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Definitions of Diet and Nutrition Diet is the daily fare of food and drink. It is some- times defined as a manner of living with special reference to eating practices. The diet furnishes nutrients which may or may not be sufficient to adequately meet the nutritive needs of the individual depending on age, size, activity, state of health, environment, and genetic pattern. Unfortunately the word is often used to mean something restrictive such as weight control regimen. Actually everyone is on a "diet" of some kind whether he lives in a developing country, a slum, or an elite suburb. Human Nutrition is the sum of the processes by which an organism absorbs and utilizes essential nutrients for the support of metabolism within the cell, stores for future use, or uses immediately for energy. It is also the sum of the influences which the intrinsic and extrinsic environment exerts upon these processes. Nutritional Status of the individual reflects both past and present dietary intake and its utilization by the body. Nutritional Counseling is a technique of communication and education by which dietary practices may be evaluated and changes for nutritive improvement indicated. Dietary counseling
necessitates knowledge of nutrition science and food values as well as of those psychological, socio-economic, and cultural factors which affect dietary practices.
CHAPTER II RECOMMENDED NUTRIENT ALLOWANCES FOR PREGNANCY AND LACTATION The objectives of effective programs of prenatal care are to create conditions most favorable for a normal, healthy pregnancy for the mother and birth at term of a healthy, fully- developed infant. The nutritional components concerned with the outcome of pregnancy (both maternal and fetal) must aim at provision of diets which provide calories and essential nutrients in amounts sufficient to meet all the needs for formation, growth, arid development of the fetus as well as the extra-fetal tissues and the metabolic and physiologic require- ments of the mother, which may include repletion of maternal stores. The time continuum for adequate nutrition extends throughout all of life, but it is of utmost importance through- out all of pregnancy and lactation in order to meet the different demands during this period. It begins with the needs during the first trimester, the critical period of initial cellular growth, multiplication, and differentiation and continues through the second and third trimesters. During the first trimester, the 7
