VALUE OF DIET AND NUTRITION IN DAILY LIFE
A healthy diet throughout life promotes healthy pregnancy outcomes, supports normal growth, development, and ageing, helps to maintain healthy body weight, and reduces the risk of chronic disease leading to overall health and well-being
•The importance of a balanced diet can’t be emphasized enough for a healthy lifestyle. A healthy lifestyle can be attained by maintaining a balanced diet and keeping into consideration to meet all the essential nutrients required by the body. A proper meal plan helps to attain ideal body weight and reduce the risk of chronic diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular and other types of cancer.
What is a Balanced Diet?
•In simple words, it’s a diet that offers the nutrients to help your body function properly. The importance of diet lies in the intake of the right amount of calories. Your body gets the right nutrition when you consume a wide variety of food rich in calories such as fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and proteins.
Calories
•Calories are an indicator of the energy content in the food. Once you intake the food, the calories are consumed when you walk, think, or breathe. On average, a person may require about 2000 calories a day to maintain their body weight. Generally, a person’s calories may depend on their gender, age, and physical activity. Moreover, men need more calories than women. Again, people who are more into exercising require more calories in comparison to people who don’t. It’s also important to remember that the source of calories is equally important as the amount. Stuffing your food with empty calories, i.e. those that don’t contain any nutritional value doesn’t help in any way. Empty calories can be found in foods such as:
•Sugar
•Butter
•Cookies
•Cakes
•Energy drinks
•Ice cream
•Pizza
Importance of a Balanced Diet
•Eating a healthy diet is all about feeling great, having more energy, improving your health, and boosting your mood. Good nutrition, physical activity, and healthy body weight are essential parts of a person’s overall health and well-being.
•There’s no questioning the importance of healthy food in your life. Unless you maintain a proper diet for a healthy body, you may be prone to diseases, infection, or even exhaustion. The importance of nutritious food for children especially needs to be highlighted since otherwise they may end up being prone to several growth and developmental problems. Some of the most common health problems that arise from the lack of a balanced diet are heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes.
•Being physically active manages many health problems and improves mental health by reducing stress, depression, and pain. Regular exercise helps to prevent metabolic syndrome, stroke, high blood pressure, arthritis, and anxiety.
What Falls Under a Balanced Diet?
•A balanced diet includes some specific healthy food groups under it:
•Vegetables such as leafy greens, starchy vegetables, legumes like beans and peas, red and orange vegetables, and others like eggplant
•Fruits that include whole fruits, fresh or frozen fruits but not canned ones dipped in syrup
•Grains such as whole grains and refined grains. For example, quinoa, oats, brown rice, barley, and buckwheat
•Protein such as lean beef and pork, chicken, fish, beans, peas, and legumes
•Dairy products such as low-fat milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, and soy milk
•A wide variety for the selection of food choices should be from each of the five food groups in the specific amounts recommended. These food sources from each food group provide a similar amount of key micro and macro-nutrients to meet the body’s requirements.
•A balanced diet typically contains 50 to 60 percent carbohydrates, 12 to 20 percent protein, and 30 percent fat. All the organs and tissues need proper nutrition to work effectively by consuming the right amount of nutrients and calories to maintain an ideal weight. The overall health and well-being of a person are dependent on good nutrition, physical exercise, and healthy body weight.
•A proper meal pattern is a complete combination of food ingredients, food items, and quantities required for breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner for each specific age group. All you need is protein for your muscle mass and blood cells which brings oxygen and nutrients to your muscles.
•The body requires quality carbohydrates, lean protein, essential fats, and fluids accompanied by regular exercise in maintaining physical health and well-being.
Eating a Healthy Diet in Your Daily Life:
•It reduces the risk of serious health issues-Unhealthy eating habits have contributed a lot to chronic diseases and affects a wide range of the population. Those health issues are heart disease, certain types of cancer, hypertension (high blood pressure), type 2 diabetes, and, osteoporosis.
•But, by making smart food choices, one can protect himself from these health problems.
•Helps Lose Weight-Being overweight is not good for the health and can further lead to heart diseases, poor bone density, diabetes, etc.
•Taking a healthful diet free from processed foods helps a person stay within their daily limit, without having to count calories.
•The one important thing for a person aiming for weight loss should remember, is to reduce their calorie intake to not more than what they require each day.
Diabetes Management-For a Diabetic person, regular physical activity and healthy eating contribute a lot to managing diabetes.
•A healthy diet also helps prevent or delay any complications of diabetes. Therefore, it is recommended that they follow a healthy eating plan.
•Keeps you in a Better Mood-A well-balanced diet helps improve the mood. People who eat more fruits and vegetables tend to have better mental health.
•In a study, it has been found when young adults eat more servings of fruit and vegetables, they experience greater positive affect.
•Can reduce the risk of Cancer
•Cancer is the most dangerous and life-threatening health issue and is the leading cause of death all across the world.
•In a study in 2014, researchers found that a diet rich in fruits reduces the risk of cancers of the upper gastrointestinal tract.
•They also found that a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, and fiber lowers the risk of colorectal cancer. Whereas, a diet rich in fiber reduces the risk of liver cancer.
•After knowing the many health benefits of a balanced, healthy diet. There is no doubt that it contributes to the overall well-being of a person.
Eat Right
Some of the Most Common Healthy Eating Facts
•Eating healthy promotes longevity and reduce the risk of many health complications.
•It’ll save you a lot of money. Compared to an unhealthy diet full of processed goods, a healthy diet is much cheaper.
•Nuts Provide Healthy Fat and Energy.
•A healthy diet helps protect against malnutrition, as well as non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer.
•All parts of an egg are good for you and packed with nutrition.
There are one too many benefits of healthy eating and exercise.
•“Low-fat” usually means “sugar added” and should be considered unhealthy.
•Broccoli contains twice the amount of Vitamin C than oranges and contains as much calcium as whole milk.
•Added sugar provides empty calories and is believed to be a leading cause of diseases that kill millions of people each year.
•The best diet for you is the one that works for you and you can stick to it in the long term.
•Tran’s fats form in chemically processed oils and are linked to all sorts of chronic diseases. You should avoid them like the plague.
•Vegetables are rich in all sorts of nutrients. Eating vegetables each day is associated with improved health and a lower risk of disease.
•Vitamin D is a crucial hormone in the body and many people are deficient in it. Reversing a deficiency can have powerful health benefits.
•Refined carbohydrates like processed grains are unhealthy. They are lacking in nutrients and eating them may lead to rapid spikes in blood sugar and insulin, which can cause all sorts of problems down the line.
•It is much more important to eat real, nutritious foods than to count on supplements to provide the nutrients you need.
•Adopting a healthy lifestyle is the only way to ensure long-term weight loss and a lifetime of improved health.
MYTHS AND FACTS!!
1. MYTH? Cut back on carbs to lose weight.
FACT: Carbohydrates come in different forms: simple and complex. Simple carbs found in foods like cookies and candy lack vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Cutting back on these sweets is a great way to eat healthier. Foods with complex carbs like whole-wheat bread, beans, and fruit, have lots of nutrients that are good for you.
Cut back on simple carbs but keep complex carbs on the menu.
2. MYTH? If the label says “no-fat” or “low-fat,” you can eat all you want and not gain weight.
FACT: Many low-fat or no-fat foods have added sugar, starch, or salt to make up for the reduction in fat. These “wonder” foods often have just as many calories, or more, than the regular version.
Check the nutrition label to see how many calories are in a serving. Be sure to check the serving size too.
3. MYTH? Skipping breakfast makes you gain weight.
FACT: Eating a healthy breakfast can help you manage your hunger later in the day and help you to say, “No thanks,” to unhealthy snacks. No scientific studies have shown that skipping the morning meal leads directly to weight gain.
If you are not hungry first thing, listen to your body. When you are ready to eat, help yourself to a healthy option like oatmeal with fresh berries.
4. MYTH? Eating at night will make you fat.
FACT: People who eat late at night do tend to put on extra weight. One possible reason is that late-night eaters tend to choose high-calorie treats. Some people who snack after dinner do not sleep well, which can lead to unhealthy cravings the next day.
If you are hungry after dinner, limit yourself to healthy snacks such as low-fat yogurt or baby carrots.
5. MYTH? Fasting can help you lose weight quickly.
FACT: Fasting is not healthy if you go hungry all day and cap it off with a huge meal that replaces all the calories you skipped earlier. Compared to people who lose fat by eating fewer calories, people who fast lose more muscle than fat.
Look at your daily diet for empty calories you can cut out, such as refined grains and sugary drinks. Do not cut out meals entirely, especially without a doctor’s supervision.
6. MYTH? You have to set modest goals if you want to lose weight.
FACT: In theory, it makes sense that if you set ambitious goals and do not reach them, you might give up. However, some people actually lose more weight when they set goals that make them push themselves.
No two people are the same. What works for someone else may not work for you. Losing weight is a process. Be ready to modify your plan as you discover what works and does not work for you.
Myth and Truth
June 11, 2023
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