Study sheet: Healthy Lifestyle, Nutrition and Digestion

📋 Course Outline

1. Wellness Dimensions and Quality of Life
2. Behavior Change Process
3. Nutrition Information and Research
4. Nutrients and Energy
5. Healthy Diet Principles
6. Food Guide and Labels
7. Digestive System Organization
8. Digestion and Nutrient Absorption
9. Digestive Disorders and Food Reactions
10. Diabetes and Blood Glucose

📖 1. Wellness Dimensions and Quality of Life

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Health : is used broadly to include environmental health and population health, although historically it referred to the absence of physical disease.
• Physical fitness : the ability to perform moderate to vigorous physical activity without undue fatigue.
• Wellness : not merely the absence of disease or infirmity but a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being involving interdependent physical, environmental, social, psychological, intellectual and spiritual factors.

★ Must-know

• The six dimensions are:
  • Physical
  • Social
  • Intellectual
  • Emotional
  • Spiritual
  • Environmental

📌 High quality of life includes optimism, control over stress, energy, supportive relationships and independence in desired activities, whereas low quality of life includes dependence, poor self-concept, limited daily functioning, low energy and little control over stress.

Further detail

• Occupational wellness concerns happiness and fulfillment at work, harmony with personal goals, appreciation from colleagues and supervisors, and workplace safety.

• Financial wellness is the ability to manage and balance financial needs and wants with income, debts, savings and investments.

💡 Memory Hook

PSI ESE: Physical, Social, Intellectual, Emotional, Spiritual, Environmental

📖 2. Behavior Change Process

★ Must-know

• 🔄 Behavior change progresses through these stages:

  1. Precontemplation
  2. Contemplation
  3. Preparation
  4. Action
  5. Maintenance
  6. Termination

• Relapse is not an original stage of behavior change but occurs periodically for many people attempting to change.

• 🔄 Preparing for change involves:

  1. Setting realistic SMART goals and objectives
  2. Making a commitment
  3. Recruiting appropriate resources
  4. Planning for barriers
  5. Visualizing the new behavior

Further detail

• Causes of relapse include:

  • Overconfidence
  • Temptation
  • Stress or emotional distractions
  • Putting oneself down

• Predisposing factors for change include knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, values and perceptions, while enabling factors include skills, resources, accessible facilities, and physical and mental capabilities.

💡 Memory Hook

Awareness → contemplation → preparation → action → maintenance

📖 3. Nutrition Information and Research

📝 Essential Points

• 🔄 The scientific method consists of:

  1. Asking a question
  2. Conducting background research
  3. Forming a hypothesis
  4. Testing the hypothesis by experiment
  5. Analyzing data and drawing a conclusion
  6. Reporting the results

• Nutrition research includes:

  • Chart reviews
  • Review studies
  • Descriptive studies
  • Correlational studies
  • Epidemiological studies
  • Case-control studies
  • Cohort studies
  • Laboratory studies
  • Animal studies
  • Clinical trials

📌 A food claim is suspicious when it relies on testimonials, unpublished studies, logic without proof, persecution claims, many promised benefits, personal gain or a money-back guarantee.

💡 Memory Hook

Question → research → hypothesis → experiment → analysis → report

📖 4. Nutrients and Energy

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Nutrients : chemical substances in food that provide energy and building materials, regulate chemical reactions, and regulate growth, development and maintenance of body structures and substances.

📝 Essential Points

• The six nutrient classes are:

  • Carbohydrates
  • Fats
  • Proteins
  • Water
  • Vitamins
  • Minerals

• One kilocalorie equals 1000 calories, and one kilocalorie is the heat required to raise the temperature of 1 kg of water by 1°C.

• Only carbohydrates, proteins and fats contain nutrient calories; vitamins and minerals contain no calories, and alcohol contains calories but is not a nutrient.

• The acceptable macronutrient distribution ranges are 45–65% carbohydrate, 10–35% protein and 20–35% fat.

💡 Memory Hook

Macronutrients supply calories; micronutrients support their use

📖 5. Healthy Diet Principles

★ Must-know

📌 A healthy diet provides adequate amounts of nutrients and energy, includes a variety of foods, uses moderation, emphasizes nutrient density and considers energy density.

📌 Nutrient-dense foods provide many nutrients relative to their calories, whereas empty-calorie foods provide few nutrients relative to their calories and are usually high in fat or sugar.

Further detail

• Nutrient-dense foods include:
  • Fruits
  • Vegetables
  • Dairy
  • Nuts
  • Whole grains

💡 Memory Hook

AVM: Adequacy, Variety, Moderation

📖 6. Food Guide and Labels

★ Must-know

• The food guide plate contains five food groups and recommends servings and healthier choices within each group.

📌 The food guide recommends making half the plate vegetables and fruit, choosing whole fruit over juice, and choosing dark green, red or orange vegetables.

• The FDA Daily Value is a single reference value for each nutrient used to evaluate a food's nutrient quantity and is calculated from the recommended intake for a person eating 2000 calories per day.

Further detail

📌 The food guide recommends making half of daily grains whole grains and choosing low-fat dairy, lean meats, seafood, legumes, nuts, seeds and soy products.

• Mandatory food-label elements include:
  • Statement of identity
  • Net quantity of contents
  • Ingredient list
  • Manufacturer or distributor information
  • Allergen information
  • Nutrition Facts panel

📖 7. Digestive System Organization

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Gastrointestinal tract : a series of organs arranged as a long tube through which food passes, including the mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine and large intestine.
• Mechanical digestion : physically breaks food into smaller pieces without changing its chemical composition.

★ Must-know

• Peristalsis moves food through the esophagus by waves of muscle contraction from the mouth toward the stomach.

Further detail

• The stomach mixes food with gastric juices containing hydrochloric acid, enzymes, mucus and water, and small amounts of water, drugs, alcohol and minerals can be absorbed there.

💡 Memory Hook

Mouth → esophagus → stomach → small intestine → large intestine

📖 8. Digestion and Nutrient Absorption

★ Must-know

• About 90% of digestion and absorption takes place in the small intestine, which is about 22 feet long.

• In the small intestine, pancreatic amylase breaks carbohydrates into glucose, protease breaks proteins into amino acids, and bile emulsifies fats before pancreatic lipase breaks them into absorbable molecules.

• Folds, villi and microvilli greatly increase the small intestine's surface area for nutrient absorption, and villi contain small blood vessels and lacteals.

Further detail

• Bile is produced in the liver and stored in the gallbladder before release into the small intestine.

• Absorbed nutrients travel toward the liver, which can store glucose, glycogen and certain vitamins before nutrients return to the bloodstream and reach body cells.

💡 Memory Hook

Mechanical and chemical breakdown → absorption → transport to cells

📖 9. Digestive Disorders and Food Reactions

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Irritable bowel syndrome : a disorder that interferes with normal colon function and can cause abdominal cramps, bloating, diarrhea or constipation.

★ Must-know

• The large intestine absorbs water and some chemicals, while intestinal bacteria digest some remaining food particles and produce vitamins; nondigestible material forms stool and moves to the rectum.

📌 Food intolerance causes unpleasant symptoms without immune-system involvement, whereas food allergy is an immune-system hypersensitivity reaction to a food component.

Further detail

• Diarrhea can result from food intolerance, gastrointestinal infection, stress or bowel disorders and can cause severe dehydration.

💡 Memory Hook

Food intolerance does not involve immunity; food allergy does

📖 10. Diabetes and Blood Glucose

★ Must-know

📌 In type 1 diabetes, the immune system attacks insulin-producing pancreatic cells, so the body produces little or no insulin and blood glucose becomes too high.

📌 In type 2 diabetes, the body continues to produce insulin but cells become resistant to it, so glucose cannot enter cells efficiently and blood glucose becomes too high.

• The pancreas produces enzymes and the hormones insulin and glucagon, which regulate digestion and blood glucose control.

Further detail

📌 Type 2 diabetes can often be managed with diet, exercise, medication and sometimes insulin.

💡 Memory Hook

Type 1 lacks insulin production; Type 2 involves insulin resistance

📊 Synthesis Tables

Macronutrients and Micronutrients

Category	Nutrients	Amount and energy
Macronutrients	Carbohydrates, fats, proteins and water	Needed in larger amounts; measured in grams
Micronutrients	Vitamins and minerals	Needed in smaller amounts; measured in milligrams or micrograms