Healthcare Study: Nutrient Intake and Physical Activity Assessment

Running head: HEALTHCARE
Healthcare
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Methodology....................................................................................................................................3
Result...............................................................................................................................................5
Discussion......................................................................................................................................14
Conclusion and Recommendation.................................................................................................17
Reference.......................................................................................................................................18

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Introduction
The rationale or the background of the study states that physical activity has several
benefits for a person’s health. Physical activity helps a person stay healthy and have a health
body with reduced risk of fractures of bone occurring from the osteoporosis. Unhealthy body
also have increase amount of risks from heart diseases, and other serious illness like cancer. For
majority of the people, it is necessary to participate in the physical activity (1). Whereas,
nutrition also plays a major role in the physical activity because proper nutrition provides the
adequate amount of energy for maintaining a healthy body. A balanced diet means eating
according to the number of servings and it includes each and every food group for majority of
the days. The scientific rationale for nutrition and physical activity assessment will help in
gaining a stronger understanding of physical activity, nutrition through the anthropometric
techniques of assessment (2). The information is presented is a short communication format so
that that it will be easily understandable and will also help in interpretation of the results. The
overall objective of the study is to estimate the dietary intake (calcium) at the individual level
through the short food frequency questionnaire; to compare group dietary intake and individual
dietary intake data with that of the Australian population norms and dietary recommendations; to
compare the relationship between the intake of energy and expenditure results; determination of
the relationship of the energy expenditure with the mean energy intake and the BMI distribution;
to estimate the composition of the body weight with that of circumference, skinfolds, height and
weight and provide a comparison with that of percentage of body fat. Thus, the overall objective
of the study is mainly focused on the nutrient intake and the physical activity through the
different methodologies and procedures.

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Methodology
A total of 212 participants were initially selected and each and every one of the
participants entered data into the online databases. Among the 212 students, 35 male students
supplied data but were excluded from the analysis. Whereas, 3 females provided an incomplete
food works data and they were excluded from the study. Finally, valid data were collected from a
total of 173 female students that have an average age of 23.7 years with a standard deviation of
5.3. The age of the participants ranged from 19 to 56 years. For making comparison between the
recommendations, norms and the data, the age category of 18 years or above, and 18-30 year
categories are also used.
In the first assessment Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) includes a finite list of the
beverages and food and it indicates the frequency of the food consumption over a period of time.
FFQ are used to analyse the examine the association between the health and diet and other
variables. In addition to the beverages and food items, FFQ also asks about the dosages and the
frequency of the intake of the dosages. Especially when the literacy is low, FFQ are administered
occasionally, and is usually self-administered. The completion of the questionnaire takes a time
period of about 30 to 60 minutes. FFQs can be used for the studies that are large prospective
studies. If the FFQ encounters systematic errors, then a less biased form of the instrument can
also be used (3). 3-day food record is another techniques of recording accurate description of the
food related data based on a typical form of diet. It is also recommended that during the record
keeping procedure it is important not to make any kind of changes in the diet plan. Furthermore,
it is recommended that the record keeping must be as accurate as possible and it must include the
beverages and food that a person is drinking or eating. The record keeping also demands
description of the food preparation (4). Active Australia Survey (AAS) is a survey which is

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designed to measure the participation of the people during the leisure activity. Furthermore, it
assesses the current health measures and its associated knowledge, also the health benefits
associated with the physical activity. The survey presents a set of questions that can be easily
implemented through a face to face interview, interviewing technique called the computer
assisted telephone interview. A manual is also provided with the survey which provides an
overview of how to conduct the survey. AAS takes into account of the one week of interview
before the survey is conducted. Furthermore, it consists of walking by transport. The survey
consists of 8 questions and assesses the participation into the various types of activity (5). 3-day
Physical activity diary is a novel of keeping the record of the daily physical activity over a 3-day
period of time (6). Anthropometry can be described as a correlation of measurements or
collection of a human body. One of the principle technique is the physical anthropometry and it
includes the measurements of the mid-upper arm circumference, waist circumference, height and
body weight. The anthropometric methodology is followed and is a practical indicator of the
body composition so that undernutrition can be identified within the community that is obese (7).
The statistical methods used in the study includes a paired t-test and along with it Pearson
correlation is used to assess the relationship between the percentage of the body fat measured
and other parameters like the EE, BIA and skinfolds. It is measured through the Active Australia
survey and physical activity diary.
The statistical software used for the study is the STATA SE 14 software which is made
by the StatCorp LP, USA (8). The statistical significance was indicated and it has been found to
be p<0.05. The differences between the means of various assessment is found through the paired
t-test. Correlation is measured using the Pearson correlation coefficient and the micronutrient

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intake inadequacy is measured by an EAR-cut point method (for the zinc, vitamin c, folate and
calcium) and full probability approach is followed (for iron).