When we consider our overall well-being, nutrition and exercise emerge as fundamental lifestyle components, alongside sufficient sleep and effective stress management. Nutrition and exercise are crucial for maintaining a healthy body and facilitating recovery when you're unwell. It can be challenging to adopt and maintain healthy habits, but tools like food and fitness trackers can provide accountability. Apps that monitor your progress and remind you to stay active, hydrated, or track your food intake can be particularly beneficial. Small, gradual changes are often more manageable and effective than attempting numerous changes simultaneously. For example, opting for the stairs instead of the elevator or incorporating a brisk 10-minute walk during your lunch break can be a great start. Understanding the benefits of healthy eating can significantly boost your motivation.
Short-Term and Long-Term Benefits of Healthy Eating
Adopting a healthy diet can significantly lower your risk of developing certain health conditions in the future. Nutrition plays a vital role in preventing heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, and certain cancers. Even if you've already received a diagnosis, nutrition can be a powerful tool in managing your condition effectively.
Furthermore, healthy eating provides immediate benefits. When your body receives the necessary nutrients, both your physical and mental well-being can improve significantly.Following a healthy diet has many benefits, including building strong bones, protecting the heart, preventing disease, and boosting mood. A healthy diet typically includes nutrient-dense foods from all the major food groups, including lean proteins, whole grains, healthy fats, and fruits and vegetables of many colors.
How to Achieve Your Weight Loss Goals
Managing your weight can be particularly challenging during periods of significant lifestyle changes. Individual calorie needs vary based on factors such as height, body composition, and weight goals. Utilizing a meal planner to create a healthy eating plan or exploring sample meal plans tailored to specific calorie goals can be helpful. Numerous resources, including articles on portion sizes and calories, along with tools like food diaries, trackers, and apps, are readily available.
Technology can be a valuable asset in supporting healthy eating habits. Numerous apps can assist with menu planning, food purchasing, safe food storage, recipe creation, and integrating other wellness practices like exercise, sleep, hydration, and mindful eating. When selecting an app, it's crucial to verify the credibility of the content source.
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Metabolism and Age
As we age, the body naturally experiences a decline in muscle mass, known as sarcopenia, which can be further exacerbated by reduced physical activity. This loss of muscle mass can impact your metabolism. Regular exercise can help maintain strength and muscle mass. Finding an enjoyable and sustainable exercise routine tailored to your individual needs is essential. Fitness trackers or calendars can serve as motivational tools to stay consistent.
Identifying Nutrients in Food
Evaluating your current diet is the first step. Consulting with your doctor or a registered dietitian can help identify any deficiencies in essential micro or macronutrients. Once you've determined your specific calorie and nutrient needs based on factors like age, size, gender, and activity level, numerous online resources can assist you in creating a balanced diet. For example, Nutrition.gov’s What’s in Food section provides information on compounds present in common foods, including carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, fiber, salt and sodium, and food additives and compounds. The ARS nutrient database, FoodData Central, is a valuable resource for researchers and professionals to understand the nutrient composition of foods. It also provides insights into factors influencing nutrient content variability, such as genetics and environment.
Understanding Sugars: Added vs. Natural
Candy contains added sugars, which provide calories but lack essential nutrients like vitamins, minerals, or fiber.
Fruit, on the other hand, contains naturally occurring sugars as part of its growth process, along with beneficial nutrients like vitamins, minerals, and fiber.
Carbohydrates: Choosing Wisely
While some carbohydrates are essential for brain and body function, individuals with specific health conditions or risks may need to reduce their intake. Consulting with your doctor or a registered dietitian is recommended to determine the appropriate carbohydrate intake for your specific needs. When choosing carbohydrates, prioritize options that provide additional nutrients like vitamins, minerals, protein, and fiber, such as fruits, vegetables, beans, legumes, whole grains, and dairy products.
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Cholesterol in Foods
Dietary cholesterol, found in foods from animal sources like meat and cheese, can impact heart health. When making dietary choices, consider the cholesterol content of different foods, such as donuts and bagels, which can vary depending on the specific recipes used. Eating less dietary cholesterol can be part of a heart-healthy diet.
Protein Sources for Non-Meat Eaters
There are many protein sources beyond meat such as seafood, fish and shellfish, dairy and eggs. Vegans can obtain protein from pulses, including beans, dry peas, and lentils, as well as tofu, tempeh, seitan, and soy. Individual protein needs depend on factors like age, activity level, and any pre-existing health conditions.
Calcium Intake Without Milk
Milk alternatives, such as soy, almond, oat, and cashew beverages, are often fortified with calcium.
Encouraging Healthy Eating Habits in Children
Nutrition.gov’s Kids’ Corner page offers games, videos, word searches, crossword puzzles, coloring sheets, and other activities to engage children in learning about healthy food choices and food safety.
Encouraging your child to try new foods can be achieved through mealtime activities, such as having them select a new fruit at the store or involving them in preparing homemade whole grain bread. You could also hide vegetables in meals that they like, such as mixing pumpkin in your mac and cheese or hiding spinach in your afternoon smoothie. If you have concerns about your child’s nutrition, it may also be helpful to talk to your pediatrician.
Read also: Mobile Dining Revolution
Making Favorite Foods Healthier
There are many resources available that can show you how to cook your favorite ingredients in healthier ways, such as adding herbs to a recipe instead of salt. Or, when baking, substituting applesauce in place of oil. Our Meal Prep and Cooking Tips page on Nutrition.gov offers resources on how to cook your favorite ingredients in healthier ways.
Traditional Foods and Healthy Eating
Traditional foods, flavors, and cuisines offer a variety of healthy choices. Resources and recipes for traditional foods, such as pupusas, enchiladas, yucca, fried rice, stir fries, and more, are available.
Carbohydrates: Not the Enemy
The body and brain need carbohydrates to function properly.
The Top 10 Benefits of a Healthy Diet
Here are some of the most significant benefits of adopting a healthy diet:
- Reduced Risk of Serious Disease: Following a healthy diet, such as the Mediterranean or DASH diet, can lower your risk of developing serious diseases.
- Stronger Immune System: Eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, along with other fiber-rich foods and healthy sources of protein, can 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.
- Sustained Energy Levels: Combining protein and unsaturated fats with unrefined carbs like whole grains provides a sustained release of energy, preventing energy crashes.
- Improved Sleep Quality: Limiting processed foods high in saturated fats and low in fiber can improve sleep quality.
- Enhanced Brain Function: Healthy foods, such as those highlighted in the MIND diet, support brain health and cognitive function in both children and older adults.
- Stronger Bones: Consuming foods rich in calcium, vitamin D, magnesium, and vitamins K, C, and A is essential for building and maintaining strong bones.
- Better Eye Health: Eating foods rich in vitamins C and E, zinc, lutein, zeaxanthin, and omega-3 fatty acids can protect your eyes and reduce the risk of eye conditions.
- Reduced Inflammation: The Mediterranean diet, rich in antioxidants and vitamins, can help ease joint pain and improve other symptoms of arthritis.
- Heart Health: The foods people eat can reduce their blood pressure and help keep their hearts healthy. The DASH diet, or the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension diet, includes plenty of heart-healthy foods.
- 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 maintain a moderate weight.
Practical Advice on Maintaining a Healthy Diet
Here is some useful information, based on WHO recommendations, to follow a healthy diet:
- Breastfeed babies and young children: 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: 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: 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.
Strategies for Reducing Fat Intake
Fat intake, especially saturated fat and industrially-produced trans-fat intake, can be reduced by:
- steaming or boiling instead of frying when cooking;
- replacing butter, lard and ghee with oils rich in polyunsaturated fats, such as soybean, canola (rapeseed), corn, safflower and sunflower oils;
- eating reduced-fat dairy foods and lean meats, or trimming visible fat from meat; and
- limiting the consumption of baked and fried foods, and pre-packaged snacks and foods (e.g. doughnuts, cakes, pies, cookies, biscuits and wafers) that contain industrially-produced trans-fats.
Strategies for Reducing Salt Intake
Salt intake can be reduced by:
- limiting the amount of salt and high-sodium condiments (e.g. soy sauce, fish sauce and bouillon) when cooking and preparing foods;
- not having salt or high-sodium sauces on the table;
- limiting the consumption of salty snacks; and
- choosing products with lower sodium content.
Strategies for Reducing Sugars Intake
Sugars intake can be reduced by:
- limiting the consumption of foods and drinks containing high amounts of sugars, such as sugary snacks, candies and sugar-sweetened beverages (i.e. soft drinks, fruit or vegetable juices and drinks, liquid and powder concentrates, flavoured water, energy and sports drinks, ready‐to‐drink tea, ready‐to‐drink coffee and flavoured milk drinks); and
- eating fresh fruit and raw vegetables as snacks instead of sugary snacks.
Dietary Guidelines for Different Life Stages
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 (2), excluding potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava and other starchy roots.
- Less than 10% of total energy intake from free sugars (2, 7), which is equivalent to 50g (or about 12 level teaspoons) for a person of healthy body weight consuming about 2000 calories per day, but ideally should be less than 5% of total energy intake for additional health benefits (7). 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.
- Less than 30% of total energy intake from fats (1, 2, 3). Unsaturated fats (found in fish, avocado and nuts, and in sunflower, soybean, canola and olive oils) are preferable to saturated fats (found in fatty meat, butter, palm and coconut oil, cream, cheese and ghee) and trans-fats of all kinds, including both industrially-produced trans-fats (found in baked and fried foods, pre-packaged snacks and foods, such as frozen pizza, pies, cookies, wafers, and cooking oils and spreads) and ruminant trans-fats (found in meat and dairy foods from ruminant animals, such as cows, sheep, goats and camels). It is suggested that saturated fats be reduced to less than 10% of total energy intake and trans-fats to less than 1% of total energy intake (5). In particular, industrially-produced trans-fats are not part of a healthy diet and should be avoided (4, 6).
- Less than 5 g of salt (equivalent to about one teaspoon) per day (8). Salt should be iodized.
For Infants and Young Children
In the first 2 years of a child’s life, optimal nutrition fosters healthy growth and improves cognitive development. It also reduces the risk of becoming overweight or obese and developing NCDs later in life.
Advice on a healthy diet for infants and children is similar to that for adults, but 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.
The Role of Governments in Promoting Healthy Diets
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:
- Creating coherence in national policies and investment plans - including trade, food and agricultural policies - to promote a healthy diet and protect public health through:
- increasing incentives for producers and retailers to grow, use and sell fresh fruit and vegetables;
- reducing incentives for the food industry to continue or increase production of processed foods containing high levels of saturated fats, trans-fats, free sugars and salt/sodium;
- encouraging reformulation of food products to reduce the contents of saturated fats, trans-fats, free sugars and salt/sodium, with the goal of eliminating industrially-produced trans-fats;
- implementing the WHO recommendations on the marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to children;
- establishing standards to foster healthy dietary practices through ensuring the availability of healthy, nutritious, safe and affordable foods in pre-schools, schools, other public institutions and the workplace;
- exploring regulatory and voluntary instruments (e.g. marketing regulations and nutrition labelling policies), and economic incentives or disincentives (e.g. the addition of front-of-pack labelling to facilitate consumer understanding; and
- providing nutrition and dietary counselling at primary health-care facilities.
- Promoting appropriate infant and young child feeding practices through:
- implementing the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes and subsequent relevant World Health Assembly resolutions;
- implementing policies and practices to promote protection of working mothers; and
- promoting, protecting and supporting breastfeeding in health services and the community, including through the Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative.