The nutritional requirements across the lifespan – from pregnancy to childhood, and from adolescence to adulthood

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If you are still reading, pat yourself on the back because you have made it through six of my blog posts on nutrition.  They may or may not have helped you but I do hope you can say that you at least learned one new thing that you didn’t know before.

Last time I challenged myself and you to only eat fast food once for the whole week.  How did you do?  I did not pass but I will say that both times I went to Wendy’s, I ate a salad which is good for me considering what I usually go for when I head to Wendy’s.  Not eating at the fast food restaurants is going to be a challenge that I will have to continue to work on.

For this blog post I wanted to share one of my last homework assignments from my nutrition class that discusses the nutritional requirements across the lifespan beginning with pregnancy.

 

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When women are expecting, the nutrition choices that they make on a daily basis not only affect their own health but also the health of the developing baby.  When women do not eat enough healthy food and do not gain enough weight during their pregnancy, they are more likely to have a baby with a low birth weight (Sizer & Whitney, 2013, pg. 511).  A baby’s birth weight is the most potent single indicator of an infant’s health (Sizer & Whitney, 2013, pg. 512).  During pregnancy, a woman requires an additional 340 daily calories in her second trimester and an extra 450 each day during the third (Sizer & Whitney, 2013, pg. 515).  In addition, women are also encouraged to increase their intake of folate from 400 to 600 micrograms a day, as well as getting more B12, vitamin D, Iron and Zinc (Sizer & Whitney, 2013, pg. 518).

In the infancy stage, water is one of the most important nutrients to keep an infant healthy (Sizer & Whitney, 2013, pg. 533).

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  Other nutrients that infants need more of than adults are Vitamin A, Vitamin D, Vitamin E, Vitamin C and Iodine (Sizer & Whitney, 2013, pg. 534). 
In childhood, I found it interesting that it is suggested for children ages 1-6 to eat 800 calories a day, kids 6 to 10 need about 1,600 calories a day and then by the age of 10 they need 1,800 calories a day (Sizer & Whitney, 2013, pg. 555).  For anyone with children, you know that there are days where your child hardly eats anything and then there are others where they are like the hungry, hungry hippo.  My child definitely fluctuates between those two extremes.

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In adolescence, bones and organs are still developing and need more vitamins and nutrients that both children and adults.  In adolescence it is recommended that the adolescent had an increased intake of iron, calcium and vitamin d (Sizer & Whitney, 2013, pg. 572).

Once your reach adulthood, you start to realize how important it is to eat a healthy diet because that diet is directly affecting your life span.  You no longer need excessive amounts of the same vitamins you did when you were younger and now you need more of certain nutrients that you didn’t need before like fiber.

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If we start eating healthy and living a healthy lifestyle from the beginning stages of life to the end, we will have developed these healthy eating styles and they will continue to stick with us throughout our lives.  Just think, it is harder to break the habit of a learned behavior therefore if we start eating right from the beginning breaking that habit will be harder as we age.

The consequences of not eating healthy are numerous.  Not eating healthy can cause stress, fatigue, depression, being overweight or obese, tooth decay, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, some cancers, and eating disorders (SA Health, 2015).

Nutrition plays a huge part in how we grow and develop and I know that over the course of my class, I learned a lot that I did not know.  I have also taken what I learned and utilized it in my own diet which I will tell you more about in my next blog.


SA Health. (2015). The risks of poor nutrition.  Retrieved from http://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/public+content/sa+health+internet/healthy+living/is+your+health+at+risk
       /the+risks+of+poor+nutrition
Sizer, F. & Whitney, E. (2013).  Nutrition: Concepts and Controversies (13th ed.).  Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.