Fundamentals - Practice & Skills, part 18: Macronutrients, Micronutrients, and BMI

Hi. I'm Meris, and in this video, we are going to be talking about macronutrients, micronutrients, and body mass index. I'll be following along using our Fundamentals of Nursing flashcards, which are available on our website leveluprn.com. If you already have a set and you're following along with me, I'm starting on card number 101. So let's get started.

So first up, we're going to be talking about macronutrients. These are where your body gets its energy from. They're important building blocks for metabolism and other metabolic functions. And the big ones you need to think about when we talk about macronutrients are carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. Remember that fats can sometimes be called lipids. So carbohydrates, those are the main source of energy for the body. And for every gram of carbohydrates, you have four kilocalories, so four calories for every gram. Now, fats, these are also an incredible source of energy for the body. They're also important for storage and function and protection and insulation. They're going to help to protect our organs and keep our bodies nice and insulated. Now, when we talk about fats or lipids, remember that one gram of fat is nine calories; one gram of carbs, four calories; one gram of fat, nine calories. Moving on to proteins. Proteins are so important. We need to eat them because there are some proteins that our bodies cannot make, and we call those essential proteins. And then we also just need to replenish our protein stores so that we can build new proteins for all of our important metabolic functions. Now, proteins are similar to carbs in that one gram is equal to four calories. Very important stuff to know there. And I also want to point out that, on this card, we have a lot of bold and red information, which means that this is the most important stuff to know. There's more on this card than I have time to go into detail with, so be sure to look at this more in depth.

Up next, we're going to talk about micronutrients, and as the name might imply, micro, meaning small. These are things that your body needs much smaller amounts of. So first up, vitamins, very, very important to know. Lots of different functions for vitamins. I'm not going to go into all of them here. But if you're interested or if you are taking nutrition, I would recommend checking out our Nutrition Essentials flashcards, which are available on our website as well. So we have two different classes of vitamins. We have water soluble, and then we have fat soluble. So water-soluble vitamins are going to be your B complex and your vitamin C, so these are going to need regular replacement because you're constantly losing them through your urine. Now fat-soluble vitamins are going to be A, D, E, and K. You can remember this with our cool chicken hint, which is to think of A fat DEcK of cards. So fat, there you go. Fat, fat soluble; and then A DEcK; A, D, E, K; A fat DEcK of cards to help you remember the fat-soluble vitamins. Now, because these are fat soluble, they are stored in the body for longer, meaning that you can become toxic to them. Very important to know because these could become lethal in large amounts. Now, minerals, we have our major minerals, which are our electrolytes, which we talked about in the previous video. And then we also have trace minerals, which you don't really get too much in depth with for nursing, at least for nursing school. But these are things like copper and fluoride, iodine, selenium, zinc, and iron, which is a pretty important one. All right, let's move on.

Lastly, we are talking about body mass index, BMI. And I want to point out that here on this card, we have a really nice table for you. I think this is super helpful in just helping you. If you're visual if you really like to see it laid out in that manner, really, really great. So body mass index, it is a calculation of the patient's weight in kilograms divided by their height in meters squared. So you need to know their weight and height in kilograms and meters. So weight in kilograms, divided by height in meters squared. The height is squared, not the whole result. So a BMI less than 18.5 is an underweight BMI; 18.5 to 24.9 is healthy or average or ideal; 25 to 29.9 is overweight, and any number over 30 is going to be considered obese. Okay, so I hope that review was helpful for you. If it was, please go ahead and like this video. Let me know that you enjoyed it. If you have a great way to remember something, definitely let us know in the comments. I want to see it. And I promise you that other people watching this video want to see it as well. Be sure to subscribe to our channel because you want to be the first to know when our new video drops. The next video in this series is going to be talking about dysphagia. We're going to talk about different types of diets, food-borne illness, and measuring blood glucose. So I really hope that you'll check that out. All right. Take care. And happy studying.