Healthy People's nutrition goals and implications for nursing practice

Healthy People as a Roadmap to Nation's Health

The objective of this work is to select a health event and discuss the implications for nursing practice if you held each of Smith's concepts. This work will determine the media exposure of individual and community risk reduction activities and specify which determinants are the focuses of risk reduction measures. These measures will be analyzed for the potential for risk reduction in individuals, families, and communities. This work will further locate two relevant websites for each lifespan group and discuss the relevance of each website as well as examining the significance of Healthy People as a roadmap for the nation's health.

One of the goals of Healthy People is to "promote health and reduce chronic disease through the consumption of healthful diets and achievement and maintenance of healthy body weights." (Healthy People, 2011) This means that individuals will: (1) Consume a variety of nutrient-dense foods within and across the food groups, especially whole grains, fruits, vegetables, low-fat or fat-free milk or milk products, and lean meats and other protein sources; (2) Limit the intake of saturated and trans fats, cholesterol, added sugars, sodium (salt), and alcohol; and (3) Limit caloric intake to meet caloric needs. (Healthy People, 2011)

I. Potential for Risk Reduction

Healthy People sets out a method for reducing risk of chronic disease through changing eating habits and limiting certain foods so that the individual can attain and then maintain a healthy body weight. This requires that the individual, family and community adhere to a healthy dietary intake and limit eating foods containing saturated and trans fats, cholesterol, added sugars, salt and alcohol. This has a great potential for risk reduction however, for the individual and family that lives a busy lifestyle, the potential for risk reduction is decreased when the family regularly consumes fast food products due to these products containing the ingredients that are to be avoided toward healthily food intake. This will require a change in lifestyle in terms of the eating habits of the family.

III. Healthy People -- Relevance and Implications for Nursing

The Healthy People website is extremely relevant in terms of the information it contains on healthy eating. The implications for nursing are clear in that the nursing professional should be a wealth of information for individuals and families that desire to maintain a healthy diet geared toward the reduction of chronic disease. The nursing professional should be able to clearly instruct individuals, families, communities concerning the right foods to eat, and foods that should be avoided as well as instructing them in maintaining an active lifestyle including regular exercise.

IV. Media Exposure

Media exposure for Healthy People objectives includes such as screening