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Nutrition for Life: Dietary Guidelines
Posted on Thursday, October 27 @ 12:53:41 MSD
Topic: Food & Nutrition | What should Americans eat to stay healthy? Eating is one of life's greatest pleasures. Food choices depend on history, culture, and environment, as well as on energy and nutrient needs. People also eat foods for enjoyment.
Family, friends, and beliefs play a major role in the ways people select foods and plan meals. This article describes some of the many different and pleasurable ways to combine foods to make healthful diets.
Diet is important to health at all stages of life
Many genetic, environmental, behavioral, and cultural factors can affect health. Understanding family history of disease or risk factors - body weight and fat distribution, blood pressure, and blood cholesterol, for example - can help people make more informed decisions about actions that can improve health prospects. Food choices are among the most pleasurable and effective of these actions.
Healthful diets help children grow, develop, and do well in school. They enable people of all ages to work productively and feel their best. Food choices also can help to reduce the risk for chronic diseases, such as heart disease, certain cancers, diabetes, stroke, and osteoporosis, that are leading causes of death and disability among Americans. Good diets can reduce major risk factors for chronic diseases -- factors such as obesity, high blood pressure, and high blood cholesterol.
Foods contain energy, nutrients, and other components that affect health
People require energy and certain other essential nutrients. These nutrients are essential because the body cannot make them and must obtain them from food. Essential nutrients include vitamins, minerals, certain amino acids, and certain fatty acids. Foods also contain other components such as fiber that are important for health. Although each of these food components has a specific function in the body, all of them together are required for overall health. People need calcium to build and maintain strong bones, for example, but many other nutrients also are involved.
The carbohydrates, fats, and proteins in food supply energy, which is measured in calories. Carbohydrates and proteins provide about 4 calories per gram. Fat contributes more than twice as much - about 9 calories per gram. Alcohol, although not a nutrient, also supplies energy - about 7 calories per gram. Foods that are high in fat are also high in calories. However, many lowfat or nonfat foods can also be high in calories.
Physical activity fosters a healthful diet
Calorie needs vary by age and level of activity. Many older adults need less food, in part due to decreased activity, relative to younger, more active individuals. People who are trying to lose weight and eating little food may need to select more nutrient-dense foods in order to meet their nutrient needs in a satisfying diet. Nearly all Americans need to be more active, because a sedentary lifestyle is unhealthful.
Increasing the calories spent in daily activities helps to maintain health and allows people to eat a nutritious and enjoyable diet.
What is a healthful diet?
Healthful diets contain the amounts of essential nutrients and calories needed to prevent nutritional deficiencies and excesses.
Healthful diets also provide the right balance of carbohydrate, fat, and protein to reduce risks for chronic diseases, and are a part of a full and productive lifestyle. Such diets are obtained from a variety of foods that are available, affordable, and enjoyable.
The Recommended Dietary Allowances refer to nutrients
Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) represent the amounts of nutrients that are adequate to meet the needs of most healthy people.
Although people with average nutrient requirements likely eat adequately at levels below the RDAs, diets that meet RDAs are almost certain to ensure intake of enough essential nutrients by most healthy people. The Dietary Guidelines describe food choices that will help you meet these recommendations. Like the RDAs, the Dietary Guidelines apply to diets consumed over several days and not to single meals or foods.
The Dietary Guidelines describe food choices that promote good health
The Dietary Guidelines are designed to help Americans choose diets that will meet nutrient requirements, promote health, support active lives, and reduce chronic disease risks. Research has shown that certain diets raise risks for chronic diseases. Such diets are high in fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and salt and they contain more calories than the body uses. They are also low in grain products, vegetables, fruit, and fiber. This bulletin helps you choose foods, meals, and diets that can reduce chronic disease risks.
Food labels and the Food Guide Pyramid are tools to help you make food choices
The Food Guide Pyramid and the Nutrition Facts Label serve as educational tools to put the Dietary Guidelines into practice. The Pyramid translates the RDAs and the Dietary Guidelines into the kinds and amounts of food to eat each day. The Nutrition Facts Label is designed to help you select foods for a diet that will meet the Dietary Guidelines. Most processed foods now include nutrition information.
However, nutrition labels are not required for foods like coffee and tea (which contain no significant amounts of nutrients), certain ready-to-eat foods like unpackaged deli and bakery items, and restaurant food. Labels are also voluntary for many raw foods - your grocer may supply this information for the fish, meat, poultry, and raw fruits and vegetables that are consumed most frequently. Use the Nutrition Facts Label to choose a healthful diet.
Eat a Variety of Foods
To obtain the nutrients and other substances needed for good health, vary the foods you eat.
Foods contain combinations of nutrients and other healthful substances. No single food can supply all nutrients in the amounts you need. For example, oranges provide vitamin C but no vitamin B12; cheese provides vitamin B12 but no vitamin C. To make sure you get all of the nutrients and other substances needed for health, choose the recommended number of daily servings from each of the five major food groups displayed in the Food Guide Pyramid. |
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