Nutrition and HIV/AIDS: A Training Manual - Linkages Project

Nutritional care and support and utilizationNutritional care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS is part of the utilizationcomponent of food security. It enables people living with HIV/AIDS to obtain theenergy and nutrients to meet their nutritional needs, manage symptoms, preventweight loss, maintain optimal nutritional status, and support immune function. Thisrequires a combination of appropriate dietary behaviors, hygiene and symptommanagement, availability of and access to food, and knowledge about nutritionalneeds.HIV, ensuing opportunistic infections, and medications can all increase the body’snutritional needs, inhibit nutrient absorption, or reduce food intake. This makes theutilization dimension of food security critical, as biological use of food is impaired bythese HIV-related factors. Appropriate dietary and nutritional behaviors can helpmitigate these problems, strengthen nutritional status, and manage symptoms (slide8).As described in other sessions of this module, nutritional care and support involvesinterventions such as dietary changes to ensure increased consumption of keynutrients required to address the virus or to complement medications; morefrequent feeding to maintain consumption in the face of anorexia, nausea, or otherside effects; and special food preparation to address symptoms (e.g., soft foods forthrush or mouth sores). For more information on nutritional management ofsymptoms, refer to Session 5.Access and availability constraints to nutritional care and support (slides 9, 10)The capacity to implement effective nutritional care and support depends on foodavailability and access. Sufficient quantities of a variety of nutritious foods must besteadily available, and households and people living with HIV/AIDS must have theresources to access an adequate quantity and variety of such foods. Limitedavailability of and access to nutritious foods constrains the capacity of manyHIV/AIDS-affected households to implement nutritional interventions to strengthenthe health and nutritional status of infected people. Furthermore, nutritional careand support often requires substantial time commitment from household membersand caregivers, and households face competing demands on time for food productionand income-generating activities.70