IMBALANCED NUTRITION: MORE THAN BODY REQUIREMENTS Nursing Care Plan

There's a lot of cases and different patients that undergoes nursing care related to imbalanced nutrition. Most of them are related to malnutrition and obese. One good example is Ms. Josu, 42 years old, newscaster on famous TV Channel. She have this obsession with drinking milktea, and it is like she can't work, can't sleep, can't finished her lunch without drinking it. In just 18 months of continuous intake of milktea, two to three times each day, her weight increase dramatically until she reach more than 20% of her ideal body weight. Unfortunately, as weeks past, she experienced lots of problems of having her huge body, and she felt the need to stop the cause of increasing weight, drinking milktea. Below is a nursing care plan sample about imbalanced nutrition: more than body requirements of Ms. Josu, 42 years old, newscaster on famous TV Channel.

Assessment:

Subjective: "I want to lose weight but I always buy and drink my favorite milktea twice or trice everyday," said by a 42-year old female client.

Objective:

Weight: 200 pounds
Height: 5 feet 6 inches tall
Triceps skinfold measured 29mm

Diagnosis:

Imbalanced nutrition; more than body requirements, related to excessive intake in relation to metabolic needs as said verbally by the patient.

Planning:

After two hours of nursing intervention, the patient will describe why she is at risk of further weight gain as evidenced by the increased intake and can discuss the effects of exercise on weight control.

Intervention:

- Assess Ms. Josu's caloric intake by monitoring it, since we need to deal with her weight, her calories counts. Assist Ms. Josu, patient in monitoring calorie intake writing down all the food she ate in the past 24 hours. Ms. Josu need to keep a diet diary for 1 week that specifies the following: what, when, where, and why eaten. Here we need to know the interval of Ms. Josu's eating habit so that we will know if the food she ate was already been digested and metabolized before she eats again. We need to know the usual reason why Ms. Josu eat, is it because its break time? Is it because she is hungry? Is it because she just like to eat.

- Ask Ms. Josu, the patient whether she was doing anything else while eating like watching televisions, doing work or cooking. Distracted eating may add to weight gain by prompting you to eat more, focusing your attention to what you eat could help keep you from overeating. DId you experience eating while watching T.V. and you keep on eating until the movie ends, then you finally realize that you have been eating for more than an hour and a half? Encourage Ms. Josu to only eat at dining table or kitchen table so that she may not be distracted while eating avoid eating while performing other activities.

- Teach the patient to drink an 8-oz glass of water 30 minutes before a meal, this can help digestion. Lessen the fatty foods, sweets, and alcohol, these three can aggravate her weight gain. Teach her to use small plates to make portions look bigger and never eat from another person's plate. Teach Ms. Josu to eat slowly and chew food thoroughly, this can help to solve her problem about imbalanced nutrition more than body requirements. Put down utensils and wait for 15 seconds between bites. If patient likes to eat snacks, pick only low-calorie snacks that must be chewed to satisfy oral needs. Cut apples is best examples. Tell her to stay away from snacks rich in carbs, fat, salty, and sugar.

- Instruct patient to do exercises and increase activity level to burn calories. A lot of walks can be a good example such as using stairs instead of elevators, park at the farthest point in parking lots and walk to buildings. Jogging every morning I'd possible. Go to the gym if she likes and plan a daily walking program with a progressive increase in distance and pace.

- Urge Ms. Josu to consult with a primary provider before beginning any exercise program. 
- Initiate referral to a Community Weight Loss Program

Evaluation:
After two hours of nursing intervention, the patient described why she is at risk of further weight gain as evidenced by the increased intake and could discussed the effects of exercise on weight control.

Related nursing care plans: Risk-prone Health Behavior related to intake in excess of metabolic requirements and Ineffective Coping related to increased eating in response to stressors could be useful diagnosis.

For more samples of nursing care plan you are free to check it out in our NCP LIST page.