Nutrition Basics

M1 Written Assignment: Nutrition Basics

Helpful suggestions for the Nutrition Basics assignment:

• Carefully read Chapters 1-3 in your textbook and the Content Guides so that you will have the information needed to complete this assignment.
• Submit your answers as a Word or RTF attachment).
• Be sure to cite any and all sources correctly so that your academic integrity is not called into question. Hint: Remember to cite your textbook with your responses to this written assignment.

Written Assignment

1. Your text identifies and describes five characteristics of a nutritious diet.  Present that same information in your own words and provide original examples of each characteristic to support your answer.
2. Answer Critical Thinking question #2 in Chapter 2 of the text: “Describe a situation when the intake of a phytochemical supplement or a functional food would be appropriate. Give reasons for using a phyto-chemical supplement or functional food, and also give reasons against its use.”
3. Vitamins and their food sources (including vitamin C and oranges) will be studied in depth in Module 3.  In this first module, we won’t be focusing on the nutrient value of oranges but how scientists might investigate a possible link between eating oranges and lowering one’s risk of developing macular degeneration.  Carefully review information about the scientific method in your text and the M1 Content Guide “Principles of Science”.  Then propose an intervention study that could be used to help determine whether eating oranges can, in fact, lower one’s risk of developing macular degeneration.  Include in your intervention study the steps of the scientific method that are outlined in Figure 1-5 in the text.  (Information in Figure 1-6 and Table 1-7 also may be helpful.)  After you have designed your intervention study, consider (and list) questions that come to mind.  For example, how large an orange?  Only oranges – or orange juice or other citrus fruits?  What follow-up studies do you think might be conducted?   There is no one, single answer that is correct.  Show what you are thinking and how well you understand (and can apply) the scientific method. In this as well as your other assignments, you must use your own words.
4. In your own words, describe the overall process of digestion and absorption beginning in the mouth and continuing through the stomach, small intestine, and large intestine.  What roles are played by the pancreas, liver, and gall bladder?  What hormones, enzymes, other chemical substances and secretions are released within the GI tract?  Identify the location and action of each of those substances.  What are the end products of digestion?  How do those end products reach your body’s cells?

M1 Content Guides

Table of contents

• Why Study Human Nutrition?
• Principles of Science
• Food Choices and Human Health
• Nutrition Tools: Standards and Guidelines

Why Study Human Nutrition?

The most obvious answer is that we all eat! Most people have heard conflicting and confusing reports of new discoveries in nutrition. To find out which health and nutrition reports are worth reading, click on the link below:

Diet in the News – What to Believe?

Review this short guide developed by the NIH when considering health related resources (on the web or any other media source):

Evaluating Web Based Health Resources

Many people have begun to realize that nutrition has an important effect on their health, and they want to make the best decisions they can to protect their health. An RDN is the obvious choice if you are seeking expert nutrition guidance:

10 Reasons to Consult a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist

This course will provide a systematic study of the macro and micronutrients necessary for human health, including their digestion, absorption, metabolism and dietary sources. It should provide you with the knowledge necessary to make more informed food choices. You will not be asked to memorize facts, but to use them. A major emphasis in this course is to encourage you to develop a critical approach to new nutrition information that you will no doubt encounter after the course is over. Therefore, the nature of the scientific process is stressed, and you will learn how to evaluate scientific information.

This study is relevant in almost any degree program as a general learning course. It is designed for students who have studied little or no science at the college level. Prior study in biology, human biology or anatomy and physiology is useful, but not essential. This course provides the basic science concepts necessary to understand the topics covered.

Students whose field of interest is in Community and Human Services may find this study particularly appropriate, since the health of their clients is of concern to them. Students with a background in science or health science may also find this course interesting and challenging, since the teaching approach is probably quite different from that of their previous science study. Study in biology, either before or after this course, will complement this course. Nutrition is a part of biology; you will appreciate its importance even more when you understand the nature of cells, organs and organisms. Chemistry study will also help you to understand the chemical building blocks of the six classes of nutrients and how foods are utilized on a molecular level.

Principles of Science

The Bigger Picture

What is science? Many people feel that science is no more than a collection of facts that need to be memorized, which is the way science is often taught in our schools. That’s too bad; collecting facts is but a minor aspect of what science is about. Why would so many intelligent people spend their lives as scientists if all they were doing was memorizing? Science is exciting, challenging, and rewarding, because it is an attempt to understand the world around us, to make sense of the unexplained. The process of science is crucial, and it can be outlined in a few steps:

• Hypothesis Formation – Framing a possible explanation to account for something.
• Experimentation – Devising a way of testing the hypothesis and carrying out the test.
• Observation – Watching or measuring the process and outcome of the experiment.
• Verification – Repeating the experiment to make sure the observations are valid.
• Conclusion – Evaluating the hypothesis and deciding what was learned.

This process is then repeated. The original hypothesis may need to be modified, or additional questions may have been raised by the results of the hypothesis testing, and additional experiments may need to be designed and carried out. In your text the authors try to give you a sense of how we know what we do know about nutrition. As you read, you should look for explanations of the experimental basis of the authors’ conclusions. Be thoughtful as you reach your own conclusions; ask yourself questions. Is the hypothesis clear? Does the experiment test it well? Were conditions carefully controlled? Are there factors other than those mentioned that may explain the results? Is there evidence that the results were obtained more than once, and by other investigators? Are the conclusions supported by the results of the experiment? Have the conclusions been extended in a logical way? You will want to raise the same kinds of questions when you read or hear nutrition claims in the media (newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and online) as well as from other sources (pamphlets, friends and neighbors, and health care professionals).

As you study this course, you will see that the science of nutrition, as all sciences, is an ongoing process. Many of the authors’ statements are tentative: “Evidence suggests that…”, “Solid evidence is lacking…”, ”Some evidence links…more research is needed …”, “More studies are needed to clarify…”.  For the beginning nutrition student, this may seem confusing. It is! However, this goes to the heart of the scientific process. Incomplete understanding, confusion and seemingly contradictory results lead to new questions and to the search for clarification through research. This is what advances knowledge in nutrition. This same process occurs in all fields of science, such as physics, chemistry, environmental science and medicine. There are many topics still being investigated, and our knowledge changes as more research is completed, reported, and examined by scientists. Often one set of results raises as many new questions as it has just answered. It is important that non-scientists understand this aspect of science. Clearly, science facts are important. But of greater importance is an understanding of how those facts are gathered and put together, and how new information is integrated into earlier knowledge. Your text will continue to stress this.

Food Choices and Human Health

Eating well does not guarantee good health, but it does increase its likelihood. Health is the result of a constellation of forces: nutrition, heredity, environment (air, water, housing), lifestyle factors (stress, exercise, smoking, drug and alcohol use), economics, health care, and education. During this course, you will learn about the six types of nutrients and the concept of essential nutrients. You will learn how to evaluate nutrition research and how to identify responsible and accurate sources of information. This information is crucial and will help you become a critical consumer of information about nutrition and foods.

Almost daily we read or hear news about scientific research studies that seek to discover disease cause and prevention. You may wonder how scientists determine the relationship between diseases and particular nutrients (for example, between hypertension and sodium). Epidemiologists attempt to discover the causes of diseases in individuals and populations. Epidemiologic studies can be either retrospective (looking at relationships between people’s histories and their current diseases) or prospective (observing people’s life patterns and relating them to diseases that develop later). It is a fascinating and challenging science. The scientist is not in control of the variables in the study, and it is easy to infer spurious connections between patients’ histories and patterns of disease.  In fact, one must do statistical analyses in order to demonstrate a relationship between a proposed cause and a specific disease, and it is easy for the layperson (and the scientist) to draw incorrect conclusions about disease causation. Epidemiologists constantly attempt to increase the specificity of their studies, yet they also strive to consider disease causation very broadly, in order not to overlook possible relationships. Many highly significant cause-and-effect relationships that have led to improved health have been discovered by epidemiologists.

An interesting concept is nutrient density. This is a useful and practical tool in making diet choices. Later you will be calculating the nutrient density of foods you eat. Nutrient density is a relatively new way of looking at the contribution that foods make to your diet, and it is becoming more frequently used in grocery displays and in other types of consumer information. With an understanding of the concept of nutrient density, you will find it easier to plan a nutritious diet.

Also keep in mind that our bodies are not all that different from those of our early ancestors, and the pattern of eating that they relied upon is similar to the pattern that we would be wise to follow. This may surprise you, but the fact is that biological evolution generally proceeds very slowly, and although rapid social evolution means that we now live in a very different fashion than our distant ancestors did, our bodies and their needs have not changed much.

Nutrition Tools: Standards and Guidelines

In Chapter 2, you are introduced to some of the concepts that you will study in greater detail later in the course. This chapter is important because it provides a framework for the facts that you will learn, and it shows you how to relate more abstract concepts to the practical decisions you might make daily about what to eat and how to prepare food. You will learn how we define adequate intake of nutrients for an individual and how we have acquired our knowledge of average requirements for healthy people.

You should pay attention to these important concepts presented in the reading: (1) the RDA/DRI, (2) Dietary Guidelines for Americans (3) the USDA Food Patterns and MyPlate tool. You should be able to explain what these are, and you should learn how to use them. A great way to check your knowledge is to complete the Self Check questions for Chapter 2.

In this chapter, you are taught how to gain useful information from package labels. Throughout the text the authors stress the importance of label reading. Pay close attention so that you can apply your new knowledge every time you use canned or packaged foods with labels. The authors lead you to consider health messages on labels. You will notice that clear and precise definitions are important in analyzing claims about nutrition.  This will be stressed as you continue reading. You will learn more about making nutrition choices as you progress through the text.

In Chapter 1, you were introduced to the term phytochemicals, which are among the “non-nutrients” in foods. Although not considered to be nutritional requirements, some phytochemicals have been shown to have health benefits. As Controversy 2 illustrates, a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains is a reliable way to reap the benefits of phytochemicals.