Dietary needs are the specific nutritional requirements that a body requires to function optimally and remain in good health. These needs encompass a wide range of nutrients, including both macronutrients and micronutrients. While general guidelines for dietary needs exist, individual requirements can vary. Consulting with a registered dietitian, nutritionist, or healthcare professional is the best way to ensure a person can determine their specific dietary needs.
Essential Components of Dietary Needs
An essential dietary component is one that the body cannot synthesize in sufficient quantities to maintain health. These components include:
- Carbohydrates: Provide energy and are the body’s primary source of fuel.
- Fats: Important for various bodily functions.
- Vitamins: Organic compounds required in small amounts for various physiological functions.
- Minerals: Inorganic substances necessary for different bodily processes.
Calories represent the energy derived from food. Essential nutrients are those that the body cannot synthesize and must be obtained from the diet. Recommended dietary allowances (RDAs) are based on estimates of the dietary requirements and are designed to prevent deficiency diseases and promote health through an adequate diet.
Factors Influencing Dietary Needs
The exact make-up of a diversified, balanced, and healthy diet will vary depending on individual characteristics (e.g., age, gender, lifestyle, and degree of physical activity), cultural context, locally available foods, and dietary customs.
General Guidelines for a Healthy Diet
Consuming a healthy diet throughout the life-course helps to prevent malnutrition in all its forms as well as a range of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and conditions.
Read also: The Hoxsey Diet
For adults, a healthy diet includes the following:
- Fruit, vegetables, legumes (e.g., lentils and beans), nuts, and whole grains (e.g., unprocessed maize, millet, oats, wheat, and brown rice). At least 400 g (i.e., five portions) of fruit and vegetables per day.
- Less than 10% of total energy intake from free sugars. Free sugars are all sugars added to foods or drinks by the manufacturer, cook, or consumer, as well as sugars naturally present in honey, syrups, fruit juices, and fruit juice concentrates. A reduction to less than 5% of total energy intake would provide additional health benefits.
- Less than 30% of total energy intake from fats. Saturated fats should be reduced to less than 10% of total energy intake and trans-fats to less than 1% of total energy intake. Industrially produced trans-fats are not part of a healthy diet and should be avoided.
- Less than 5 g of salt (equivalent to about one teaspoon) per day. Salt should be iodized.
For infants and young children, the following elements are also important:
- Infants should be breastfed exclusively during the first 6 months of life.
- Infants should be breastfed continuously until 2 years of age and beyond.
- From 6 months of age, breast milk should be complemented with a variety of adequate, safe, and nutrient-dense foods. Salt and sugars should not be added to complementary foods.
Practical Advice on Maintaining a Healthy Diet
- Fruit and vegetables: Eating at least 400 g, or five portions, of fruit and vegetables per day reduces the risk of NCDs and helps to ensure an adequate daily intake of dietary fibre.
- Fats: Reducing the amount of total fat intake to less than 30% of total energy intake helps to prevent unhealthy weight gain in the adult population. Reducing saturated fats to less than 10% of total energy intake, reducing trans-fats to less than 1% of total energy intake, and replacing both saturated fats and trans-fats with unsaturated fats can lower the risk of developing NCDs.
- Salt, sodium, and potassium: Reducing salt intake to the recommended level of less than 5 g per day could prevent 1.7 million deaths each year. Intake of potassium can be increased by consuming fresh fruit and vegetables, which can mitigate the negative effects of elevated sodium consumption on blood pressure.
- Sugars: In both adults and children, the intake of free sugars should be reduced to less than 10% of total energy intake. A reduction to less than 5% of total energy intake would provide additional health benefits.
Dietary Restrictions and Special Diets
Food allergies or sensitivities, religious practices, and ideological beliefs are some of the main reasons people rely on specific diets or follow dietary restrictions. While some restrictions are meant to prevent life-threatening events, others speak to personal and moral beliefs.
Here are some common dietary restrictions:
Lactose Intolerance
Lactose intolerance is a digestive disorder caused by a deficiency of the enzyme lactase, which helps digest lactose - the main type of carb in milk. Having lactose intolerance means that symptoms like bloating, abdominal pain, flatulence, and diarrhea, may occur after consuming lactose-containing foods, including milk and milk products. Current treatments for lactose intolerance include reducing or eliminating its intake or taking lactase pills. People with lactose intolerance have trouble digesting lactose-containing foods such as milk and some milk products and are better off when presented with lactose-free alternatives.
Read also: Walnut Keto Guide
Gluten-Free Diet
Gluten is one of the main proteins in wheat, but it’s also found in barley and rye. Celiac disease is a gluten-induced autoimmune disorder that leads to inflammation and damage to the small intestine. On the other hand, non-celiac gluten sensitivity is a nonallergic and nonautoimmune condition also caused by gluten consumption that leads to symptoms similar to those of celiac disease. Current treatments for both disorders rely on following a strict and lifelong gluten-free diet. Gluten-free diets help prevent health complications among people with celiac disease and non-celiac gluten sensitivity caused by gluten consumption. This means that foods and ingredients like wheat, barley, and rye should be avoided.
Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism is a dietary pattern that relies mainly on plant-based foods and avoids meats, poultry, and fish. However, multiple variations allow for some animal-based foods. Vegetarians primarily eat plant-based foods and avoid meat, poultry, and fish. However, some forms of vegetarianism may allow for dairy, eggs, fish, and even meat.
Veganism
Vegan diets are a stricter form of vegetarianism in which all animal and animal-derived foods are avoided. Vegans rely solely on plant-based foods and avoid all types of animal and animal-derived foods and products.
Kosher Diet
Kosher refers to the dietary principles followed by Jewish law, which dictates which foods are allowed. Generally, a kosher diet centers around three main features: allowed animals, the prohibition of blood, and the prohibition of mixing dairy and meat. Kosher refers to the Jewish dietary law, stating which foods are allowed and prohibited, as well as how to prepare and process them.
Keto Diet
The keto diet restricts carbs to 20-50 grams per day while encouraging an intake of up to 70% of your daily calories from fat. The keto diet limits carbs to 20-50 grams per day. Therefore, grains, legumes, most fruits, and starchy vegetables are not allowed. Instead, protein, fats, and nonstarchy vegetables are permitted.
Read also: Weight Loss with Low-FODMAP
Diabetes-Friendly Diet
People with diabetes have an impaired ability to metabolize carbs either because they produce little to no insulin (type 1 diabetes) or can’t absorb insulin (type 2 diabetes). A diabetes-friendly diet provides moderate amounts of foods from all food groups while limiting refined grains and high-sugar foods.
Dairy-Free Diet
A dairy-free diet differs from a lactose-free diet in that it excludes all dairy products, including cheese, yogurt, and other fermented products, as well as cream and butter. Dairy-free diets eliminate milk and milk products, including cheese, butter, yogurt, and other fermented products and lactose-free varieties.
Low-Carb Diet
Low-carb dietary restrictions are very similar to the keto diet. Make sure to emphasize animal-based proteins, nonstarchy vegetables, and healthy fats while limiting grains, sugary, and processed foods.
Food Allergies
Food allergies may lead to life-threatening reactions when consuming certain foods. The most common ones include wheat, eggs, soy, fish, shellfish, and nuts. Currently, the most effective treatment for a food allergy is the complete elimination of the food.
Medical Foods
Medical Foods are specially formulated and processed for the partial or exclusive feeding of a patient by means of oral or enteral nutrition. They are intended for the dietary management of a patient with specific nutritional needs because of a disease or condition for which distinctive nutritional requirements, based on recognized scientific principles, are established by medical evaluation. An essential consideration is that the patient's nutritional needs cannot be met by modification of the normal diet alone. *“Abnormal physiological manifestation or physical impairment” includes the following conditions associated with acute and chronic diseases or health conditions: (i) a limited, impaired, or disturbed capacity to ingest, digest, absorb, metabolize, or excrete ordinary food or certain nutrients or metabolites, or (ii) other medically-determined requirements for nutrients/other food substances of biological value.
Promoting Healthy Diets
Diet evolves over time, being influenced by many social and economic factors that interact in a complex manner to shape individual dietary patterns.
Governments have a central role in creating a healthy food environment that enables people to adopt and maintain healthy dietary practices. Effective actions by policymakers to create a healthy food environment include the following:
- Creating coherence in national policies and investment plans - including trade, food, and agricultural policies - to promote a healthy diet and protect public health.
- Promoting appropriate infant and young child feeding practices.
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