April 10, 2012

Today we began a lecture and discussion about health and nutrition policy. In this lecture we learned that national nutrition policies are how nutritional needs will be met and how certain issues will be addressed in American citizens through the use of guidelines. National nutrition policy's are clearly shown in food assistance programs, national nutrition and health objectives, FDA, dietary guidance systems like My Plate, etc.. The policy cycle figure is a good representation of how policy making occurs by making decisions to address a problem through the cycle's 6 stages. These policies are channeled by the outcomes of surveys; then the information is nutritionally assessed, monitored, observed, and screened. Survey information can be obtained from many sources of the NNMRRP, National Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research Program, but the major survey used is the NHANES, which stands for National Health on Nutrition Examination Survey.