Nutrition Assignment Help – Life of A Working Woman

On this morning in Los Angeles, California, 30-year old Nicole wakes up at 5:00 a.m. to get ready for work. She lives with her 11-year-old son, John; her 3-year-old daughter, Paula; and her mother, Sarah, in a two-bedroom apartment. Nicole is a single mother.

Nicole leaves the apartment at 5:30 a.m. She rarely takes breakfast with her to work because she is in a rush and she knows that she can quickly get an inexpensive breakfast sandwich or burrito at any of the fast-food restaurants near her workplace, a courthouse in Los Angeles about 10 miles away from her mother’s apartment. John participates in the national School Breakfast Program (SBP) and National School Lunch Program (NSLP), and will eat a free breakfast at school, probably including cereal, a breakfast sandwich or burrito with cheese, egg, and sausage, or pancakes or waffles with sausage and syrup. After he leaves for school, Sarah will have fried eggs, with toast, and give her granddaughter cereal and whole milk. For lunch, the two of them usually have sandwiches with processed meat and American cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or tortillas filled with ground beef and cheese. Sometimes they add some canned vegetables or potato chips. Sarah and Paula both enjoy oranges, bananas and watermelon for snacks. Common options for John’s school lunch include pasta with meat, turkey burgers, and sandwiches, served with a vegetable, a fruit, and reduced-fat milk.

Nicole does not have a car, so she walks a couple of blocks to the bus stop, catches the bus, and walks three blocks at the other end. She works as a cashier and dishwasher in a cafeteria in the basement of the courthouse from 6:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. She wishes that she could stay home with Paula as she did with John when he was little, but knows she can count on her mother to take good care of her. At work, Nicole gets free soft drinks and a $5 credit to use at the cafeteria for lunch. She usually gets the daily special, often a fried chicken sandwich or hamburger that comes with onion rings or French fries.

When she gets out of work, Nicole takes the bus back to her neighborhood. Because her neighborhood has a high crime rate, she is always grateful that her work hours allow her to get home before dark. On her walk home from the bus station, she buys a beef tamale from a local Mexican fast-food restaurant for her mother to take for dinner. Sarah leaves for her evening job as a custodian in a local elementary school, and Nicole makes macaroni and cheese from a box and serves it with frozen greens that she serves with butter.

After John finishes his homework and he and Paula go to bed, Nicole watches television to help her relax. She has a few cookies during the evening before going to bed at 10:30 p.m. Her mother will be home around 11:00 p.m. Sometimes Nicole thinks about going back to school, as she used to dream of, but she does not see how it can be possible when she and her mother are both working minimum-wage jobs to provide for John and Paula.

With a body mass index (BMI) of 31, Nicole is classified as obese. Since she has no health insurance and rarely visits a doctor, she does not know that her blood sugar levels are in the category of prediabetes. John is of normal weight, but Paula is already overweight. Sara is also obese, and is on medications to control her high blood pressure.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

TO answer the qns below you will have to read Social determinants of health and cultural competency

-The answers should integrate evidence from the reading, lecture, or past experience in the supporting their argument.
– Insightful comments and questions that prompted on-topic discussion.
-The participant consistently helped clarify or synthesize other class members’ ideas.
-Graduate level understanding and critical writing with sound knowledge to be reflected merely answering like the red in below, although may be correct but would not be considered as submission at all……………….

-Answers to be complete and thorough… No amount of plagiarism will be tolerated

Q1. Which nutritional concerns and associated health consequences do Nicole and her family face?

It is evident from the above synopsis, there has been an irregularity in the diet of Nicole and her family lately. From their daily routine we see that Nicole skips her breakfast at the morning because being a working mother, she hardly gets time to prepare food for herself, instead she relies on fast food junkies near her workplace. John, her son, gets to eat his lunch at the school programs he doesn’t have to pay for, which includes diet rich in carbohydrates. John’s tiffin mainly stuffed with foods that are often low on nutritional value. Even Nicole’s mother, Sarah and her daughter, Paula mostly feed on unhealthy fried food-items and don’t follow proper diet. When Nicole is working at her place, she uses the credit allowance she gets from her job and ends up buying junkies again. This is how Nicole’s family is solely dependent on fast-foods rather than the home cooked foods. This, in turn, has given rise to major threat that is now faced by the family.

There has been considerable increase in the level of blood cholesterol and obesity has started to take turns in the Nicole’s family. Nicole is found to be overweight using metric measures. She is also unaware that she is in first stage of diabetes with increased level of sugar in her blood. Apart from John, the whole family is facing the same consequences nevertheless, and it won’t be wrong to assume that John might have to face the exact misery.

Q2. What are the underlying causes of sub optimal diets and health for Nicole?

Nicole has been unable to follow a healthy diet due to her busy schedule and extreme work pressure, so she relies completely on the food from the streets which are mainly junk foods and are pocket friendly which is of great help to her because it allows her to save money for her children and provide financial aid to family. As a result, this reduction in the nutritional value has taken tolls on Nicole and her health.

She is diagnosed with high blood pressure in which the arteries experience a compelling force on its walls by the flow of the blood. Excessive consumption of iodine salt in the diet is majorly responsible for increasing the pressure of blood flow in the body. Being overweight is also believed to add fuel to this major health issue. We find out that Nicole’s case favors both of the causes stated above. Fast-foods contain comparatively larger amount of iodine than foods which are cooked at home and this in turn, making her obese. Another underlying effect of sub optimal diet is the elevation of level of cholesterol in blood. Since the fast-foods are rich in saturation, they block the walls of blood and can give birth to cardiac diseases. Nicole has also been found to overweight and is predicted to have body mass higher the normal calculated value. This obesity is directly proportional to the effects it causes, as it influences the rise of blood flow in the body and also elevates risk of cardiac ailments.

Q3. Which public health programs are available to assist Nicole and her family? (***Hint for this research on the nutrition programs available you will check the ages they qualify for)

Since Nicole and her family has been diagnosed with serious health issues which might prove to be fatal if not treated at the right time, there are some of the public health programs which can assist the family with proper diet and adequate facilities so that they can start living a health life ahead.

One first public health organization that comes into play in Nicole’s case is Food Bank. Food Bank is basically based on charity and self profit-less institution that provides food to the people and children who cannot afford to get proper nutritious food due to economical conditions. Nicole couldn’t buy healthy foods for herself and her family due to the financial problems she might have faced and buying food seemed to best option for her since it was cheap.

The Child and Adult Care Food program is an organization which checks on the nutritional value of the food consumed by kids and grownups and helps in establishing healthy living diets for the assisted people by eradicating the ill habits of eating foods that are unhealthy for them.

Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) helps to provide monetary supports for the consumption of the healthy and nutritious foods for the children and the mothers who have undergone pregnancy. It helps to look after the nutritional content of the children and women as well so that in future they don’t have to face any issues related to health issues like blood pressure and under nutrition.

Q4. Which nutritional challenges do Nicole and her family face due to economic, racial/ethnic, geographic, gender, and other disparities?

The story of Nichole states that is a single mother of a son and daughter. Her mother also lives with her. As she is struggling with her responsibilities, she has no time to think about herself. He hardly takes her breakfast .If takes, she make sure that the food is cheapest. Day today’s life of Nicole has influenced his son a lot. Knowing his mother’s economic condition John takes part in different food program in school to get food that is free of cost. Most of these foods include cheese, sausage, waffles that have high caloric value. In case of Nicole’s mother Sarah and daughter Paula, the scenario is little bit different. Both stays at home and have their food together. Sarah earns through her evening job. The tiffin she takes , is not at all considered as healthy.

If we see their lifestyle we will get to know that they are struggling through their economic condition. For them the easiest way to save money is taking cheapest food. Moreover tendency of earning more has cut their time to think about them. Though Nicole and Sarah both are working, but their work is not at all involved any physical activity.

From the social perspective we can see that still women are not secure that made women to take help of neighbor while returning to home.