In today's fast-paced world, where convenience often trumps health, understanding the benefits of a healthy diet is more critical than ever. Consuming a healthy diet throughout life helps prevent malnutrition in all its forms and a range of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and conditions. This article explores the multifaceted advantages of adopting a balanced and nutritious eating plan, supported by scientific evidence and practical advice.
The Foundation of a Healthy Diet
Before diving into the benefits, it's essential to define what constitutes a healthy diet. 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. While the specifics may vary based on individual needs and cultural contexts, the basic principles remain consistent. A healthy diet includes:
- Abundant Fruits and Vegetables: Aim for at least 400g, or five portions, of fruit and vegetables per day.
- Legumes and Nuts: Incorporate lentils, beans, and nuts for protein and fiber.
- Whole Grains: Choose unprocessed maize, millet, oats, wheat, and brown rice over refined grains.
- Limited Free Sugars: Reduce intake to less than 10% of total energy, ideally less than 5%, to minimize the risk of dental caries and unhealthy weight gain.
- Healthy Fats: Restrict total fat intake to less than 30% of total energy, focusing on unsaturated fats while limiting saturated and trans fats.
- Low Salt Intake: Consume less than 5g of salt per day, using iodized salt.
For infants and young children, optimal nutrition in the first two years is crucial for healthy growth and cognitive development. Breastfeeding is recommended exclusively for the first six months, continuing up to two years and beyond, complemented by adequate, safe, and nutrient-dense foods from six months onwards, without added salt and sugars.
Top Benefits of a Healthy Diet
1. Reduced Risk of Chronic Diseases
One of the most compelling reasons to adopt a healthy diet is its ability to lower the risk of serious diseases. Eating healthier - like following the produce-and-fiber-rich Mediterranean diet or DASH diet - may lower your risk of serious disease. Diets rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains are associated with a decreased risk of obesity, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and certain types of cancer. The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, specifically designed to combat high blood pressure, emphasizes vegetables, fruits, low-fat dairy products, fish, poultry, beans, and nuts while limiting saturated and trans fats, added sugars, and sodium.
2. Enhanced Immunity
A robust immune system is vital for fighting off infections and illnesses. Eating all those fruits and vegetables, along with other fiber-rich foods and healthy sources of protein, may help you maintain a healthier immune system. A diet rich in fruits and vegetables, along with fiber-rich foods and healthy protein sources, supports a healthier immune system, enabling the body to fend off germs that cause colds and flu and recover more quickly.
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3. Sustained Energy Levels
Food is fuel, and the right kind of fuel can make a significant difference in daily energy levels. Your body and brain need fuel to power you through your day. Sure, a candy bar will give you a quick burst. But you’re more likely to crash once the sugar rush disappears. A better idea? Eat meals and snacks that combine protein and unsaturated fats with unrefined carbs like whole grains. Those foods raise blood sugar slowly, which your body converts into energy. Instead of relying on sugary snacks for a quick energy boost, opt for meals and snacks that combine protein, unsaturated fats, and unrefined carbohydrates like whole grains. These foods provide a steady release of energy, preventing the crashes associated with sugar rushes.
4. Improved Sleep Quality
Quality sleep is essential for overall health and well-being. Eating lots of processed foods that are low in fiber and high in saturated fats can interfere with deep sleep. That’s the stage of sleep that allows you to feel your best when you wake up. For a better night’s sleep, get plenty of fiber from vegetables, fruits and whole grains. Choose low-fat protein sources. And go for foods that are high in B vitamins, which may help regulate melatonin, the sleep hormone. A diet high in processed foods, saturated fats, and low in fiber can disrupt sleep patterns. To improve sleep, focus on fiber-rich foods like vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, along with low-fat protein sources and foods high in B vitamins, which may regulate melatonin, the sleep hormone.
5. Sharper Cognitive Function
A healthy diet is not just beneficial for the body; it also plays a crucial role in maintaining cognitive function. Kids need healthy foods to fuel their growing brains. But older adults need to continue eating healthy foods to keep their brains sharp too. Those foods are highlighted in the MIND diet. They include whole grains, leafy greens, nuts, beans, berries, poultry and fish, with fat mainly coming from olive oil. The MIND diet, which emphasizes whole grains, leafy greens, nuts, beans, berries, poultry, and fish, with olive oil as the primary fat source, supports brain health and may reduce the risk of cognitive decline and dementia.
6. Stronger Bones and Teeth
Adequate intake of calcium and magnesium is crucial for maintaining strong bones and teeth. Sure, you need calcium to build strong bones and keep them that way. But you also need many other vitamins and minerals, including vitamin D, magnesium and vitamins K, C and A. Food is the best way to get these nutrients. A diet rich in calcium and magnesium, obtained through dairy products, kale, broccoli, and canned fish with bones, can minimize the risk of bone issues like osteoporosis later in life.
7. Enhanced Eye Health
Specific nutrients play a vital role in maintaining eye health and preventing age-related conditions. Eating foods rich in vitamins C and E, zinc, lutein, zeaxanthin and omega-3 fatty acids can be good for your eyes. You can lower your risk of serious eye conditions that can cause blindness, such as age-related macular degeneration and cataracts. Consuming foods rich in vitamins C and E, zinc, lutein, zeaxanthin, and omega-3 fatty acids can lower the risk of serious eye conditions like age-related macular degeneration and cataracts.
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8. Reduced Inflammation
Chronic inflammation is linked to various health problems, including arthritis. The Mediterranean diet offers plenty of anti-inflammatory foods. They are rich in antioxidants and vitamins that can help ease joint pain and improve other symptoms of arthritis. Those include fatty fish rich in omega 3s (like salmon), unsalted nuts and seeds, and beans. The Mediterranean diet, rich in antioxidants and vitamins, offers anti-inflammatory benefits that can ease joint pain and improve symptoms of arthritis, thanks to foods like fatty fish rich in omega-3s, unsalted nuts and seeds, and beans.
9. Weight Management
Maintaining a moderate weight is essential for reducing the risk of chronic health issues. Maintaining a moderate weight can help reduce the risk of chronic health issues. A person who has more weight or obesity may be at risk of developing certain conditions, including: coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis, stroke, hypertension, certain mental health conditions, some cancers. Healthy foods, including vegetables, fruits, and beans, are lower in calories than most processed foods. Maintaining a healthy diet can help people stay within their daily limits without monitoring their calorie intake. A diet rich in vegetables, fruits, and beans, which are lower in calories than processed foods, can help individuals maintain a healthy weight without strict calorie monitoring.
10. Improved Mood
Emerging evidence suggests a close relationship between diet and mood. According to a 2020 study, diet can affect several factors which, in turn, may impact a person’s mood. These include: blood glucose levels, immune activation, the gut microbiome. The researchers also found that certain diets, such as the Mediterranean diet, may be linked to better mental health. The opposite is true for diets with high amounts of red meat, processed foods, and high fat foods. Certain diets, like the Mediterranean diet, may be linked to better mental health, while diets high in red meat, processed foods, and high-fat foods may have the opposite effect.
Practical Advice for Maintaining a Healthy Diet
Adopting a healthy diet involves making informed choices and incorporating practical strategies into daily life. Here are some actionable tips:
- Prioritize Fruits and Vegetables: Always include vegetables in meals, eat fresh fruit and raw vegetables as snacks, and choose seasonal varieties.
- Reduce Unhealthy Fats: Steam or boil foods instead of frying, replace butter with oils rich in polyunsaturated fats, and limit consumption of baked and fried foods and pre-packaged snacks containing industrially-produced trans-fats.
- Limit Salt Intake: Reduce the amount of salt and high-sodium condiments used in cooking, avoid adding salt at the table, limit salty snacks, and choose products with lower sodium content.
- Cut Back on Sugars: Limit sugary snacks, candies, and sugar-sweetened beverages, opting for fresh fruit and raw vegetables as snacks instead.
- Breastfeed babies and young children: A healthy diet starts early in life - breastfeeding fosters healthy growth, and may have longer-term health benefits, like reducing the risk of becoming overweight or obese and developing noncommunicable diseases later in life. Feeding babies exclusively with breast milk from birth to 6 months of life is important for a healthy diet. It is also important to introduce a variety of safe and nutritious complementary foods at 6 months of age, while continuing to breastfeed until your child is two years old and beyond.
- Eat plenty of vegetables and fruit: They are important sources of vitamins, minerals, dietary fibre, plant protein and antioxidants. People with diets rich in vegetables and fruit have a significantly lower risk of obesity, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and certain types of cancer.
- Eat less fat: Fats and oils and concentrated sources of energy. Eating too much, particularly the wrong kinds of fat, like saturated and industrially-produced trans-fat, can increase the risk of heart disease and stroke. Using unsaturated vegetable oils (olive, soy, sunflower or corn oil) rather than animal fats or oils high in saturated fats (butter, ghee, lard, coconut and palm oil) will help consume healthier fats. To avoid unhealthy weight gain, consumption of total fat should not exceed 30% of a person's overall energy intake.
- Limit intake of sugars: For a healthy diet, sugars should represent less than 10% of your total energy intake.
The Role of Governments and Organizations
Promoting healthy diets requires a collaborative effort involving governments, the public sector, and the private sector. Governments have a central role in creating a healthy food environment that enables people to adopt and maintain healthy dietary practices. Effective actions by policy-makers to create a healthy food environment include the following:
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- Creating Coherence in National Policies: Align trade, food, and agricultural policies to promote healthy diets and protect public health.
- Incentivizing Healthy Food Production: Increase incentives for producers and retailers to grow, use, and sell fresh fruit and vegetables while reducing incentives for the production of processed foods high in saturated fats, trans-fats, free sugars, and salt/sodium.
- Encouraging Food Reformulation: Promote the reformulation of food products to reduce the contents of saturated fats, trans-fats, free sugars, and salt/sodium.
- Regulating Marketing to Children: Implement WHO recommendations on the marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to children.
- Establishing Standards for Healthy Dietary Practices: Ensure the availability of healthy, nutritious, safe, and affordable foods in public institutions and workplaces.
- Implementing Nutrition Labeling Policies: Use regulatory and voluntary instruments, such as front-of-pack labeling, to facilitate consumer understanding.
- Providing Nutrition Counseling: Offer nutrition and dietary counseling at primary health-care facilities.
- Promoting Breastfeeding: Implement the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, promote policies to protect working mothers, and support breastfeeding in health services and the community.
Addressing Barriers to Access
Accessibility and affordability are critical factors in adopting a healthy diet. Distance to grocery stores and lack of transportation are barriers that can inhibit access to healthy food options. Individuals without a vehicle or access to convenient public transportation,10 or who do not have food venues with healthy choices within walking distance, have limited access to foods that support healthy dietary patterns. Predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods have fewer large chain supermarkets than predominantly White and non-Hispanic neighborhoods. Lack of access to foods that support healthy dietary patterns may have a greater impact on members of racial/ethnic minority communities, residents of low-income communities,11 and those living in rural areas, especially older adults, due to the other social and environmental determinants they tend to face. Affordability also influences access to foods that support healthy dietary patterns. Low-income groups tend to rely on foods that are cheap and convenient to access but are often low in nutrients.10,13 Fresh fruits and vegetables and other healthier items are often more expensive at convenience stores and small food markets than in larger chain supermarkets and grocery stores.
To address these barriers, strategies include:
- Improving food environments: Implementing programs that increase the availability of healthy food options in underserved communities.
- Providing economic incentives: Offering price reductions on healthier food choices to encourage increased purchasing.
- Supporting local food initiatives: Encouraging community gardens and farmers' markets to provide access to fresh produce.