Calories and Nutrition

Calories and Nutrition The following assignment is due Tuesday, November 12, 2019 at 4pm uploaded as a PDF to Blackboard. The best manner to create the document is make the graphs in Excel, copy/paste the graphs into a Word document containing the text responses, and export/save as a PDF. Please type your responses as instructed. You may discuss your answers with other students but must submit your own assignment. Any evidence of plagiarism will result in grade of zero for those involved. To aid in completing this assignment, 2 example questions with the correct responses are provided. Introduction

The increasing costs of healthcare have focused scientists and our attention to diseases such type II diabetes and heart disease. It has been shown that both these diseases are related to obesity and may be prevented and controlled with proper nutrition. As the photographs above of the diet of a typical American family and a Peruvian family show, there is a big difference in how people eat, but we don’t tend to make careful evaluations of what we put into our bodies. There is a lot of information on nutrition, diet and calories on newspapers, blogs, television though we live in a world of so many food choices at the grocery store and restaurants that this can just be overwhelming. Is the information we get on food and drinks and on menu items at restaurants helpful? Here we will look at the importance of nutrition, the guidelines set by the FDA and AMA and examine our personal diet and nutrition.

Calories are another way to measure the amount of energy we need and the amount of energy we get from food. Good nutrition is recognized as a balance between the amount of energy we take in from our food and the amount of energy we use in our daily activities. If we take in more calories than we use, the excess may be stored as fat.

 

 

Go to the Dietary Guideline for Americans 2010 document. Read the section on page 13 about calorie balance and the importance of consuming foods daily that provide this balance. Example question 1: Based upon the information provided on page 13, discuss (and provide examples) of why some of the top calorie sources in our diet are not good for our health. Example question 1 response: Many of the top calorie sources provide calories with few essential nutrients and contain high sources of solid fats and added sugars, such as with grain-based desserts and fried chicken dishes. Example question 2: Using the information in Table 2-2, graph the percentage of calories individuals aged 2-18 and individuals 19 and older consume from Grain-based desserts, pizza, and candy. Example question 2 response:

1) The website’s Table 2-3 lists the estimated calorie needs per day by age, gender, and physical activity level. Use this data to answer the following questions: a. Based on the data presented in Table 2-3 on page 14, discuss in 2-3 sentences why it is complicated to balance calories (2 pts) b. Describe in 2-3 sentences your personal calorie needs per day based on your age and activity level. (5pts) c. Explain in 2-3 sentences why the calorie needs are different for a person’s activity level. (5pts)

0

2

4

6

8

Grain-based desserts

Pizza Candy

Pe rc en t o f t ot al

da ily c al or ie s

Food consumed

Percentage of total daily calories consumed for different age

groups

Ages 2-18

Ages 19+

 

 

2) Use the data in Table 2-3 to graph in Excel the changes in your calorie requirement at present age and as a child of 4-8 years when you are sedentary, moderately active and active. Be sure to provide a descriptive chart title and appropriate data labels to make your chart informative. (5pts) 3) Go to the Key Findings on the ‘Trends in Intake of Energy and Macronutrients in Adults’ document which was taken from the CDC website to see diet breakdown of average American adult in 2007-2008: Calculate the number of calories from carbohydrate, protein and fat for the average adult male and female. Show this data in a table and in two pie charts. (5 pts) 4) Use the information in the Table below to answer the following questions Calories in

food Fat Carbohydrates Protein

Big Mac 530 calories 27 grams 47 grams 24 grams Mac & Cheese 260 calories 3.5 grams 47 grams 10 grams Chicken Breast 170 3 grams 0 grams 32 grams Given 4 calories/gram of carbohydrate, 4 calories/gram of protein and 9 calories/gram of fat, calculate the percentage of calories from carbohydrates, protein, fat and other for each food item. Show the percentage of calories from fat, carbohydrates, and protein in a single bar graph (with all three food types) and in 3 pie charts (one for each type of food). (5pts)

5) Using the calories/gram values provided in question 4 and your answer in question 3, convert the typical male and female ‘calories from fat’ into grams. Assuming this value holds steady for a 75 year lifetime, calculate total fat consumption for an American male and female during their lives. Convert this into tons. (5pts) 6) We have heard about the importance of vitamins but recent studies have shown too much of a good thing can be harmful. Read the following articles in the New York Times and Scientific American, entitled “Don’t take your vitamins” and “Fact or fiction/vitamins” and answer the following questions: Briefly explain the reason that vitamin supplements are not necessary and may not be healthy. How far above the recommended doses are people taking for treatments using Vitamin E as an example. In a study of 18,000 people, the risk of death from lung cancer for those taking vitamins was 46% higher. Does that mean that 46% of the people died from lung cancer? (5 pts)