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Nutrition Reflection Paper On Food

Decent Essays

For three days I tracked all of my meals, snacks and fluid intake on the SuperTracker website. The purpose of this was to determine and understand what I was eating and how what I put into my body directly effects it. Too little or too much of certain nutrients can be harmful over time and the SuperTracker helped to determine which nutrients I needed less or more of. Also, it provided me with some insight on how I can change my eating habits to provide my body with the nourishment that it needs. There were similarities amongst my daily food group targets for all three days. My consumption of grains was below the target for two of the three days, along with my dairy intake. Also, I did not have fruit of any kind during that time period. Nevertheless, my ingestion of vegetables and proteins were continuously above the recommended target amount.
Upon analyzing my nutrient report I noticed that I had taken in more macronutrients than the recommended target amount. The average amount of protein that I ate was seventy-seven grams while the daily target was only forty-six grams. The average amount of carbohydrates was 145 grams with the target being only 130 grams. While I had exceeded the quantity of protein and carbohydrates, my status is still considered “okay”. Thirty-eight percent of my calories came from total fat, with the target amount only being twenty to thirty-five percent therefore causing me to be over in the status amount.
Consequently, my consumption of micronutrients consistently fell below the targeted daily amount. I only averaged 463 milligrams of calcium per day; 537 milligrams less than target. Long term calcium deficiency can have serious health consequences such as causing osteopenia and increasing the risks of osteoporosis and bone fractures (Calcium, 2016, para 14). The amount of potassium in my diet was also below target at 2734 milligrams. Muscle weakness, abnormal heart rhythms and a rise in blood pressure can all result from insufficient amounts of potassium (Potassium, 2017, p. 1). I only took in about half of the recommended amount of iron which could lead to functional deficits such as tiredness, gastrointestinal upset, poor memory and concentration, weakened immune

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