Nutrition in the community

Referring to a dietitian can assist people with a spinal cord injury (SCI) living in the community to stay healthy.

Key nutritional considerations in the community setting include:

1. Improve diet quality for long term health

Eating a well-balanced diet is vital to maintain a healthy weight and reduce the risk of developing cardiometabolic disease. Adopting a Mediterranean dietary pattern is recommended following SCI. This means: 

• Including plenty of vegetables, fruits, wholegrains, herbs and spices  
• Reducing saturated fat by considering a switch to low fat dairy and eating more fish, legumes, lean poultry and eggs
• Choosing small amounts of healthy fats such as extra virgin olive oil, avocado, nuts and seeds  
• Limiting intake of alcohol, sugar sweetened drinks and processed foods containing high amounts of sugar and salt.  
• Ensuring fibre intake is at least 15g-20g per day, increasing as tolerated in the context of bowel management 

2. Achieve and maintain a healthy weight

A healthy weight is lower for someone with SCI. This is because people with SCI have reduced muscle and bone mass compared to people without SCI.

Traditional body mass index and waist circumference cut-offs underestimate the risk of developing cardiometabolic disease and other chronic health problems in people with SCI. While determination of SCI-specific cut-offs are a topic of ongoing research, the following have been proposed to classify obesity and identify risk of developing cardiometabolic disease:

Body mass index

1. Healthy weight: <22kg/m²
2. Obese: >22kg/m²

Supine waist circumference

1. Low risk: <86.5cm
2. Increased risk: 86.5 – 94cm
3. High risk: >94cm

See nutrition in the rehabilitation setting and weight gain prevention for further information surrounding other nutritional considerations that may be relevant for the community setting.