As a Dietitian in our undergraduate years, we are drilled in the art and science of the ADIME Process, fairly standard from a health professionals perspective I believe but the thought of talking through the process a Dietitian goes through in order to work with an individual may be enlightening. The first thing you probably should know is as Health professionals we love an ACRONYM. From study habits we all develop during those gruelling years of anatomy, physiology and biochemistry I think it gets indoctrinated and we carry that learning principle through into our practice. So ADIME is your first intro into the world of ACRONYMS, welcome. ADIME stands for Assess, Diagnose, Intervention, Monitor and Evaluate. A – Assessment. In the Assessment we go through yet another 5 letter acronym from the start of the alphabet, ABCDE, the first is A is anthropometry, the body measures, as a human being you require Protein, Carbohydrates and Fat, these come in the form of food. It all gets a bit confusing from there, depending on who you speak to, which way your facing, which way the wind is blowing and whether you’re hungry or not as to what foods are best/ worst/ trendy/ tasty/ sexy/ insta-worthy/ I think you catch my drift.
Anyway, once we have assessed the body through measures from scales or bio-electrical impedance, circumference measures and height etc. we end up being able to calculate the body’s daily requirements. This is also dependent on an activity factor and is subject to debate among the profession. Below is the spreadsheet I have set up to give me these calculations with the key understanding from all of this being that from one human to the next we are so different, temperature, step length, work environment, stress levels all play a part and these numbers are just an indication as a starting point for us to compare to later once we look at what is being consumed.
Mr Example, not bad for 99
Name: Mr Example
Age: 99
Weight (kg): 85
Height (m): 1.86
BMI: 25
EER – 8500
KJ
EProteinReq – 68g
EFatReq 10-15%- 23g
ECHOReq 45-65%- 225g
Daily Fluid Req L 3.0
Ideal Body weight 86
Circumference
Waist 90
Hips 100
Chest 87
Waist:Hips Ratio 0.9
Quick note a Kilojoule (KJ) is a measure of energy just as a calorie is, the difference being that 4.2KJ is equal to 1 Calorie, also known as a KiloCalorie. It’s all a bit confusing when you start using numbers, conversions and abbreviations. I remember back in the days of the undergrad years I had done all my placements and calculations in KJ and then went to the Children’s Hospital and had to change to Calories quickly as paediatrics is all Calories. I know confusing right!!!
Next update we look at Biochem, but the takeaway from this one is that the human body, regardless of your eating preferences requires Protein, Carbohydrates and Fat and this is the first step in creating some framework for the body’s requirements.
