There are many factors that can affect a person's nutritional needs, including their age, health, gender, genetics, environment, lifestyle, food quality and quantity, emotions, and occupation. Nutritional needs change throughout one's life as their body grows and ages. Additionally, factors like weather, physical activity levels, illnesses, and stress can require more or different types of nutrients. Quality and source of food are also important determinants of the nutrients available.

1. FACTORS AFFECTING
NUTRITIONAL NEEDS.

2.  FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE NUTRITION
INTAKE IN HUMAN
 There are a lot of factors that can affect the
nutrition intake in human. Here are some
factors that we want to highlight.

3.  1.Age
 2.Current state of health
 3.Gender
 4.Genetic history
 5.Environmental whether
 6.Medical illness
 7.Life style(people who regularly consume
large amounts of alcohol will have different
nutritional needs than those who exercise
regularly.

4.  8.The quality and quantity of food that human
take.
 9.Emotional factors.
 10.Occupation and Physical activities.

5.  Age
 As we human grow, the nutrition that we
take daily will eventually change to suit our
condition and growing process. This is due to
the aging factor that the person is experiencing
where the needs for the nutrients are changing
from time to time. As for infant that was born,
they only feed on milk and lactation.

6.  This is because they acquired most their
nutrients from breastfeeding. The mother’s
milk is the best nutrition for baby because they
don’t have any teeth yet to chew solid food
and mother’s milk contains the nutrients baby
needed and it also enriched with antibodies
that supplied from the mother.

7.  While for children and adolescents, they need
more nutrients to supply adequate essential
energy because at this phase they are having
rapid change in body size due to the rapid
development of muscle and formation of bone.
 Puberty also contribute to the increase on
nutrients intake to complete maturation
process and grow.

8.  While for the adults, they are having slower
growth rate and this to repair any tissues and
thus they maintaining their nutrients intake.
 As for the old people, they are mostly focusing
in a healthy diet and focus on intake of vitamin
and other nutrients due to the loss of lean
body mass.

9.  Environment’s Weather
 Environment factor is one of factors that
affecting people’s nutritional intake is. We are
focusing more on the weather itself.
 People are more likely to consume more food
during the cold rather than hot weather. So, we
will tend to eat more during the cold season,
for us in Malaysia probably in raining season.

10.  This is because of the body need to maintain the
body’s temperature to let the body’s to function
well.
 In order the body to achieve that, the body need
more energy from food and more likely
carbohydrate-rich food like rice, bread and else to
keep the body’s core at the optimum temperature.
 However, when it’s come to hot weather, our body
needs to be cooled and maintain. Therefore, more
liquids must be taken in order to keep our body
sweat to cool it down.

11.  The examples of pesticides that can be used
in agriculture are
dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT)-used to
kill insects-, acetylcholinesterase inhibitor –
used to kill snails-,
 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid
 (2,4-D) –used to kill unwanted plants- and
many more.

12.  When this contaminate food enter our body
system, it can lead the formation of the free
radical particles. Free radicals are unstable atoms
or groups of atoms that contain at least one
unpaired electron.
 Free radicals can attack healthy cells because
another atom or molecule can bond to it easily
since it contains unpaired electron.
 A chemical reaction will take place and may
damages that healthy cell.
 This can lead to cancer and initiate other serious
disease. So, it is clear that the low quality of food
that we consumed can decrease our nutrition
intake.

13.  In the other hand, quantity of food may be
referring to the source of food. Malaysia is a
country which has equatorial climate, being hot
and humid throughout the year which is good for
agriculture activities.
 But, Malaysia still cannot produce enough rice
and other food products to supply the country
since Malaysia is populated with hills and does
not have strong temperature climate.
 But, we still manage to settle this problem by
importing food from other countries.

14.  Besides that, Malaysia is bounded by water,
including the South China, Sulu, and Celebes
seas, and the Strait of Malacca.
 So, these enable fishery activities can take place
effectively and provide us with mass food
resources.
 Thus, Malaysians can have a perfect nutrient
content if we take a balance diet.
 Compare to Somalia, which currently suffer from
great drought that limited their food source. That
is why most of Somalia’s people do not a perfect
nutrient needed by body and lead to malnutrition.

15.  The quality and quantity of food that human take.
 The quality of food can be determine based on the external
factor such as appearance (size, shape, colour, gloss, and
consistency),
 flavor;
 texture and
 internal factors such as chemical, physical and microbial of
food.
 Chemicals added to the crops and livestock can influence the
quality of food that we usually take.
 Excessive use of pesticides for vegetable plantation can
decrease the quality of vegetable and lead to decrease the
nutrition value in human if we consumed it as food.

16.  EMOTIONAL FACTORS
 The very young infant will generally cry until fed but by
four or five months of age may stop crying when he
hears his mother’s footsteps or sees that the formula
is being prepared, presumably having learned to
anticipate and to wait for the relief of hunger pain.
 In later life, the period of tantalizing anticipation
before a meal may actually be considered
pleasurable, The repetitive cycle of nutritional and
emotional gratification during infancy becomes further
associated with the person giving the food, usually the
mother, so that being loved and fed come to be
associated in the mind of infant.

17.  Occupation and Physical Activities
 Nutrients give the energy that need to
perform the daily activities of living.
 Food may contain a few or many nutrients
and each nutrient has specific uses in the
body.
 The amount of energy used by the body is the
energy expenditure and this varies widely from
individual to individual.

18.  This is because when we do more work than
our body requires more energy to keep our
bodies still in healthy condition.
 Workers like coal miners, steel workers,
forestry workers, army recruits, builder’s
laborers’ and athletics’ need more food that
contains more nutrients such as
carbohydrates, protein and fats.

19.  It is important that meals for very active jobs to
provide sufficient energy, and it is advisable to
supply about one third of third of the energy in
the form of fat as carbohydrates food tend to
be bulky and would therefore be difficult to
digest while working actively.
 Extra water and sodium chloride should be
taken if work is carried out in a hot
atmosphere.