Study after study shows that good
food choices have a positive impact on health, and poor diets have negative
long-term effects. Know the facts:
- A healthy diet gives your body the nutrients it needs to perform physically, maintain wellness, and fight disease. Americans whose dietary patterns include fresh, whole foods like fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, lean meats, and fish have a lower incidence of major chronic disease and especially of diet-related diseases.
- Unfortunately, the standard American diet (S.A.D.) is heavy in saturated fats, partially-hydrogenated oils, refined carbohydrates, and highly processed foods.
- This diet, in combination with a sedentary lifestyle, large portion sizes, and high stress, is blamed for the increase in obesity and associated diseases in the U.S. (according to the Center for Disease Control, over a third of the U.S. adult population is obese). Diseases associated with obesity include type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, respiratory problems, and certain cancers, including breast cancer in women.
In short, what we eat is central to
our health. Food acts as medicine to maintain health, as well as prevent and
treat disease. For more information about how food works in our bodies,
see What Do Specific Foods Do?.
Eating
too much or too little
Obesity is rising rapidly, and, as
we saw above, is associated with many serious, even life-threatening, diseases.
However, eating disorders, including
anorexia nervosa, bulimia (binge eating and purging), and binge-eating
disorder, are also on the rise. According to the National Eating Disorders
Association, in the United States alone, 20 million women and 10 million men
have suffered from an eating disorder at some time in their lives. These
disorders are significant threats to health and are often chronic.
The average age of sufferers is
plummeting, claiming control of children as young as elementary school. Peak
eating disorder onset among girls occurs between ages 11 and 13. Eating
disorders are also appearing more frequently among men and middle-aged women.
Nourishing
ourselves
The increase in both eating
disorders and obesity dramatically demonstrate that diet is not just about
giving your body sustenance. Nourishing yourself engages every aspect of your
being—physical, social, emotional, mental, and spiritual. When any of these aspects are
unbalanced, eating behaviors can suffer.
Nutrition involves our relationships with family, friends, community, the environment, and the world. We need to make
decisions about what and how we eat that foster not only our health and wellbeing,
but the health of those around us and of our planet and environment.
A healthy diet may help to prevent certain chronic
(long-term) diseases such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes. It may
also help to reduce your risk of developing some cancers and help you to
keep a healthy weight. This leaflet explains the principles of a
healthy diet. It is general advice for most people. The advice may be
different for certain groups of people, including pregnant women, people
with certain health problems or those with special dietary
requirements.
A note about the different food groups
Your body needs energy to work normally and keep you alive. You get this energy from nutrients in the food that you eat - mostly, carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Minerals and vitamins are other nutrients that are also important in your diet to help your body stay healthy.It is important to get the right balance between these different nutrients to get maximum health benefits (see below). Your diet should contain food from each of the following food groups:
- Starchy foods such as bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, etc.
- Fruit and vegetables.
- Milk and dairy foods.
- Protein foods. These include meat, fish, eggs and other non-dairy sources of protein (including nuts, tofu, beans, pulses, etc).
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What are the benefits of a healthy diet? A healthy diet may help to prevent certain serious diseases such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes. It may also help to reduce your risk of developing some cancers. If you become sick, eating a healthy diet may help you to recover more quickly. Also, a main way of preventing obesity and overweight is to eat a healthy diet. If you are overweight or obese, eating a healthy diet can help you lose weight.
What makes up a healthy diet?
As a general rule, starchy foods and fruit and vegetables should provide the bulk of most of your meals. About one third of your diet should be made up from starchy foods and about one third from fruit and vegetables. The remaining one third of your diet should be made up from milk and dairy foods and protein foods. As mentioned above, you should limit the amount of foods and drinks that are high in fat or sugar.If you have a specific health problem, or specific dietary requirements, this advice may not apply to you. If in doubt, you should check with your doctor. There are also some changes that pregnant women need to make to their diet. Always seek professional advice, remember health is wealth, no matter how long God wants you to live your eating habit can determine how well and how long you live!
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