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Healthy diet
A healthy diet is one that helps maintain or improve general health. It is thought to be important for lowering health risks, such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and cancer.[] A healthy diet involves consuming primarily fruits, vegetables, and whole grains to satisfy caloric requirements, provide the body with essential nutrients, phytochemicals, and fibre, and provide adequate water intake. A healthy diet supports energy needs and provides for human nutrition without exposure to toxicity or excessive weight gain from consuming excessive amounts.
Dietary recommendations
There are numerous diets and recommendations by medical and governmental institutions that promote health.
American Heart Association / World Cancer Research Fund / American Institute for Cancer Research
The American Heart Association, World Cancer Research Fund, and American Institute for Cancer Research recommends a diet that consists mostly of unprocessed plant foods, with emphasis a wide range of whole grains, legumes, and non-starchy vegetables and fruits. This healthy diet is replete with a wide range of various non-starchy vegetables and fruits, that provide different colors including red, green, yellow, white, purple, and orange. They note that tomato cooked with oil, allium vegetables like garlic, and cruciferous vegetables like cauliflower, provide some
Healthy diet protection against cancer. This healthy diet is low in energy density, which may protect against weight gain and associated diseases. Finally, limiting consumption of sugary drinks, limiting energy rich foods, including fast foods and red meat, and avoiding processed meats improves health and longevity. Overall, researchers and medical policy conclude that this healthy diet can reduce the risk of chronic disease and cancer.[][]
Hypertension
A low sodium diet is beneficial for people with high blood pressure. A Cochrane review published in 2008 concluded that a long term (more than 4 weeks) low sodium diet in Caucasians has a useful effect to reduce blood pressure, both in people with hypertension and in people with normal blood pressure.[8] The DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) is a diet promoted by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (part of the NIH, a United States government organization) to control hypertension. A major feature of the plan is limiting intake of sodium,[] and it also generally encourages the consumption of nuts, whole grains, fish, poultry, fruits and vegetables while lowering the consumption of red meats, sweets, and sugar. It is also "rich in potassium, magnesium, and calcium, as well as protein". Evidence shows that the Mediterranean diet improves cardiovascular outcomes.[]
Healthy diet
Obesity
Weight control diets aim to maintain a controlled weight. In most cases dieting is used in combination with physical exercise to lose weight in those who are overweight or obese. Diets to promote weight loss are generally divided into four categories: low-fat, low-carbohydrate, low-calorie, and very low calorie.[] A meta-analysis of six randomized controlled trials found no difference between the main diet types (low calorie, low carbohydrate, and low fat), with a 24 kilogram weight loss in all studies.[] At two years, all calorie-reduced diet types cause equal weight loss irrespective of the macronutrients emphasized.[9]
Unhealthy diets
An unhealthy diet is a major risk factor for a number of chronic diseases including: high blood pressure, diabetes, abnormal blood lipids, overweight/obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer.[] The WHO estimates that 2.7 million deaths are attributable to a diet low in fruit and vegetable every year.[] Globally it is estimated to cause about 19% of gastrointestinal cancer, 31% of ischaemic heart disease, and 11% of strokes,[] thus making it one of the leading preventable causes of death worldwide.[12]
Fad diets
Fad diet usually refers to idiosyncratic diets and eating patterns.[13] They are diets that claim to promote weight loss or treat obesity by various mechanisms,[] provide little to no scientific reasoning behind their purported health benefits, and have little or no proof to support them.
Public health
Fears of high cholesterol were frequently voiced up until the mid-1990s. However, more recent research has shown that the distinction between high- and low-density lipoprotein ('good' and 'bad' cholesterol, respectively) must be addressed when speaking of the potential ill effects of cholesterol. Different types of dietary fat have different effects on blood levels of cholesterol. For example, polyunsaturated fats tend to decrease both types of cholesterol; monounsaturated fats tend to lower LDL and raise HDL; saturated fats tend to either raise HDL, or raise both HDL and LDL;[][14] and trans fat tend to raise LDL and lower HDL. Dietary cholesterol itself is only found in animal products such as meat, eggs, and dairy, but studies have shown that even large amounts of dietary cholesterol only have negligible effects on blood cholesterol.[] Vending machines in particular have come under fire as being avenues of entry into schools for junk food promoters. However, there is little in the way of regulation and it is difficult for most people to properly analyze the real merits of a company referring to itself as "healthy." Recently, the United Kingdom removed the rights for McDonald's to
Healthy diet advertise its products, as the majority of the foods that were seen have low nutrient values and high fat counts were aimed at children under the guise of the "Happy Meal"[citation needed]. The British Heart Foundation released its own government-funded advertisements, labeled "Food4Thought [15]", which were targeted at children and adults displaying the gory nature of how fast food is generally constituted.
References
[3] http:/ / www. hsph. harvard. edu/ nutritionsource/ what-should-you-eat/ carbohydrates/ index. html [8] He FJ, MacGregor GA. Effect of longer-term modest salt reduction on blood pressure. (http:/ / onlinelibrary. wiley. com/ o/ cochrane/ clsysrev/ articles/ CD004937/ frame. html) Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2004, Issue 1. Art. No.: CD004937. . [14] Thijssen, M.A. and R.P. Mensink. (2005). Fatty Acids and Atherosclerotic Risk (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=kvo6BN1AGNAC& pg=PA171& dq=#v=onepage& q& f=false). In Arnold von Eckardstein (Ed.) Atherosclerosis: Diet and Drugs. Springer. pp. 171172. ISBN 978-3-540-22569-0. [15] http:/ / food4thought. bhf. org. uk/ [16] "Told to Eat Its Vegetables, America Orders Fries" (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2010/ 09/ 25/ health/ policy/ 25vegetables. html) article by Kim Severson in The New York Times September 24, 2010, accessed September 25, 2010
External links
Diet, Nutrition and the prevention of chronic diseases (http://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/ dietnutrition_and_chronicdiseases/en/), by a Joint WHO/FAO Expert consultation (2003) Nutrition Facts (http://nutritionfacts.org/)
License
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported //creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/