Maintaining a healthy diet throughout life is crucial for preventing malnutrition in all its forms, as well as a range of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and conditions. Modern lifestyles have led to a shift in dietary patterns, with many people consuming more foods high in energy, fats, free sugars, and salt/sodium, while not eating enough fruit, vegetables, and whole grains. While the exact make-up of a diversified, balanced, and healthy diet will vary depending on individual characteristics, cultural context, locally available foods, and dietary customs, the basic principles remain the same. This article aims to provide a comprehensive overview of proper human diet guidelines, drawing on scientific evidence and recommendations from leading health organizations.
I. General Dietary Recommendations for Adults
A healthy diet for adults should include a variety of foods from the following groups:
- Fruits, Vegetables, Legumes, Nuts, and Whole Grains: These foods are rich in essential nutrients, fiber, and antioxidants.
- Limiting Free Sugars: Free sugars, which include sugars added to foods or drinks by manufacturers, cooks, or consumers, as well as sugars naturally present in honey, syrups, fruit juices, and fruit juice concentrates, should constitute less than 10% of total energy intake, with a further reduction to less than 5% providing additional health benefits.
- Limiting Fats: Total fat intake should be less than 30% of total energy intake. It's also important to limit saturated fats to less than 10% of total energy intake and trans-fats to less than 1% of total energy intake, replacing them with unsaturated fats, especially polyunsaturated fats. Industrially produced trans-fats are not part of a healthy diet and should be avoided.
- Limiting Salt: Salt intake should be less than 5 grams (about one teaspoon) per day, and salt should be iodized.
II. Dietary Recommendations for Infants and Young Children
Optimal nutrition in the first two years of a child’s life fosters healthy growth and improves cognitive development. It also reduces the risk of becoming overweight or obese and developing NCDs later in life. Recommendations include:
- Exclusive Breastfeeding: Infants should be breastfed exclusively during the first 6 months of life.
- Continued Breastfeeding: Breastfeeding should continue until 2 years of age and beyond.
- Complementary Foods: 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 these complementary foods.
III. Practical Advice for Maintaining a Healthy Diet
A. Fruit and Vegetables
Eating at least 400g, 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.
- Include vegetables in every meal.
- Eat fresh fruit and raw vegetables as snacks.
- Choose fruit and vegetables that are in season.
- Consume a variety of fruit and vegetables to ensure a wide range of nutrients.
B. 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. The risk of developing NCDs is lowered by:
Read also: The Hoxsey Diet
- Reducing saturated fats to less than 10% of total energy intake.
- Reducing trans-fats to less than 1% of total energy intake.
- Replacing both saturated fats and trans-fats with unsaturated fats (in particular, with polyunsaturated fats).
Practical ways to reduce unhealthy fat intake:
- Steam or boil instead of frying when cooking.
- Replace butter, lard, and ghee with oils rich in polyunsaturated fats, such as soybean, canola (rapeseed), corn, safflower, and sunflower oils.
- Eat reduced-fat dairy foods and lean meats, or trim visible fat from meat.
- Limit 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.
C. Salt, Sodium, and Potassium
Most people consume too much sodium through salt and not enough potassium. Reducing salt intake to the recommended level of less than 5 g per day could prevent 1.7 million deaths each year.
Strategies for reducing salt intake:
- Limit the amount of salt and high-sodium condiments (e.g., soy sauce, fish sauce, and bouillon) when cooking and preparing foods.
- Do not have salt or high-sodium sauces on the table.
- Limit the consumption of salty snacks.
- Choose products with lower sodium content.
Increasing potassium intake, which can mitigate the negative effects of elevated sodium consumption on blood pressure, can be achieved by consuming fresh fruit and vegetables.
D. Sugars
In both adults and children, the intake of free sugars should be reduced to less than 10% of total energy intake, with a further reduction to less than 5% providing additional health benefits.
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Practical ways to reduce sugar intake:
- Limit 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, flavored water, energy and sports drinks, ready‐to‐drink tea, ready‐to‐drink coffee, and flavored milk drinks).
- Eat fresh fruit and raw vegetables as snacks instead of sugary snacks.
IV. The Healthy Eating Plate
The Healthy Eating Plate, created by nutrition experts at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, offers a visual guide for creating healthy, balanced meals. It is based exclusively on the best available science and was not subjected to political or commercial pressures from food industry lobbyists, unlike some government dietary recommendations.
Key components of the Healthy Eating Plate include:
- Vegetables: The more veggies - and the greater the variety - the better.
- Fruits: Choose a variety of fruits.
- Whole Grains: Eat a variety of whole grains, such as whole-wheat bread, whole-grain pasta, and brown rice.
- Healthy Protein: Protein should comprise about ¼ of your plate. Good sources include fish, poultry, beans, and nuts.
- Healthy Plant Oils: Use healthy vegetable oils like olive, canola, soy, corn, sunflower, and peanut oil in moderation. Avoid partially hydrogenated oils, which contain unhealthy trans fats.
- Water: Drink water, tea, or coffee (with little or no sugar). Limit milk/dairy (1-2 servings/day) and juice (1 small glass/day).
The Healthy Eating Plate does not define a certain number of calories or servings per day from each food group; rather, the relative section sizes suggest approximate relative proportions of each of the food groups to include on a healthy plate.
V. The Importance of Addressing Dietary Trends
Modern lifestyles have significantly impacted dietary patterns, leading to increased consumption of energy-dense foods high in fats, sugars, and sodium, and decreased intake of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. These shifts contribute to malnutrition in all its forms and increase the risk of NCDs.
Read also: Weight Loss with Low-FODMAP
VI. The Role of Governments and Other Stakeholders
Promoting healthy diets requires the involvement of multiple sectors and stakeholders, including government, and the public and private sectors.
Governments play a central role in creating a healthy food environment that enables people to adopt and maintain healthy dietary practices. Effective actions include:
- Creating coherence in national policies and investment plans to promote a healthy diet and protect public health.
- 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, and economic incentives or disincentives.
- Providing nutrition and dietary counseling at primary health-care facilities.
- Promoting appropriate infant and young child feeding practices.
VII. WHO Response and Global Strategies
The World Health Organization (WHO) has been actively involved in promoting healthy diets and addressing the global burden of NCDs through various initiatives and strategies.
Key WHO initiatives include:
- The "WHO Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health" (2004): This strategy provides a framework for action at global, regional, and local levels to support healthy diets and physical activity.
- Recommendations on the marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to children (2010): These recommendations aim to reduce the impact of marketing on children's food choices and promote healthier options.
- Global voluntary targets for the prevention and control of NCDs (2013): These targets include a halt to the rise in diabetes and obesity, and a 30% relative reduction in the intake of salt by 2025.
- The Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity (2014): This commission was set up to provide guidance and recommendations on addressing childhood obesity in different contexts around the world.
- The Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) (2014): This conference resulted in the Rome Declaration on Nutrition and the Framework for Action, which recommends a set of policy options and strategies to promote diversified, safe, and healthy diets at all stages of life.
- The REPLACE action package: This is a roadmap for countries to help accelerate actions to eliminate industrially-produced trans-fats.
VIII. Scientific Evidence Supporting Healthy Diet Guidelines
Numerous studies have demonstrated the benefits of following healthy diet guidelines for reducing the risk of chronic diseases and improving overall health.
- Alternate Healthy Eating Index Studies: Studies using the Alternate Healthy Eating Index have shown that diets aligning with the Healthy Eating Pyramid guidelines are associated with a reduced risk of chronic diseases and mortality.
- Women’s Health Initiative (WHI): Research from the WHI has linked diet quality to the risk of cardiovascular disease.
- Diet Quality and Chronic Disease Risk: Studies have consistently shown that higher diet quality is associated with a lower risk of major chronic diseases.
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