Advance Performance Nutrition 7HMNT021
1
Assessment Brief: From Paper to podium: Translating the Potential of
Performance Nutrition Research
Background
Reflecting on semester 1, you have had the opportunity to work with a client by designing,
implementing and evaluating a nutritional intervention with a real client in Essentials of Nutrition
and Performance. This coursework will build on this by focusing in more detail on fundamental
aspects of the consultation process. A sports nutrition practitioner’s goal is to translate innovations
in research to develop and administer practical interventions to help your clients successfully attain
their goals. This is no easy feat, as it requires the critical evaluation of the translational potential of
scientific research alongside determining the feasibility of applying this in the given practical context.
As such, the modern-day sports nutrition practitioner requires knowledge and expertise in
biochemistry, physiology, nutrition and psychology to effectively translate nutritional research.
The basis of this assessment is designed from the principles outlined by Close et al. 2019 (DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-018-1005-2), in a paper that leads to the development of a 9-step
framework to help you evaluate the translational potential of research to inform your practice. It is
recommended that you read and familiarise yourself with this paper’s details before starting the
coursework.
The assessment
The assessment is split into three parts: 1) a client consultation; 2) analysis of the translational
potential of research that underpins client’s nutritional recommendations and; 2) the
communication of nutritional advise and supporting evidence to your client.
Part 1: The client consultation
You will be expected to identify a volunteer who is willing to be our client for this assessment.
Ideally, this person should have someone who exercises regularly (or planning to) and has some
health and fitness related goals. They don’t necessarily have to be participating in a sport. Still, if you
wish to focus on a particular sport, you may want to consider recruiting an individual involved in that
sport.
They should then sign an informed consent form to demonstrate that they understand the reasons
for the consultation, how you’ll use their information/recorded, and agree to volunteer. This signed
document must be part of your final submission
You must provide video or an audio recording of the consultation. This should be accompanied by a
written time-stamped video log to outline what was discussed (an example of this will be available
on blackboard).
It is essential that you clearly identify the client’s health and fitness goals in this consultation. It is
recommended that you used SMART principles to determine this. You must also ask the client to
complete a minimum 3-day food diary.
Part A will not form part of the final mark as it is assessed in other modules on the course, but
submissions without all the components outlined in part one will be scored zero.
Advance Performance Nutrition 7HMNT021
2
Part 2: Critical Analysis of the client nutritional needs and translational potential of research
that underpins the client’s dietary recommendations (60% of mark)
1) Outline the practical context you are working with and discuss the client’s goals, current
nutritional behaviours, lifestyle, and socioeconomic factors pertinent to the nutritional
intervention.
2) Produce a 3- month plan that includes at least 2 nutritional interventions based on the
above discussion. Atleast one intervention must be dietary focused and one must be a
nutritional supplement intervention. This should also consist of sound methods to evaluate
the effect of the intervention.
3) Provide a critical evaluation of the scientific evidence that justifies using the nutritional
intervention referring to biochemistry, physiology, nutritional and/ or psychology factors.
4) Discuss and critique the translational potential of relevant research and how applicable it is
to your scenario (using the 9-step framework by Close et al. (2019) to guide the discussion).
Section word count: 1500 words (+/- 10%)
Part 3: Communication of nutritional advise and supporting evidence to your client (30% of
mark)
The way you communicate your plan to the client is just as important as the plan itself to get the
client to buy into the intervention. In this section, you will be required to produce:
1) A 1-page A4 leaflet to feedback the key messages you want to share with the client.
Your presentation and style of communication will be assessed as part of this section
Presentation and writing (10% of mark)
Presentation and writing: should be in a professional format and referencing should use the Harvard
style as per the library guidelines.
.The general presentation rules for the submission apply to the formatting of the video observations
too, namely:
• All text (main body, appendices, etc.) and tables must be 1.5-spaced in 12pt Arial font.
• All tables & figures must appear in separate pages; each figure or table must be presented in
a separate page, though figures can contain multiple panels.
• Table labels and footnotes and figure legends must appear on the same page as the table or
figure; where this is impossible, these can continue the following page, which will be free of
main body text.
• Pages must be numbered consecutively throughout the document, except for the title page
(page 1).
• Abbreviations used should be those in normal use, and the full word(s) followed by the
abbreviation should be given in the first occasion. If necessary, provide a key to
abbreviations used on a separate page (list of abbreviations). For example, carbohydrate
(CHO).
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