A Healthy Diet and the Challenges of Meeting It

Eating the Right Foods

It is true when it is stated, “You are what you eat”. If you chose to eat healthy foods rich in nutrient and fiber such as fruits and vegetables, keep carbohydrates and fats to a minimum, along with daily exercise you will live an active, healthy life. On the other hand if your food choices are high in fat, carbohydrates and do not include fruits and vegetables then you will most likely suffer from diseases such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, malnutrition, stroke and even certain cancers. 

As stated in Nutrition: Concepts and Controversies (Sizer & Whitney, 203), a healthy diet consists of six nutrients: water, carbohydrates, fat, protein, vitamins and minerals.  Carbohydrates, fat and protein are energy-yielding nutrients, meaning the body gets energy from these nutrients especially carbohydrate, and are called macronutrients since they are needed in larger amounts in our diets.   Protein not only provides energy but also provides materials that form structures and working parts of body tissues.  Vitamins and minerals help regulate and assist in all body processes such as digestion, excretion, muscle movement and growing new tissues to name a few.  Vitamins and minerals are called micronutrients since theses nutrients are needed in smaller amounts (pp7-8).

It is not easy eating a well balanced diet while making sure enough of each nutrient is provided.  Sizer & Whitney (2013) mention five dietary characteristics that are incorporated to ensure a balanced diet is followed:

• Adequacy -Foods need to provide sufficient essential nutrients, fiber and energy to maintain health.
• Balance -Making sure all the foods eaten are in correct proportion to each other.  An example would be eating a lot of carbohydrates and not enough protein ,fat, vitamins or minerals.
• Caloric Control -Food needs to be eaten in amounts needed for energy and not more.  This helps in maintaining weight and body fat.
• Moderation -Foods that are otherwise unhealthy in excess amounts such as fat, cholesterol, sugar and salt can be eaten in moderation.  Even healthy foods such as fiber and carbohydrates need to not be overeaten or they will have negative effects on the body.
• Variety - Diets need to have a variety of foods so that an adequate amount of nutrients are eaten.  The same foods eaten day after day or several times a week would prevent adequate nutrition (pp.11-12).
  

Personal and environmental factors influence our food choices.  Taste is one of the main reasons people chose the foods that they do (Sizer & Whitney, 2013, p. 13).  I like all kinds of foods and I enjoy trying out foods from other cultures but it has to taste good for me to add it to my personal menu.  Culture is another factor that drives our food choices.  We tend to lean towards foods we find familiar or comforting which would be our personal culture foods.  Another factor that affects the choices we make in food is health.  If we are trying to eat healthier or lose weight these factor will affect our food choices

 The environmental factors that drive our food choices are advertising.  If we are watching TV and see a commercial for pizza we can already smell the pizza due to conditioning and the image and smell remain in our minds.  This is exactly what marketing is trying to achieve in the hopes that we will go out and buy a pizza preferably the brand we saw in the commercial.  This tactic is applied over and over to different types of food whether through television, billboards, magazine or internet.

Other influencing factors noted by Sizer & Whitney (2013) are availability, cost, emotional comfort, habit, positive (foods eaten by people you admire or they indicate status) or negative association (foods were forced to be eaten or made you ill), region you live in, social pressure, values or beliefs, and health benefits (p. 13).

Reference:

Sizer, F. & Whitney, E. (2013). Nutrition: Concepts and Controversies (13^th ed.). Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.