Linda is a 25-year-old customer service agent who works full-time at an airport.

Question

Linda is a 25-year-old customer service agent who works full-time at an airport. Her shift of 10 hours varies, and she can be assigned the early shift starting at 5am or the late shift starting at 4pm. She is 62 inches tall and weighs 160 pounds. She has a family history of diabetes and heart disease and was recently diagnosed with high blood cholesterol. Her compliance with medications that have been prescribed by the doctor to lower her cholesterol level is poor. She has explored various diets on the internet and believes that the calories don't count diet is the one that works well for her. This diet recommends a tablespoon of coconut oil every day. Being on varied shits at the airport, Linda finds little time for exercise. A typical intake for breakfast is a donut with coffee from the airport cafe. Also being on varied shifts, Linda has developed a habit of drinking several cups of coffee per day. Lunch and dinner are also from any of the airport fast food concessionaires. Linda lives alone, and when not working at the airport, will have a frozen meal. An analysis of her diet reveals an average daily intake of 80 grams of fat, 200 grams of carbohydrate, and 50 grams of protein.

1. Discuss Linda's lifestyle in relation to her food preferences. What are her food preferences that may be difficult to change?

2.     How might her emotions contribute to her food preferences?

3.     Base on the average analysis of Linda’s diet, calculate her total daily kcalorie intake.

4.     What percentage of her daily calories is provided by fat? Carbohydrates? Protein?

5.     The recommended percentage distribution of macronutrient is 45-65% kcalories from carbohydrate, 20-35% kcalories from fat and 10-35% kcalories from protein. Compare and evaluate the composition of Linda's diet with the recommended macronutrient distribution.

6.     What dietary modification would you suggest for Linda?

7.     What websites would you recommend to Linda for her search for valid nutrition research regarding lowering blood cholesterol?

Explanation / Answer

1. Since Linda is customer service agent at airport, she is sedentary and moves very little. She does not have any physical exercise. She has a family history of diabetis and heart disease. Her weight is more than the maximum permissive weight for her height. Her food habits include intake of more carbs and less proteins and essential nutrients. The donot and several cups of coffee she takes adds more calories to her. Moreover, fast food from airport is one more factor that adds to her high calories intake since these fast foods are poor in nutrients.

She takes more cups of coffee a day. The caffeine present in coffee makes a person addicted to it and is difficult to change the habit.

2. People living alone generally are malnutritioned. They take least interest in preparing nutritious food, and generally rely on readymade foods.

3. one gram of fat yields 9.3 kcal, 1 g of carbohydrate = 4.1 kcal, and 1 g of protein, 4.1 kcal. The total daily intake of Linda's diet gives 1769 kcal of energy.

4. 42% of calories is provided by fats, 46.5% from carbohydrates, and 11.5% from proteins.

5. Linda's diet is rich in fat, and is poor in proteins. Her protein intake meets only the baseline of recommended intake, whereas the fat intake is above the upper recommended intake level.

6. She shall eat more proteins and reduce the intake of the amount of fat in her diet.

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