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Diet therapy

Nutritional assessment

man drinking alcoholA nutritional assessment is a useful diagnostic tool to evaluate your present dietary practices.

It helps to determine if individual nutritional needs are being met and identifies key nutrient deficiencies. An assessment also serves as a useful comparison to highlight nutritional change.

Find out what you don’t know

  • Compare your intake of key nutrients with the amounts recommended for an individual of your age, weight, height and activity level
  • Identify total dietary cholesterol intake
  • Determine your average daily intake of fat- and water-soluble vitamins
  • Quantify mineral intakes (eg. calcium & iron)
  • Determine your energy ratios – how much of your total daily intake comes from each of the three major macro nutrients; carbohydrate, fat and protein. This helps to see what you need to do to alter your weight, lower cholesterol and blood sugar levels.
  • Evaluate fat ratios – provides information on the type and amount of fats in your diet; total fat, polyunsaturated fat, monounsaturated fat and saturated fat. These fats play an important part in your nerve and brain function and also relate to your risk of obesity and heart disease.
  • Utilise information provided to help correct any nutrient or mineral imbalances.
  • With the provision of practical suggestions, in real food terms, to help improve your nutritional well being.

A  nutritional assessment takes minimal time to complete and provides maximal nutritional benefit for people of all ages.

On average it should only take 2 minutes or less at the end of each meal/snack to record food and fluid intake. A seven day record is required to ensure an accurate description is obtained and once completed it should be sent to Lea Stening Health for analysis. A follow up appointment will be arranged to discuss the findings.

If you would like a nutritional assessment and helpful, friendly advice, contact us today.

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Lea Stening

Lea is one of New Zealand’s leading paediatric dietitians and also specialises in Sports Nutrition. She has specialised in Paediatric Nutrition for 31 years and in 1985 was the first paediatric dietitian to enter private practice in New Zealand. Lea helps families through her private consultations, public lectures, newspaper and magazine articles as well as television and radio interviews. Read more »

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