Question

10. Kyla C. is a 27-year-old professional woman who is 5 feet 8 inches tall and vigilantly maintains her weight at 118 pounds by following a lacto-ovo (non-fat milk and egg whites only) vegetarian diet that supplies approximately 1200 kcalories a day. With her understanding that protein should provide between 10 and 35 percent of her daily calories, she reasons that her daily intake of 40 grams of protein from milk, eggs, legumes, and nuts is adequate for her needs. She is concerned, however, that she has been sick more than usual and has experienced two stress fractures in her leg over the past three years while exercising.

a.         Explain why Kyla’s assumptions about her protein needs are unrealistic based on her current weight.

1. Assuming a healthy weight for Kyla is 141 pounds, use the information from the “How to” feature (p. 186) in your text to calculate her recommended daily protein requirement. Show your calculations.

2. What percentage of Kyla’s current energy intake comes from protein? Show your work. Remember that protein provides approximately 4 kcalories per gram. Is this adequate? Why or why not?

d.         Kyla’s energy needs for a healthy weight are closer to 1600 kcalories a day. How might her low calorie intake influence her protein status and possibly contribute to her current health issues?

e.         How would you explain to Kyla that her low intake of calories and protein contribute to her risk for osteoporosis?

f.          Assuming that Kyla consumes 20 grams of protein from whole grains, vegetables, and legumes each day, calculate how she can meet the remainder of her protein needs with dairy foods and egg whites. Use the following values as a starting point, 1 cup of milk = 8 grams of protein, and 1 egg white = 7 grams of protein. Show your work.

Answer 1

a) In this case kyla's assumptions about her protein need is totally unrealistic....because protein needs are based on age, gender,weight,your daily activity ( means do you have regular exercise or not, active or not or you live in sedentary lifestyle).

Here kyla has a misconception that protein need is calculated only measuring the calories intake ....she is making an mistake as he only calculate the protein need according to her daily calories intake which is 1200 calories per day and she takes protein per day 40 gm .

But according to her weight means 118 lb= 118× 0.454= 53.6 kg

Recommended dietary allowance is 0.8gm/ kg

So,kyla protein needs should be = 0.8×53.6= 42.9gm

b) if kyla's weight is assumed to be 141 pound .

141 pound = 141×0.454= 64 kg

Daily protein requirements =0.8gm/kg

So, kyla needs = 0.8×64= 51.2 gm of daily protein.

c) approximately 4 kcalories comes from 1gm of protein.

Kyla currently takes daily protein 40 gm

Means energies comes from protein = 40×4=160kcalories

Kyla's total calories intake daily= 1200 kcalories.

So, kyla's current energy intake from protein = (160/1200) ×100 = 13.33%

d)according to kyla's weight her daily energy needs is 1600 kcalories. But as she takes 1200 kcalories a day se is in low calories intake. Llw calories will contribute to low metabolic rate( metabolism will be slow down and she will feel no energy during work),gastrointestinal tract disorders, as she takes low calories she can miss micronutrients in her diet, reduce the muscle mass. And as the body needs energy sources to keep on her body's vital sign the body will consume her muscles mass and she will become sick day by day if she continues this low calories intake.

e) As she is taking low calories intake she might miss some micronutrients like vitamins D and calcium which is so needful for bone maintenance and development. Daily requirements of calcium is 1300mg/ day and vit D 1200 IU/day ....But kyla's daily calories intake is low as she can lack this micronutrients and contributes to formation of osteoporosis.

f) if assumed that kyla consumes 20gm from whole grains, legume,vegetables. Rest of protein she can took from egg white and milk.

As ,given 1 egg white = 7 gm of protein.

1 cup ot milk= 8 gm of protein

For this she can take 3 egg white which give her 3×7= 21 gm of protein. And along with that she needs 1 cup of milk which give 1×8 = 8 gm of protein.

So, she get protein from milk and egg = 21 +8 =29 gm

Total protein = 29 +20 = 49 gm which is far more than her daily protein requirements.