New Being Nutrition

Factors that affect your nutritional requirements

The factors that affect your nutritional requirements are the quality and quantity of the food you eat, the efficiency of your digestive system in absorbing and utilizing eaten food and biochemical availability.

The quality of food that you eat can vary depending on the soil and growing conditions of that food. Soil that has been overworked and chemicals added and also drugs and antibiotics that have been given to livestock and crops to aid growth are all factors that affect nutrition in your food and can affect your own body’s biochemistry. Nutritional quality of your food can be affected by the manufacturing process, storage and preparation of your food.

The quantity of food that we eat also influences your nutritional status. In developing countries malnutrition is a huge problem but in developed countries under nutrition can occur due to dependency on heavy refined processed foods.

The efficiency of your digestive system affects your nutritional status. Bad condition of your intestines will reduce the absorption of digested foods into your blood stream. Metabolic faults, sensitivity to certain food and the presence of substances like tea and coffee can affect the absorption rate of certain nutrients.

Biochemical availability is the optimum range of intake of a person essential nutritional requirement. This nutritional requirement is influenced by;

• Age
• Growth
• Sex
• Pregnancy
• Breastfeeding
• Illness
• Psychological
• Emotional stress
• Activity level
• Smoking
• Drinking

Nutritional requirements change as you get older, the elderly use a lot of medication, their absorption, excretion and utilization of nutrients can be affected. Growing children have different nutritional needs to that of adults. For example, a growing infant requires a higher intake of essential fatty acids than that of an adult. In the same way there are different nutrition requirements for young and old, there are also very different requirements between the sexes. For example, a woman’s nutritional requirements can vary throughout her menstrual cycle, also a woman who is pregnant or breastfeeding has different nutritional requirement to that of one who is not.

Nutritional requirement vary depending on whether you are healthy or ill. As diseases are unique, so are the nutritional requirements needed whilst you are ill. The same applies to psychological and emotional stress. When you are affected by stress, you appetite is affected, this results in less intake of food which in turn results in less nutrients being absorbed.

Your activity level will affect your nutritional requirement. An athlete will need a different nutritional requirement to that of an office worker. Exercise improves metabolic efficiency in some people and increases nutrient requirement.

People may find that certain nutritional requirements are increase within their family. Genetics can play a part in an extra need for certain nutrients. Other factors such as using recreational drugs, smoking and drinking can affect nutrient requirements. Even beverages like Tea and Coffee can affect nutrient requirements; they both inhibit the absorption of Iron and Zinc.