Abstract

Diet and nutrition play an important role in promoting recovery from different illnesses. Besides health reasons and hospital environment, food habits and preferences are one of the important factors affecting food intake of hospitalized patients. Food habits are the main aspect of many cultures, and cannot therefore be easily changed, or else it will affect food intake and meals pattern. Saudi people from different distinct regions eat different foods and have different food habits. The food ingredients, type, cooking methods and preservation techniques vary among these regions. Hospitalized patients often find it difficult to adjust, from their traditional food, to a standard hospital menu. This may result in reducing intake of food and increasing risk of malnutrition. One major step in promoting good nutritional care in hospitals is to ensure that hospital menus take into consideration patients’ needs and preferences. Moreover, patients should be involved in planning their meals and choosing their food items in order to customize their dietary plan to accelerate recovery from illness and reduce the length of hospital stay. The present review discussed the difficulties that some patients admitted to one of the major hospitals in Riyadh may face with food presented to them. The process of dealing with patients to fulfill their dietary requirements and preparing meals in accordance with their tradition and preference will also be discussed.

Keywords: Food Services; Food Preferences; Malnutrition; Hospital; Saudi Arabia

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Citation

Citation: Maha A Al Turki. “Hospital Food Services; Dealing with Cultural Influences”. Acta Scientific Paediatrics 4.2 (2021): 37-40.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2021 Maha A Al Turki. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.