modification as required by the sufferings.

5. Modification of Diets

The normal hospital diet which provides a patient with the energy and nutrients is intended for the patient   whose condition does not required a therapeutic diet . This regular diet may be modified with regard to selection, methods of preparation and consistency for patient who cannot tolerate a regular diet but do not require a therapeutic diet .  These modification are liquid diet , soft diet and semi solid diet. Nurses should know different types of modification of diet in the hospital because they are responsible to prepare and administer the nutritional need according to  types of disease, age ,income,  region, customs and food habits of individual  patients.

6. Preparation of Therapeutic Diets for Patients

For everyone, eating food is an enjoyment. When the person is sick the food intake becomes a problem.  The nurses responsibilities in regard to nutrition can be analysed into these areas.

Assisting the patient with his special problems in preparing and acceptance therapeutic diets salt free diet and bland diet

a) Assisting the patients with special problems in preparing and accepting therapeutic diet , i.e. salt free diet and bland diet . 

b)  Assisting the patients; to obtain nurishment either through  feeding ( tube feeding) or assisting helpless patient in eating.

c) For motivating the patient to eat in therapeutic environment, nurses must know the principle of meal therapy, different types of therapeutic diets for the patients with different disease because diet therapy is a part of treatment in these days.

7. Health Education and Counselling

Health education serve as an important tool for prevention of malnutrition . The aim of education is to get people to choose optimum and balance diets, to remove prejudices  and promote good dietary habits . Some common nutritional problem can be minimized by nutrition education and counseling in case of delayed  weaning, ignorance about breastfeeding  and our traditional misconcept about certain foods. In the recent years , the link between dietary habits and certain chronic diseases  has been recognised i.e. obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases . So nutritional education is a measured intervention in the hand of nurses for prevention of such diseases.