OVERVIEW

Now that you’ve had a chance to start helping clients in the West Side Teen Nutrition Clinic story, it’s time to use what you’ve learned to help yourself first, and later a peer, in the “On Your Own,” projects. As the name suggests, you should do these projects independently, instead of with your team.

In “On Your Own A” you will treat yourself as your own client, assessing your nutritional needs and risks. You’ll first go through a few activities to help you do the assessment well. Each of the steps is described broadly below, but you can go to the Get Help section for step-by-step instructions on how to do each part.

Keep in mind that you should work on the “On Your Own” tasks in parallel with the corresponding West Side Clinic story-based task. Refer to the rotation schedule for details.


Evaluate Your Eating Patterns and Behaviors
Do you think you have healthy habits? Evaluate your eating patterns and behaviors. Complete the Eating Patterns and Behaviors Template based on your gut reaction to the questions. This will help you get a sense for when you eat, why you eat, and how healthy those patterns are. Later you can compare your initial impressions of your eating patterns and behaviors with your more formal evaluation of your diet and exercise habits.

Track Your Diet & Exercise Habits
How well do your diet and exercise routines help you achieve your fitness and health goals? Begin tracking and analyzing your diet and exercise habits. Use the attached Diet & Exercise Journal to record your food intake and activity level over the next four days. Later you’ll use your Diet & Exercise Journal as a tool for assessing your own diet and exercise patterns.

Create a Client Questionnaire
Using the right client assessment questionnaire is an important tool for assessing nutritional health. Every nutritional advisor has his/her own set of questions s/he prefers to ask. In this task, you will use the Preparing the Client Questionnaire Template to help you create a questionnaire of your own. You will test the questionnaire on yourself, and later you will use it to interview a peer who will act as your client.

Analyze your Own Nutritional Health
When you are satisfied with the questionnaire you have developed, try it out by completing the questionnaire yourself. Then use the attached Client Assessment Template to analyze your own nutritional needs and risks like you did for Jay.