Adequate nutrition at an early age is one of the most important conditions that ensure harmonious growth, timely maturation of bone structures, and proper functions of various organs and tissues. It also influences optimal parameters of psychomotor and intellectual development, the body’s resistance to infections, and other adverse external factors (De Ridder, Kroese, Evers, Adriaanse, & Gillebaart, 2017). Poor nutrition is the cause of an array of different diseases. Nevertheless, malnutrition and inadequate diet are becoming increasingly common and severe problems.
Diet monitoring may seem like a burdensome task; however, it is capable of revealing gaps in the daily regimen that impact one’s longevity and life quality. In my case, diet monitoring demonstrated a slight disproportion between the food groups consumed, with the balance tilting towards carbohydrates. One of the reasons for that is the consumption of sweetened beverages, which is somewhat easy to overlook (Wijayaratne, Reid, Westberg, Worsley, & Mavondo, 2018). My diet includes a comparatively high number of fruits – that fact also may have contributed to the result as bananas, for instance, are rich in organic compounds. In the course of monitoring, it was disclosed that dairy is the least consumed group of products, although my diet could profit from a higher amount of low-fat or no-fat dairy. Although my intake of processed food, trans and saturated fats is relatively not high, as my diet is more vegetables and fruits based, the assignment helped me to see the gaps in my nutrition.
The proper functioning of a body is deeply connected to nutrition. A well-balanced diet serves as the source of the cells’ growth and their continual renewal. Malnutrition is capable of harming the health of an individual at different stages of maturation and also in adult age. A poorly balanced diet may be manifested in a drop in the levels of physical and mental activity, incapacity to resist the effects of adverse environmental factors, reduced working capacity, and even shortened life expectancy.
References
De Ridder, D., Kroese, F., Evers, C., Adriaanse, M., & Gillebaart, M. (2017). Healthy diet: Health impact, prevalence, correlates, and interventions. Psychology & Health, 32(8), 907–941.
Wijayaratne, S. P., Reid, M., Westberg, K., Worsley, A., & Mavondo, F. (2018). Food literacy, healthy eating barriers, and household diet. European Journal of Marketing, 52(12), 2449-2477.