Healthy Diet

The role of the Direct Support Professional can be very challenging, especially when it comes to supporting a healthy life style. You are often in the role of offering choices that impact living a healthy life. You help buy groceries, coordinate physical activity, and help the individual you support select community health care providers. Many of these duties are accomplished without the knowledge and support on what it takes to live a healthy life. As a Direct Support Professional, you have a role in offering and supporting healthy choices, in educating individuals so they can make informed choices in role modeling what it takes to live a healthy life style. Therefore, it is important for a Direct Support Professional to know something about healthy living.

It is important to support healthy living because taking care of yourself helps you to feel better about yourself. When you take care of your health you feel better, have more energy, have higher self esteem, and live longer with increased health benefits. Today more than ever it is important for direct support professionals to take the initiative and support individuals with disabilities to make good decisions about living a healthy life.

The role of the Direct Support Professional in supporting healthy choices becomes complicated because the individuals you support are encouraged to make choices about how they want to live their lives, even when the choices may not support healthy living. This lesson will help you identify what a healthy diet means so you can help support healthy choices. Your responsibilities include:

  1. Advocating for healthy food choices
  2. Explaining the importance of healthy food choices
  3. Encouraging individuals to make healthy food choices
  4. Assessing health care needs that directly correlate with food choices
  5. Supporting the choices individuals make
  6. Describing what you believe are healthy food choices

PHYSICAL WELL – BEING

The first part of living a healthy life is taking care of your body. This is your physical well-being. One of the best ways to take care of your physical well-being is NUTRITION.

Nutrition = Eating right!

Food is the fuel that provides energy so all of the body's parts can work properly. Food is one of the essentials of life. Without proper food and nutrition, the body cannot work properly. This could lead to illnesses and early death. Without proper nutrition, you don't feel good and are less likely to take care of yourself. This can lead to not eating right. This circle of behavior keeps going round and round. So remember, living healthy starts by understanding and eating a healthy diet.

Eating right includes all of the following:

  • Picking the right foods
  • Shopping for the right foods
  • Cooking for health
  • Having the right food around the house
  • Handling food properly
  • Eating healthfully at restaurants

FOOD GROUPS

Picking the right foods means eating the right amounts from each food group. The food groups consist of the following:

  1. Dairy : milk, cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt
  2. Meat/Protein: steak, hamburger, chicken, fish, nuts, beans
  3. Fruit: apples, cherries, berries, bananas
  4. Vegetables: green beans, carrots, broccoli, lettuce, radishes
  5. Grains: bread, potatoes, rice

The picture above details the “Food Groups”. The size on the plate indicates the suggested servings needed each day.

  • Grains - Make at least half of your grains whole grains.
  • Fruit and Vegetables - Make half your plate fruits and vegetables.
  • Dairy - Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk. Depending on your age 2 - 3 cups per day.
  • Protein - The amount needed from the Protein Foods Group (meat, poultry, seafood, beans and peas, eggs, processed soy products, nuts, and seeds) depends on age, sex, and level of physical activity. Eat lean meat baked, broiled or grilled is best.

PLANNING AND SHOPPING

Planning and shopping for the right foods is important to ensure proper nutrition. This will make it easy to have the right foods around when you are ready to eat.

Here are some tips to help you plan and shop for the right foods:

  • Choose foods low in fat, sugar and salt.
  • Buy breads and cereals that are high in dietary fiber.
  • Avoid convenience foods.
  • Make meals ahead of time instead of using pre-processed food.
  • Read food labels before you buy.
  • Go out for a treat rather than having it in the house.

COOKING AND HANDLING FOODS TO PREVENT FOOD-BORNE ILLNESSES

What Is Food-borne Illness?
Food-borne illness is a preventable public health challenge that causes an estimated 48 million illnesses and 3,000 deaths each year in the United States. It is an illness that comes from eating contaminated food. The onset of symptoms may occur within minutes to weeks and often presents itself as flu-like symptoms, as the ill person may experience symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, or fever. Because the symptoms are often flu-like, many people may not recognize that the illness is caused by harmful bacteria or other pathogens in food.

Everyone is at risk for getting a food-borne illness. However, some people are at greater risk for experiencing a more serious illness or even death should they get a food-borne illness. Those at greater risk are infants, young children, pregnant women and their unborn babies, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems (such as those with HIV/AIDS, cancer, diabetes, kidney disease, and transplant patients.) Some people may become ill after ingesting only a few harmful bacteria; others may remain symptom free after ingesting thousands.

How Do Bacteria Get in Food?
Microorganisms may be present on food products when you purchase them. For example, plastic-wrapped boneless chicken breasts and ground meat were once part of live chickens or cattle. Raw meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs are not sterile. Neither is fresh produce such as lettuce, tomatoes, sprouts, and melons.

Thousands of types of bacteria are naturally present in our environment. Microorganisms that cause disease are called pathogens. When certain pathogens enter the food supply, they can cause food-borne illness. Not all bacteria cause disease in humans. For example, some bacteria are used beneficially in making cheese and yogurt.

Foods, including safely cooked and ready-to-eat foods, can become cross-contaminated with pathogens transferred from raw egg products and raw meat, poultry, and seafood products and their juices, other contaminated products, or from food handlers with poor personal hygiene. Most cases of foodborne illness can be prevented with proper cooking or processing of food to destroy pathogens.

The "Danger Zone"
Bacteria multiply rapidly between 40 °F and 140 °F. To keep food out of this "Danger Zone," keep cold food cold and hot food hot.

  1. Store food in the refrigerator (40 °F or below) or freezer (0 °F or below).
  2. Cook food to a safe minimum internal temperature.
  3. Cook all raw beef, pork, lamb and veal steaks, chops, and roasts to a minimum internal temperature of 145 °F as measured with a food thermometer before removing meat from the heat source. For safety and quality, allow meat to rest for at least three minutes before carving or consuming. For reasons of personal preference, consumers may choose to cook meat to higher temperatures.
  4. Cook all raw ground beef, pork, lamb, and veal to an internal temperature of 160 °F as measured with a food thermometer.
  5. Cook all poultry to a safe minimum internal temperature of 165 °F as measured with a food thermometer.
  6. Maintain hot cooked food at 140 °F or above.
  7. When reheating cooked food, reheat to 165 °F.

In Case of Suspected Food-borne Illness

  1. Preserve the evidence. If a portion of the suspect food is available, wrap it securely, mark "DANGER" and freeze it. Save all the packaging materials, such as cans or cartons. Write down the food type, the date, other identifying marks on the package, the time consumed, and when the onset of symptoms occurred. Save any identical unopened products.
  2. Seek treatment as necessary. If the victim is in an "at risk" group, seek medical care immediately. Likewise, if symptoms persist or are severe (such as bloody diarrhea, excessive nausea and vomiting, or high temperature), call your doctor.
  3. Call the local health department if the suspect food was served at a large gathering, from a restaurant or other food service facility, or if it is a commercial product.
  4. Call the USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at 1-888-MPHotline (1-888-674-6854) if the suspect food is a USDA-inspected product and you have all the packaging.

Read Zumbro House policy titled, Healthy Living” in addition to the above information.