Catering persons with hypercholesterolemia

My bachelor thesis is called ,,Food for people with hypercholesterolemia", and it focuses on cholesterol intake and its impact on the human body. The main aim of this thesis was to map the diet of people with hypercholesterolemia regarding both, quality and quantity of meals. The first part of this thesis is theoretical. It focuses on the description of basic nutritional components, on the issue of fat and cholesterol in the diet, on the characteristics of hypercholesterolemia disease, its classification, causes of development of this disease, treatment options and prognosis. The risk factors which lead to the hypercholesterolemia disease development, dietary restrictions, and some examples of low cholesterol and low fat diet menus are also mentioned in the first part of thesis. The practical part of this thesis was done as a qualitative and quantitative research. Qualitative research was conducted using the snowball method from February to March. Selected respondents recorded their diet for the period of one week. The diet was recorded in the record sheets which I evaluated after they were filled in and returned back to me. I entered all of the foods mentioned in the diet record sheets into the program ,,Nutriservis Prefesional", which helped me to calculate average intake of energy, fats, cholesterol, proteins and carbohydrates during the reference period. I also submitted questionnaire to examine eating habits, diseases and physical parameters of my respondents. The questionnaire was focused mainly on the frequency and quantity of food with high cholesterol. Then I determined the ideal weight according to BMI index for every respondent and from the ideal weight I calculated the ideal intake of calories, fats, proteins and carbohydrates per day. I compared ideal values of energy, macronutrients and cholesterol of each respondent with average values recorded during the research. The research revealed that most respondents have a diet with larger quantities of cholesterol than the recommended daily dose i.e. 300 mg of cholesterol per day