Korean J Community Nutr.  2007 Feb;12(1):68-79.

Effects of Nutrition Counseling on Quality of Diet, Iron Status and Hematic Parameters in College Women Who Have Self-Recognized Anemic Symptoms

• Jeong SH
• Park JH
• Lee HO
• Choue R

Abstract

Iron deficiency is the most common nutritional problem that affects people of all ages in both industrialized and developing countries. Especially, college women are the target population for dietary iron deficiency. Recent study showed that the nutritional status of college women was poor because of insufficient food consumption and repeatabled weight reduction. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of nutrition counseling on the diet quality, nutritional status of iron and hematic parameters in college women who have self-recognized anemic symptoms. Anthropometric and dietary assessments as well as blood analysis, were carried out before and after the 8 weeks of nutrition counseling. During the experimental period, the 31 subjects were given nutrition education by a clinical dietitian. Nutrition counseling consisted of pathology of anemia, nutrition information for iron deficient anemia, diet information of balanced meals and menu choices for eating out. As a result, the frequencies of consumption of legumen and vegetables significantly increased after nutrition counseling (p < 0.05). Daily intakes of protein, especially animal protein, vitamin E, niacin, heme iron, and zinc significantly increased (p < 0.05). After nutrition counseling, some self-reported clinical symptoms such as 'dizziness', 'fatigue', 'short of breath', 'headache', 'sleeplessness', and 'beating heart' were significantly improved. Serum levels of transferrin (p < 0.01) and total iron binding capacity levels (p < 0.05) significantly increased. It could be concluded that the 8 weeks of nutrition counseling might be effective on quality of diet as well as iron status and it might also improve the some hematic parameters in college women who have self-recognized anemic symptoms.

Keyword

nutrition counseling; iron deficiency; quality of diet; clinical symptoms; college women

MeSH Terms

Anemia
Animals
Counseling*
Developing Countries
Diet*
Eating
Education
Female
Health Services Needs and Demand
Heme
Humans
Iron*
Iron, Dietary
Meals
Niacin
Nutritional Status
Nutritionists
Nutritive Value
Pathology
Transferrin
Vegetables
Vitamin E
Vitamins
Weight Loss
Zinc
Heme
Iron
Iron, Dietary
Niacin
Transferrin
Vitamin E
Vitamins
Zinc