Nutrition Analysis

Weight loss. A 27 year old female (Laura) finished college 4 years ago. She played sports on intramural teams
during college and regularly worked out, but since finishing school she has found it hard to be as active as she
was before. She is 5’5” (65 inches) tall and 158 pounds. Her work does offer reimbursement for gym
memberships for their corporate wellness plan, but she has not felt like she has the time to regularly get to the
gym and exercise. Results from her 3-day diet tracking you find that she consumes around 2500 kcals per day
with the bulk of those calories coming from meals out to restaurants for lunch or dinner during or after work.
She wants to lose weight, but doesn’t know how much she should lose. What kind of suggestions can you offer
to Laura to help her improve her health?
Weight maintenance. A 38 year old female (Karen) has recently gone through several exercise programs
through an at-home exercise regimen (streamed through an online video program that she paid for) and lost 12
pounds. She is 5’8” (68 inches) and 155 pounds. The loss of 12 pounds was the result of previous pregnancy
weight she had gained and she has 2 kids (1 in school, 1 still at home). She remembers learning about
nutrition in college years ago, but does not remember much about how much she should eat. She has been
dieting and only eating 1200 kcals per day to lose the weight recently with her exercise program and now
wants to introduce more foods back to her diet. Karen does work part time for a small company and wants to
open up her own online business to work her own hours. What kind of suggestions can you offer to Karen to
help her improve her health?
Weight gain. A 34 year old male (Chester) has always been the skinny kid ever since middle school. He always
figured as he got older he would naturally gain weight, but he hasn’t. Chester is 6’1” (73 inches) and 143
pounds. He does not know much about nutrition or how to track his diet / foods, but he regularly works out and
plays basketball twice a week with a group of friends from work. After his 3-day diet tracking you find that he
eats about 2200 kcals per day. He knows he needs to start eating a bit more food, but he’s not sure what type
of food he should eat to help gain weight. What kind of suggestions can you offer to Chester to help her improve his health?

Sample Solution