Importance of Nutrition in Primary Care: Nutritional Risk and Malnutrition

Abstract

Food habits are a determinant of the health of the population and therefore an adequate assessment by the Family Doctor would improve the patients' lives, reduce complications, hospital stays and costs to the health system. An example of this reality is the elderly person who, either on his own initiative or through the family or caregiver, reports loss of appetite, who does not like food, walks and has lost weight. In these cases it is essential to perform a nutritional assessment, as well as the search for malnutrition in the face of a risk circumstance.