Diet Imbalance & Deficiency

Activities to try

1. 1

   Diet clinic: diagnose the cause and fix the diet

   Why it works: A deficiency disease is caused by the lack of a specific nutrient (or closely linked nutrients, such as vitamin D and calcium in rickets), not by eating too little food overall; you can eat plenty of energy-rich food and still be ill. This is distinct from starvation (too little energy) and obesity (too much energy).

   1. Examine a patient who presents with a sign, e.g. bleeding gums and loosening teeth, bowed/soft legs, persistent tiredness, steady weight gain, or severe wasting.
   2. Read the patient's diet log and form an explicit hypothesis: too much energy overall, too little energy overall, or a specific missing nutrient — and if a deficiency, name which nutrient.
   3. Edit the diet to test the hypothesis (for example, first try simply adding more of the same foods already in the log, then try adding a specific nutrient such as vitamin C), and observe whether the patient's condition improves (some effects, such as bone deformity from rickets, may only partly reverse).
   4. State in your own words why your chosen change worked or failed — tie the outcome to surplus, deficit, or a specific missing nutrient.
   5. Work through at least two deficiency cases (e.g. scurvy/vitamin C and rickets/vitamin D with calcium) plus one surplus and one deficit case so all three failure modes are practised.
2. 2

   Body-map of deficiency signs (naming layer)

   Why it works: Each deficiency disease pairs with a specific missing nutrient and a recognisable sign, so a symptom can be read back to its cause.

   1. Explore a body-map illustration with tappable signs: select bleeding gums to reveal 'scurvy — too little vitamin C'; select bowed/soft legs to reveal 'rickets — too little vitamin D/calcium'; add a sign for iron deficiency (anaemia — persistent tiredness/pallor).
   2. Open a lift-the-flap prompt: 'Is a deficiency disease caused by eating too little food?' → 'No — by missing a specific nutrient (for rickets, vitamin D and/or calcium), which can happen even on plenty of food.'
   3. Build or complete a disease → missing-nutrient table from the signs you uncover (scurvy/vitamin C, rickets/vitamin D with calcium, anaemia/iron).
3. 3

   Classify and match: surplus, deficit, or specific deficiency

   Why it works: The three failure modes are distinct categories, and poor-diet harm can accumulate over time rather than appearing immediately.

   1. Match each deficiency disease to its missing nutrient (scurvy→vitamin C; rickets→vitamin D/calcium; anaemia→iron).
   2. Categorise short scenarios as energy surplus, energy deficit, or specific-nutrient deficiency.
   3. Answer a short-response item explaining why the harm from a poor diet can be long-term or sometimes irreversible (e.g. rickets affecting bone development).