Course Goals

(As provided by American University course HLTH 610 Lifecycle Nutrition)

Allow students to critically assess key nutrition concepts in each stage of the lifecycle.
Provide students with the opportunity to explore and evaluate health conditions and nutrient concerns throughout the lifecycle.
Expand student’s understanding of scientific research as it pertains to nutrition and health in each stage of life.
Expand on the key concepts of lifecycle nutrition by providing opportunity for interactions with nutrition experts in the field.
Improve student’s understanding of nutrient needs and recommendations from infancy to adulthood.

Artifacts

Click on each apple for more…

Research Paper-Adolescent Nutrition: Effects of Disordered Eating and Interventions

Case Study-Toddler and Preschooler Nutrition

Reflection

We were able to complete an expert interview during this course and here is the reflection based on our conversation.

Expert Interview with Ann Caldwell, Registered Dietitian & Nutrition Coordinator

Ann Arundel Medical Center (AAMC)

Ann Caldwell is a registered and licensed dietitian and the nutrition coordinator at Ann Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, Maryland. The tenure of her career has been with AAMC, a place where she loves working and could not imagine being anywhere else. The flexibility of her job allows her to pick her hours in order to accommodate the needs of her and her family; over the years she has been afforded the opportunity to work part time as well as full time while there.

Ann completed her undergrad in four years, majoring in human nutrition and dietetics. She then went on to her clinical internship and obtained her licensure form the American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Ann received her job after finishing her clinical internship, where she then became a part of the Health and Wellness group at the AAMC. Abigail Nelson, manager of the Health and Wellness group, whom Ann reports to, works along with about 4,000 employees on the medical campus to support healthy lifestyle changes, including but not limited to healthy eating workshops, support groups, exercise and yoga classes. Ann added that renewal for licensure is required every two years at the rate of seventy-five hours of continuing education; if national licensure is obtained, then seventy-five hours is required every five years. She also noted that everyone has a professional development portfolio to keep track of hours earned as well as a way to reflect on what has been learned and use that as a tool to guide her career path.

Working with adults, only part of her clientele, Ann mentioned the use of Prochaska’s model to support health behavior change as the transitions can be challenging, especially for adults whom find it difficult to begin the health behavior change and stay with it. She went on to say that Prochaska’s model is integrated with all of her clientele and integrates motivational interviewing in the process. Health behavior change in any aspect of the lifecycle is challenging and the focus needs to be on the individual being counseled, not a textbook model. With that being said, Ann went on to describe some aspects of her most challenging cases in her area of specialization, human eating disorders. This area includes anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, night eating syndrome and a new area of interest to her, ARFID or avoidant restrictive food intake disorder also known as a selective eating disorder.

Using Prochaska’s model, motivational interviewing, and sound research she presents to the client to support her recommendations, she is able to coach a very diverse clientele, as well as address a wide range of health concerns. The most prominent health concern she noted was obesity, followed by hypertension and hyper cholesterol, which she emphasized, are a result of obesity. When asked about type II diabetes, she stated there is an entire other group that works specifically with type I and type II diabetes and they are referred separately.

On the day of the interview, she was scheduled to be coaching a gentleman with kidney disease, a woman with osteoporosis, a child being seen for the first time who was noted to be obese and a woman battling anorexia. After stating the schedule for the day, describing a typical day was especially intriguing; there is no typical day and why she loves what she does. The diversity of the daily schedule and the clientele she coaches, is what motivates her to go to work every day. Weather the schedule is coaching clients, or traveling and presenting at conferences or at AAMC, the small positive changes over time she witnesses with her clients or when a “light-bulb goes off”, is enough to justify that her hard work and efforts have made a positive impact on their physical and emotional well-being.

Nutrition is extremely important as it impacts all aspects of health and well-being. Ann stressed that being current is the most important part of working in the nutrition field. Not only being current but using reputable sources with sound research methods and findings backing the claim(s) being presented. Many reliable, reputable resources were suggested, they are listed below and include but are not limited to journals, books, search engines and organizations:

· American Cancer Institute

· Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

· The Blue Zones (book by Dan Buettner)

· Nutrition Action Newsletter

· Today’s Dietician

· Eating Disorder Resources

· Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics journal

· Med Scape

· Pub Med

· Linus Pauling

· Mayo Clinic

· Harvard

· Tufts

With some time to spare at the end, Ann touched on a few aspects as typical hours worked per week, salary ranges/benefits and training that would best prepare someone for the nutrition education field. In terms of a typical work week, she works from 32-40 hours and does not take work home; on rare occasions she may need to speak with a doctor or a psychiatrist that has questions about an extreme case, like anorexia. Starting salaries are between $40,000 to $75, 000 depending on background experience, years in the field and any special certifications; health benefits are excellent and supported fully by the hospital. And finally, recommendations for education and training are dependent on the focus area(s) of nutrition and the amount of schooling that one would like to complete. Referring to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics would be an excellent source and explains what is needed for licensure in each state and communicates what course work and/or certification(s) would be needed to plan the course of one’s career.

Reference

Caldwell,A., personal communication, July 16, 2019

Lifecycle Nutrition