Nutrition for Life

Good nutrition is an important part of leading a healthy lifestyle. Combined with physical activity, your diet can help you to reach and maintain a healthy weight, reduce your risk of chronic diseases (like heart disease and cancer), and promote your overall health. You can improve your health by keeping a balanced diet. You should eat foods that contain vitamins and minerals. This includes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, dairy, and a source of protein.

The Impact of Nutrition on Your Health

Unhealthy eating habits have contributed to the obesity epidemic in the United States: about one-third of U.S. adults (33.8%) are obese and approximately 17% (or 12.5 million) of children and adolescents aged 2—19 years are obese. Even for people at a healthy weight, a poor diet is associated with major health risks that can cause illness and even death. These include heart disease, hypertension (high blood pressure), type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, and certain types of cancer. By making smart food choices, you can help protect yourself from these health problems.

The risk factors for adult chronic diseases, like hypertension and type 2 diabetes, are increasingly seen in younger ages, often a result of unhealthy eating habits and increased weight gain. Dietary habits established in childhood often carry into adulthood, so teaching children how to eat healthy at a young age will help them stay healthy throughout their life.

The link between good nutrition and healthy weight, reduced chronic disease risk, and overall health is too important to ignore. By taking steps to eat healthy, you'll be on your way to getting the nutrients your body needs to stay healthy, active, and strong. As with physical activity, making small changes in your diet can go a long way, and it's easier than you think!

 

Tips for Improving Your Health

Path to improved health

It can be hard to change your eating habits. It helps if you focus on small changes. Making changes to your diet may also be beneficial if you have diseases that can be made worse by things you are eating or drinking. Symptoms from conditions such as kidney disease, lactose intolerance, and celiac disease can all benefit from changes in diet. Below are suggestions to improve your health. Be sure to stay in touch with your doctor so they know how you are doing.

• Find the strong and weak points in your current diet. Do you eat 4-5 cups of fruits and vegetables every day? Do you get enough calcium? Do you eat whole grain, high-fiber foods? If so, you’re on the right track! Keep it up. If not, add more of these foods to your daily diet.
• Keep track of your food intake by writing down what you eat and drink every day. This record will help you assess your diet. You’ll see if you need to eat more or less from certain food groups.
• Think about asking for help from a dietitian. They can help you follow a special diet, especially if you have a health issue.

Almost everyone can benefit from cutting back on unhealthy fat. If you currently eat a lot of fat, commit to cutting back and changing your habits. Unhealthy fats include things such as: dark chicken meat; poultry skin; fatty cuts of pork, beef, and lamb; and high-fat dairy foods (whole milk, butter, cheeses). Ways to cut back on unhealthy fats include:

• Rather than frying meat, bake, grill, or broil it. Take off the skin before cooking chicken or turkey. Try eating fish at least once a week.
• Reduce any extra fat. This includes butter on bread, sour cream on baked potatoes, and salad dressings. Use low-fat or nonfat versions of these foods.
• Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables with your meals and as snacks.
• Read the nutrition labels on foods before you buy them. If you need help with the labels, ask your doctor or dietitian.
• When you eat out, be aware of hidden fats and larger portion sizes.
• Staying hydrated is important for good health. Drink zero- or low-calorie beverages, such as water or tea. Sweetened drinks add lots of sugar and calories to your diet. This includes fruit juice, soda, sports and energy drinks, sweetened or flavored milk, and sweetened iced tea.

Things to consider

Balanced nutrition and regular exercise are good for your health. These habits can help you lose or maintain weight. Try to set realistic goals. They could be making some of the small diet changes listed above or walking daily.

Doctors and dietitians suggest making healthy eating habits a part of daily life rather than following fad diets. Nutrition tips and diets from different sources can be misleading. Keep in mind the advice below, and always checks with your doctor first.

• Secret diets aren’t the answer. Fad or short-term diets may promise to help you lose weight fast. However, they are hard to keep up with and could be unhealthy.
• Good nutrition doesn’t come in a pill. Try eating a variety of foods instead. Your body benefits most from healthy whole foods. Only take vitamins that your doctor prescribes.
• Diet programs or products can confuse you with their claims. Most people in these ads get paid for their endorsements. They don’t talk about side effects, problems, or regained weight.

Balanced Diet

Vegetables: Eat 2 1/2 cups every day. Fresh, frozen and canned veggies all count, but choose "reduced sodium" or "no-salt added" canned vegetables.

Fruits: Eat two servings every day. At breakfast, try bananas or strawberries on top of your cereal. Choose 100-percent fruit juice when picking out juice.

Grains: Eat 6 ounces every day. Make at least half of your grain whole grains. Check the ingredients list and look for the word "whole" before the first ingredient.

Dairy: Get 3 cups every day. Choose skim or 1 percent milk in order to get the same amount of nutrients with less fat and calories. If you're lactose intolerant, switch to lactose-free milk or fortified soy milk (soy beverage).

Proteins: Eat a variety of seafood, beans, peas and nuts in addition to lean meats, poultry and eggs. Trim or drain fat from meat and remove skin from poultry to cut fat and calories.

The Balancing Game

The key to balance is making informed decisions. Choosing healthy foods for each meal isn't always easy, so it's important to balance your meals. For example, if you have a high-fat lunch with lots of meat, go for a dinner that is lower in fat and contains generous amounts of vegetables. Another key to the balancing act is choosing nutritionally dense foods. They contain high amounts of essential nutrients, will fill you up longer and provide healthy energy. These include foods like:

• Lean meat, skinless poultry and tofu
• Fruits like strawberries, papaya, mango and watermelon
• Vegetables like spinach and carrots
• Whole-grain bread and brown rice
• Low-fat milk