With the ongoing incidents of contaminated pet food, it’s perfectly understandable for pet parents everywhere to be questioning their dog’s diet and worry about what they are actually feeding their dog. For so long, pet parents just assumed that all dog foods were the same and surely the companies making them would only have their pet’s best interest at heart. Unfortunately, we all lost our faith in most of the dog food companies with the breaking news of contaminated dog foods.If at some point you have:
Questioned the quality of your dog food
Wondered if the food you are serving is safe
Considered changing foods to a better quality foodThen you are definitely ready to evaluate your dog’s diet and make a change.To many, attempting to make a change to their food can seem like a daunting task. With so many brands and varieties to choose from and misleading food labels that can seem impossible to interpret, many people just continue to avoid the process out of frustration. However, your dog’s overall health, quality of life and the length of their lifespan are all dependent on feeding them a quality dog food diet.Many pet parents fail to realize the huge impact their dog’s diet has on their pet. The effects are wide ranging, starting with:
Levels Can Be Poor With a Bad Diet
Health Problems Like Kidney or Liver Failure and Cancer
Behavioral Problems Such as Short Attention Span
Arthritis and Joint Pain
Weight Issues
Lifespan, the Length of Their Life is Directly Affected By Their Diet
Allergy Problems like Skin Flaking, Itching and Hotspots
Overall Health and Appearance including a shiny coat and clear eyes
Quality of Life is impacted By Low Energy, Nutritional Gaps and IllnessThese are just a few of potential health risks your dog faces when eating a poor quality diet.The good news is that you can improve your dog’s health simply by learning how to choose a quality food with simple tools & information. By considering your dog’s individual needs such as body weight, breed, genetics, age and their activity level, you can narrow quickly start to narrow down the proper food choices.By using a step by step process, you can learn to easily interpret those misleading food labels and identify the hidden ingredient meanings. You’ll need to use your dog’s personal needs as discussed above to start determining the proper category of pet food. When you are considering a food for your dog, it’s important to consider your own lifestyle in that choice. If you are a busy person with very little free time, then it’s unlikely a homemade food diet would work well for you because you would lack preparation time.It’s also important to consider the quality of the food. If the food is full of fillers and ingredients that are not whole meats for example, these should immediately be crossed off of your choices. You should also consider your budget when choosing a quality food. What can you reasonably afford to pay each month?Look for fresh ingredients such as fruits and vegetables. Avoid chemicals such as preservatives and dyes. When you are searching for a dog food, be sure to choose multiple possibilities. You will want to end up with 3 to 5 quality food options to provide both a change in variety and fill in nutritional gaps between foods.Try using a dog food comparison chart and a dog food ranking comparison worksheet once you have an idea of what you are looking for in a quality food. This can help you narrow down your choices and make ingredient and nutritional comparisons.By keeping it simple, you can learn to make an informed food choice for your precious pup. By choosing to be an informed pet parent, you can improve your dog’s quality of life, overall health and lifespan. All of which will give you:
A Happy Healthy Dog
More Years To Love Your Dog
Lower Vet BillsThese are just a few of the benefits of feeding your dog a quality food. Imagine the potential changes in your dog once they are eating a quality food. So give your dog a quality food and the healthy life they truly deserve and enjoy the benefits that come with being an informed pet parent.
Do You Worry About Your Dog’s Health and Dog Food Diet
What Is Nutritional Counseling?
Nutritional counselors, also known as dietitians, help patients identify and manage food and nutrition-related concerns through short- and long-term treatment strategies. Nutritional counseling is commonly applied to patients experiencing neuromuscular or musculoskeletal disorders, digestive ailments, obesity, diabetes, menopause, pregnancy, allergies, among other conditions.
By analyzing and assessing diet and exercise habits, nutrition is seen as a key factor in establishing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Without adequate nutrition, a large number of diseases can ensue in part due to the vulnerability placed on the body. Nutritional counselors aim to find integrated ways to set goals and help patients achieve them. When nutritional counselors assess patients, individual profiles are analyzed. The information the patient receives from the counselor is contingent on their lifestyle (vegetarianism, for instance), age, life stage (menopause, pregnancy), and medical history.
Nutritional Counseling incorporates weight monitoring and education about weight, food records, self-control strategies, meal planning, and problem-solving skills. Instruction of food planning and self monitoring is seen as instrumental in getting patients to follow a specified program.
The Work of Dietitians
Dietitians and nutritionists plan nutrition programs, helping to prevent and treat illnesses by promoting healthy eating habits while addressing dietary imbalances. They also recommend specific dietary changes to fit a person’s temporary condition. (Recommending extra folate for pregnant women, for instance.) Dietitians often work in hospitals and schools, applying their services through education and research. Clinical dietitians provide nutritional services to patients in institutions by assessing patients’ nutritional needs, developing and recommending nutrition programs, and evaluating the results with other professionals to coordinate medical and nutritional needs. Community dietitians counsel individuals and groups on nutritional practices aimed to prevent disease and promote health. They work as independent contractors with healthcare facilities or engage in their own private practice, screening clients’ nutritional needs and offering regulated approaches meeting them.
Eating Disorders
The American Dietetic Association (ADA) sets guidelines and protocols for the practice of nutritional counseling. In 1996, it defined guidelines for medical nutrition therapy for many medical conditions related to nutrition, which included eating disorders.
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) considers nutritional counseling as one of the most important treatment elements for people with eating disorders. Nutritional counseling is viewed for its role in motivating patients to agree to reestablishing healthy eating habits. In this context, nutritional counseling is seen holistically, in terms of how it fits into ongoing support to patients and their families.
Nutritional counseling in this context attempts to correct irregular eating habits, replacing it with a balanced approach to food and weight control. It provides a synthesis of information and practices, drawing from many fields including cognitive-behavioral, relational, and educational techniques. It is considered a part of overall treatment, not as a single-source approach. As such, it employs the support of other treatment methods, which can include psychotropic medications and psychological counseling.
Collaborative rapport between patient and counselor is considered essential for treatment success. The counselor addressed entrenched food beliefs, behaviors and attitudes revolving around food, how, when, and how much to eat it – amounting to a complex equation. Counseling environments must be secure, safe, and supportive, where the patient receives helpful information from the counselor in a direct but non-intrusive manner.
How Nutritional Counseling Can Help Overall Health: Counseling can clarify questions related to nutrients, calories, and special food needs, showing what to look for when reading food labels. They can help sort through healthy cooking alternatives in real-life contexts while teaching strategies of self-control. (One may learn how to better select items from a restaurant menu, for example.)
Digestive Problems – Dietitians or Nutritionists jointly work with physicians to establish dietary plans that are in keeping with a patient’s condition. They may recommend the removal of fried foods, spices or carbonation, while recommending other alternatives.
Diabetes – Counseling can provide healthy food alternatives without sacrificing taste.
Pregnancy – It can help ensure a pregnant woman is getting all the nutrients she needs, especially during the first three months of pregnancy, the crucial period that may affect a newborn’s risk for developing neural tube or spinal cord defects.
Conditions that May Benefit from Nutritional Counseling HIV, Cancer, Hypertension, Organ Dysfunctions, Hypoglycemia, and Heart Disease.
Most eating disorder centers and residential programs offer nutritional counseling. The benefits of receiving nutritional counseling includes improved ability to concentrate, a boosted immune system, stabilized moods, more energy, aid in recovery of eating disorders, and increase in overall health.
Enhance Your Marketing Through Personal Products Promotion
If you are in sales, great customer service and product knowledge are the basic foundation to your success. These skills will undoubtedly increase your production and earnings over time, but growing your business by word of mouth advertising and through past customers referrals will take time. Adding marketing and promotional products to promote your business will be an effective compliment to expand your business faster.If you are in the financial or real estate business, after you have completed a transaction and your customer is happy with your service, they may tell their friends and family for a few weeks. Unfortunately, after a few weeks the referrals will likely stop unless you maintain contact with them. A strong marketing and promotional campaign is a vital key to keeping up with your competition. Promotional campaigns use products that have your name, logo, and contact information on them to help you grow your business and develop recognition in your marketplace. When calling on your lead sources make your sales calls more effective and lasting by offering them useful products that will promote your services. Typical promotional products such as: pens, cups, flash lights, tape measures, and stress balls are all useful items in the real estate and financial industries. If you add a promotional campaign to your marketing endeavors, you should be able to lengthen the time your past customers and lead sources promote you and your business, thereby retaining a higher percentage of your past customers.Promotional items will also assist you in introducing a new services or products that you may want to offer. These new products and services may help you specialize and become more profitable. Becoming an expert in rehabilitation loans, first time home buyer down payment assistance loans, or zero down payment mortgage products and promoting your expertise through marketing and promotional products campaigns will decrease the time needed to capture new business and profits. You can create a marketing promotional campaign to maintain contact with past customers, reach out to new customers at events, or more effectively promote yourself through your sphere of influence. Creating an effective promotional marketing campaign will help you and your contacts spread the news of what you can offer. Promotional items should fit your business needs and can be used as closing gifts, informational pieces, generalized marketing, and employee retention and motivation.Creating an all-encompassing marketing system should utilize all aspects of personal promotion to reach your lead sources, these include: seminars, product knowledge, outstanding customers service, consistent contact, and retention systems to maximize your efforts. Developing a total marketing plan will enhanced your overall image as an expert and increases the likelihood that they will recommend their connections to you.