Characteristics of a Healthy Diet

A nutritious diet is made of five defining features:

1. Adequacy - The foods must give us sufficient nutrients, fiber, and energy.  Iron is a great example, as I myself am borderline anemic.  We all lose iron everyday, women during their menstrual periods can obviously loose more.  According to Ursula Moon (2011), "Iron is important in the delivery of oxygen, promotion of a healthy immune system, strong muscles and adequate maintenance, and growth and development for all the cells, organs and muscles of the body. A lack of iron causes your body to function below standard and can cause a condition known as anemia, which is essentially iron-poor blood."  If you do not have enough iron, you can become weak and tired.  That is why it is important to eat foods that are high in iron such as green vegetables, meat, fish, and chicken. 
2. Balance - The choices that we make must not overpower one food group or nutrient by sacrificing another.  Let us look at Calcium.  Calcium is important in developing strong bones.  We have heard that since we were little kids.  Where the balancing comes into play is getting enough calcium but also getting enough iron, which we talked about above.  Unfortunately, not all iron rich food are high in calcium and vice versa.  Milk and other dairy products, such as yogurt, are the richest forms of calcium.  Finding the balance just between these two nutrients, and not even taking the other 40+ nutrients into consideration, can be a difficult task.  There are specific amounts of each food group that you should be getting each day.                            Check out this link: http://www.cdc.gov/nutrition/everyone/basics/foodgroups.html            From this link you can also click the ChooseMyPlate.gov link where you can input your data and it will give you an idea of how much nutrients you should be consuming.                         
3. Calorie Control - It's all about the calories in versus calories out.  We must eat foods that provide us with enough energy to maintain a healthy weight.  If we choose to eat the wrong balance and too many calories then we will gain weight.  There has to be a happy medium.
4. Moderation - Everything should always be eaten in moderation.  We should not have too much fat, salt, sugar, or other unnecessary ingredients.  "A major guideline for healthy people is to keep fat intake below 35% of total calories" (Sizer & Whitney, 2011).  Some people take this information to the complete extreme and do not allow themselves to indulge in any of their possible favorites such as ice cream or pizza.  I personally think that it is okay to let yourself 'cheat' if you will.  It allows our bodies and our mind to not feel deprived.  Sometimes people who deprive themselves, particularly while they are on diets, can actually jump off the deep end and find themselves binge eating once they do decide to get off their diets or let themselves cheat for a day.  Moderation is key and that goes for every aspect of your life!
5. Variety - We must have variety in our diets; always keep your body guessing.  If we choose the same foods all day every day, then we could be depriving our bodies of other important nutrients plus we could actually be doing our body more harm than good.  When we add variety to our diets it allows the break down and dilution of unwanted contaminants.  Also, we want to make sure that we try and eat around the same time everyday so that our bodies do not go into starvation mode and begin to wonder when it is going to get its next meal. 

The bottom line is that we need to really think about what we are eating.  When we have a game plan, then we can ensure that we are getting sufficient nutrients, our foods are balanced yet varied, and that the food energy that we are in taking matches the energy that we are expending. 

The challenges that we face regarding choosing the right foods are money, time, and social environment.  Some people have a hard time choosing the right foods because they feel that healthy food is too expensive.  I would agree that some health foods are overpriced and even out of my day-to-day budget, however, if you take the time and do some research, then actually you can get healthy foods at an affordable price.  Time is the other factor.  Often times, many Americans live a fast paced life and do not make the time to actually cook a home cooked meal due to running the kids around from activity to activity, or working late, etc.  The final challenge, social environment, deals with the fact that we choose to meet our friends for dinner, usually at a restaurant, or during the holidays we all gather around yummy comfort foods.  We can still have these types of gatherings but we just have to be aware of what we are putting on our plates, eat slower, and take time to actually chew our food!

References:

Livestrong, & Moon, U. (2011, June 14). Vegetables High In Iron & Vitamin C. Retrieved August 13, 2012, from http://www.livestrong.com/article/253048-vegetables-high-in-iron-vitamin-c/

Sizer, F., & Whitney, E. (2011). Nutrition Concepts and Controversies (12th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.