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.

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