Chapter 1. Introduction to Nutrition
Introduction
The foundation comes first, then the building
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:
- Define nutrition.
- Discuss why nutrition is important to health.
- Identify the classes of nutrients that are important to health.
- Describe the purpose and function of nutrition recommendations.
- Calculate the estimated energy requirements of yourself and others.
- Calculate the acceptable macronutrient distribution range for carbohydrates, protein, and fats for yourself and others.
- Describe the Scientific Method and understand its role in nutrition.
- Differentiate between lay-literature and peer-reviewed/scientific literature.
- Search scientific databases to find peer-reviewed articles.
- Differentiate between original studies and review articles.
- Stay organized with literature review matrices when conducting research.
- Properly cite and reference peer-reviewed articles when reporting their information.
What is Nutrition?
Nutrition is the science of food; nutrition relates to how food nourishes our bodies and affects our health. It covers the processes related to food consumption, digestion, absorption, elimination, and metabolism of the nutrients found in foods. In nutrition, we also discuss how nutrients affect our bodies and impact our health. Nutrition also involves studying factors that influence our eating patterns, developing recommendations about the amount of nutrients we should consume daily, maintaining food safety, and addressing issues related to food supply.
