You Are What You Eat Essay Introduction
A person living a modern life should learn to eat healthy since whatever a person eats will determine their health condition in the long run. Eating healthy would lead to being in good condition, but eating junk food would lead to complications to one’s health.
The human body has a way of regulating some of the functions of the body in order to remain healthy, but the body would react to what it is fed on.
Certain types of foods are essential for the functioning of particular parts of the human body. The different types of foods that contain vitamins, proteins, and carbohydrates are necessary in the human diet. Fats are also essential for the body’s functioning, and a lack of it in the diet might be very dangerous.
Healthy Eating Habits
Healthy eating habits include adopting a healthy diet in daily meals. This diet would ensure that one leads and maintains good general health. Modern lifestyle involves eating junk foods that are not necessarily healthy.
This might cause many diseases and conditions that would have otherwise been avoided if a healthy diet were adopted. The types of diseases that can be avoided using healthy foods include hypertension, cancer, heart disease, and obesity. Healthy eating habits include the taking of appropriate amounts of both macronutrients and micronutrients (Fernandez & Calle, 2010).
Healthy living involves consuming the correct amounts of essential nutrients and drinking adequate amounts of water daily. It is not enough to take all the vital nutrients; having them in the right quantities is also crucial. Eating a limited amount of nutrients may lead to deficiency, while eating them in excess may also lead to serious conditions and diseases. Water is an important part of a diet since it makes up at least 60% of the human body.
Many people today are classified as overweight and obese. This condition occurs when a person feeds on excess fats and carbohydrates and fails to exercise to reduce these amounts in the body (Katz, 2003).
Since the body reacts to whatever it is fed on, it tends to store the excess carbohydrates and fats (lipids) in the adipose tissue below the skin. This forms a thick layer below the skin, which explains why people grow fat.
Overweight or obese individuals have a high Body Mass Index (BMI), which has been proven through research to affect the individual’s mobility and performance.
Obese individuals have trouble when moving or performing tasks due to the immense weight they carry whenever they work. Therefore, research suggests that a person should maintain a normal weight, which is achieved through eating healthy and exercising.
Although fats have negative effects when taken in excess, there is even greater danger when one adopts a no-fat diet. Many advertisements talk about the benefits of a no-fat diet (fad diet,) and multiple individuals seeking to either lose weight or maintain their physique follow them.
However, research does not advocate for this due to fats (lipids or fatty acids) having important functions in the body (Strychar, 2006).
Taking food without fats may turn fatal due to the body’s inability to perform some of the functions that are enabled by the presence of fats. Firstly, the body of the organism may lack the ability to absorb some essential vitamins such as vitamin K, D, E, and A.
These are the fat-soluble vitamins and need dietary fats to absorb properly. Lack of these vitamins in the body leads to various diseases and conditions, such as night blindness and rickets. The body’s immune system would also be deteriorated due to the lack of these vitamins.
Research has also confirmed that a no-fat diet might affect mental health and is a likely cause of depression (Maes, 1996). Research also suggests that low intake of essential fatty acids (caused by a no-fat diet) increases the chances of getting breast, colon, or prostate cancer. This is caused by the lack of omega-3s in the body.
No-fat diets also have a part to play in heart disease and cholesterol levels. This is because a diet without fat causes the good cholesterol (HDL) to reduce and the bad cholesterol to be accumulated in the liver (Mensink, Zock, Kester, & Katan, 2003). Heart disease develops when the good and the bad cholesterol go out of balance. Therefore, fats are essential to the human body.
A healthy diet also needs to have portions of fruits served to the individual. Fruits provide essential micronutrients such as vitamins. Vegetables also provide essential vitamins to the body. Lack of vitamins may put the individual at risk of suffering ischaemic heart disease, gastrointestinal cancer, stroke, and many other complications.
A modern person should adopt a diet that constitutes the right amount of proteins too. Proteins are important for the individual’s growth. They also make up many body structures, including hair, skin, and muscles.
Proteins also aid in the regeneration of dead cells in the body, which is why they play a vital role in a person’s survival. A modern individual should also ensure that the meal has minerals such as iodine, calcium, magnesium, potassium, and sodium. Iodine has been made easily available in the iodized salt. These minerals are required in small amounts, but their functions are quite important.
We Are What We Eat Essay Conclusion
It is important for every individual to adopt a healthy eating habit. The modern person faces various challenges due to the types of food that are available in the market nowadays. The cheapest, easily available foods are junk foods that are not usually healthy. They may contain excesses of certain nutrients and may cause the body to strain a lot while trying to eliminate them.
References
Fernandez, M., & Calle, M. (2010). Revisiting dietary cholesterol recommendations: Does the evidence support a limit of 300mg/d. Current Atherosclerosis Reports, 12(6), 377-383.
Katz, D. (2003). Pandemic obesity and the contagion of nutritional nonsense. Public Health Review, 31(1), 33-44.
Maes, M. (1996). Fatty acid composition in major depression: Decrease ὠ3 fractions in cholesteryl esters and increased C20:4ὠ6 ratio in cholesteryl esters and phospholipids. Journal of Affective Disorders, 38(1), 35-46.
Mensink, R., Zock, P., Kester, A., & Katan, M. (2003). Effects of dietary fatty acids and carbohydrates on the ratio of serum total to HDL cholesterol and on serum lipids and apolipoproteins: A meta-analysis of 60 controlled trials. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 77(5), 1146-1155.
Strychar, I. (2006). Diet management of weight loss. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 174(1), 56-63.