A nourishment education program offering information relevant to individuals with type 2 diabetes who go regularly to the clinic is helpful for improving eating habits. We developed meal improvement software called “Calorie mama”, and created a program for improving eating habits in non-facing type individuals who had used this software. As the first stage, patient characteristics and diet-related problems were identified prior to introduction of the program by investigating data obtained from a questionnaire, self-administered food diary, and laboratory test results. Findings were that one group of individuals required blood glucose control and weight loss to address issues of obesity. Many individuals were unable to effectively use diet-and health-related information. With regard to dietary content, “appropriate quantities” were poorly understood, particularly with respect to vegetables and foods containing large amounts of carbohydrates and fats, and subjects were not implementing diets with a balance between grain dishes, vegetable dishes, and fish and meat dishes. A substantial need for dietary improvement was thus also indicated. Whether the problems identified were able to be improved need to be investigated as the next stage.

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We studied ways to introduce specific health guidance. Twenty-two men and women were randomly divided into C group (10 people) and H group (12 people). H group received guidance based on the result of an investigation using the health practice index ( HPI : Number from Breslow's seven lifestyle categories including : exercise, breakfast, eating between meals, sleep, smoking, drinking, and proper body weight). For C group, usual guidance without a preparatory audit was done as a contrast. The effects of the health guidance were compared based on changing BMI and HPI scores after three months. As a result, both groups had a significant BMI score decrease as well as an increase in their HPI score, but the changes in H group were larger than in C group. The number of those having the exercise habit in H group was especially increased compared to C group. In conclusion, our study suggested that effective health guidance could be practiced by utilizing HPI to find out the critical problems in lifestyle and select valuable contents for an appropriate guidance focused on individual issues.

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