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52 2.2 Assessing Nutritional Intake
Case Study them at home. The only fruit she is having
is that which is given for a snack at nursery.
Ellie is now 2 years 9 months and goes to
nursery in the morning. She still has a sleep There are several changes that Ellie’s
after lunch and her mother is concerned that mother can make to improve Ellie’s diet:
she eats very poorly at lunchtime. She
usually gives her bread and jam just to make • cut out the bottle of milk before bed as
sure she has had something. There are no soon as possible
problems with her growth and her mother
was asked to write down everything Ellie had • change the lunch to a more nutritious
eaten the day before: ‘Breakfast: cornflakes sandwich, for example she could try a
and milk, orange squash to drink. Milk to peanut butter and jam sandwich
drink and fruit at breaktime at nursery.
Lunch: jam sandwich and cake. A packet of • change the afternoon snack to a more
Wotsits and a carton of a fruit juice drink in nutritious snack such as carrot sticks
the afternoon with her older brother on the with breadsticks which are crunchy like
way home from school. Fish fingers with the Wotsits. She could also add in some
chips for tea, milk and a chocalate biscuit for pieces of cold meat such as ham or
pudding. A bottle of milk on going to bed.’ cooked chicken to make up for the small
lunch that is being eaten.
Ellie’s food and drinks in one day are thus
The whole family needs to begin eating
as shown in Figure 2.2.5. ➔ more fruit and vegetables so that they are
offered at each meal. As this change will
Ellie is getting enough calories to keep take some time Ellie could be given diluted
pure fruit juice in place of fruit juice drink
growing for the time being. She is probably that will only contain about 5 per cent fruit
juice – the rest will be sugar and colouring.
tired when she comes home from her busy The pure fruit juice will provide a few more
nutrients from fruit that squash does not
morning at nursery which is why she is not contain.
eating well at lunchtime. After her If Ellie’s mother is able to make these
changes then eventually her one day’s
afternoon sleep she is hungry and eats well intake would be as shown in Figure 2.2.6.
but is given the same snack as her brother, Activity 1
which is not nutritious enough to replace Make a recorded intake of all the food and
drinks you have over the next three days and
the nutrients she has not had at lunch. analyse it for nutritional adequacy using the
method above.
The combination of the food groups is very
poor and by comparing the totals to the A one-day record of a child’s intake may not be
recommendations you can see she has too indicative of his or her average intake. Young
much milk and a lot of foods that are high children will often eat well some days and not so
in fat and sugar and not enough foods from well on other days. The eating pattern Monday to
the other food groups. Consequently Ellie’s
diet will be low in iron and other minerals.
If she continues to eat like this she would
become deficient in iron and might get
iron-deficiency anaemia.
As the rest of the family do not eat fruit
and vegetables Ellie is not being offered
➔
