A healthy diet is not just a fleeting trend; it's a cornerstone of well-being, offering a multitude of benefits that extend far beyond mere weight management. It's an investment in your present and future health, protecting you against chronic diseases and enhancing your overall quality of life. Eating a variety of foods and consuming less salt, sugars and saturated and industrially-produced trans-fats, are essential for healthy diet.
What Constitutes a Healthy Diet?
A healthy diet comprises a combination of different foods. These include: Staples like cereals (wheat, barley, rye, maize or rice) or starchy tubers or roots (potato, yam, taro or cassava), legumes (lentils and beans), fruit and vegetables and foods from animal sources (meat, fish, eggs and milk).
Benefits of a Healthy Diet
Early Life Advantages: Breastfeeding
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.
Reduced Risk of Chronic Diseases
A healthy diet is essential for good health and nutrition. It protects you against many chronic noncommunicable diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
- Heart Health: The foods people eat can reduce their blood pressure and help keep their hearts healthy. Limiting certain types of fats can also improve heart health. For instance, eliminating trans fats reduces low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels. This type of cholesterol causes plaque to collect within the arteries, increasing the risk of a heart attack and stroke.
- Cancer Prevention: Having obesity may increase a person’s risk of developing cancer and result in less favorable outcomes. Maintaining a moderate weight may reduce these risks.
- Diabetes Management: A healthy diet may help a person with diabetes manage their blood glucose levels, keep their blood pressure within target ranges, keep their cholesterol within target ranges, prevent or delay complications of diabetes and maintain a moderate weight. People with diabetes must limit their intake of foods with added sugar and salt. They should also consider avoiding fried foods high in saturated and trans fats.
Weight Management
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 and some cancers. Many 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.
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Improved Mood and Mental Health
Some 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 and 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.
Enhanced Brain Health and 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. A healthy diet may help maintain cognition and brain health. The following diets incorporate many of these elements and are associated with a lower risk of cognitive decline and dementia: Mediterranean diet, Nordic diet, DASH diet and MIND diet.
Stronger Bones and Teeth
A diet with adequate calcium and magnesium is important for strong bones and teeth. Keeping the bones healthy can minimize the risk of bone issues later in life, such as osteoporosis.
Better Sleep
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.
Immune System Boost
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. That means you’ll be able to fight off the germs that cause colds and flu. And you’ll likely recover more quickly if you do get sick.
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Energy Boost
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.
Eye Health
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.
Reduced Inflammation and Arthritis Symptoms
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.
Practical Tips for a Healthy Diet
- 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.
- Follow the DASH Diet: The DASH diet, or the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension diet, includes plenty of heart-healthy foods. The program recommends eating plenty of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, choosing fat-free or low fat dairy products, fish, poultry, beans, and nuts, limiting saturated and trans fat intake, such as fatty meats and full-fat dairy products, limiting drinks and foods that contain added sugars and restricting sodium intake to less than 2,300 milligrams per day - ideally 1,500 mg daily - and increasing consumption of potassium, magnesium, and calcium.
Navigating Healthy Benefits Programs
Some healthcare plans offer benefits to support healthy eating. For Humana members who meet certain criteria, like having qualifying chronic health conditions, this allowance may also be used to help pay for eligible food.
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