Global Conference on Nursing and Primary Healthcare

Challenges and opportunities in scaling up nutrition in healthcare

The healthcare sector has been in the state of flux for quite some time and as a result, it provides many opportunities and challenges at the same time. The Healthcare sector arrives with a plethora of exposure for technological practice, breakthroughs, and improved economies along with increasing availability of health care. However, the dedicated sector also has numerous challenges that include economic disparities which are leading to differing accessibility to healthcare. Let’s have a closer look at why is healthcare important and how it’s essential for everyone.

In today’s world, we have experienced many new diseases which did not exist a few years back and the major reasons behind many diseases which are appearing today are poor nutrition and lifestyle.

Why is healthcare important

“Health is Wealth” is a very old saying and that’s true, healthcare is very necessary for everyone as no one wants to be unhealthy. There are some areas across the nation where people are still unable to access healthcare facilities and they are at more risk.

Although we are living in the most advanced era of human evolution, we are facing a barrage of health-related issues in our lives. Poor nutrition and lifestyle are the major reasons for the onset of many diseases. An increase in consumption of highly processed foods, seed oils, and refined carbohydrates has led to an increase in chronic diseases. There are other additional factors as well that might be the reason behind our health concerns, like poor lifestyle, unhealthy environment, and mental instability. No doubt, why the healthcare sector needs to address a wider view of individual determinants.

Challenges in scaling nutrition in healthcare 

One of the major challenges in scaling nutrition in healthcare is treatment by medical practitioners. There are numerous medical practitioners who are not willing to update their knowledge and are still practicing in the same conventional procedure that they have learned years ago. When it comes to consulting data and treatment, there are many instances in which doctors treat their patients by analyzing one particular symptom without undertaking the entire body into consideration.

Nutrition plays a vital role in healing, but unfortunately, we don’t have any infrastructure to integrate nutrition into health care. There’s no infrastructure in place to integrate nutrition in healthcare when it is the most important part of healing. The majority of doctors are focusing only on conventional medicine to treat the disease but in reality, they are only treating that particular symptom with conventional medicine which makes interpretation for only one disease where the underlying cause for the same disease is different for everyone.

Opportunities in scaling nutrition in healthcare 

A patient after getting their required medical intervention always has the question why exactly did this happen to them? Collaboration with a functional nutritionist can help them to understand this question.

Functional Nutrition is based on preventing and curing health problems principally through a person’s diet and lifestyle choices. After a deep analysis of your blood and body, a Functional Nutritionist heals health issues through holistic techniques that include diet, lifestyle, and supplement regime.

Functional nutritionists make sure that the patients are comfortable enough to talk about their problems without any hesitation. Functional nutritionists don’t treat the symptoms with conventional methods; disease can have multiple underlying triggers like nutritional deficiency, environmental factors, or even some mental impediments. To solve this problem from its root cause we seek help from functional nutritionists.

Along with that we often forget the natural power that the human body possesses. Our body has all those tools which are needed to treat almost every health condition. This support system comes in three forms: one is proper nutrition, the second is mental health, and the third is favorable external factors. To perform our body at its best, we should have to know how we can take care of it.

Due to all the challenges and circumstances mentioned above, many have started recognizing the importance of healthy nutrition. Optimal nutrition is important in preventive care. The importance of nutrition should be recognized by healthcare, scientific literature, and healthcare training.