The Effect of Nutrition

The Effect of Nutrition

 Good nutrition is necessary for a healthy lifestyle. Combined with physical activity it will keep your body healthy and working well, decreasing chronic diseases and future health problems. Eating behaviours are affected by many factors such as biological, economic, physical and social, psychological determinants. These cover appetite, income, cost, availability, education, time, culture, peers, mood, beliefs and knowledge. These factors can all lead to bad or good eating behaviours.

 Nowadays technology is taking over the world allowing people to do things in the palm of their hands anywhere. Mostly everything is done electronically causing people to be inactive. With online shopping and food delivery apps you never have to leave your house to buy and make your own food. Many social platforms have a lot of fast food ads causing the cravings of unhealthy meals in your diet. It's also easier to eat cheap unhealthy foods than healthy foods. Both these factors are a catalyst to obesity in today’s society.

Worldwide obesity has nearly tripled since 1975. In 2016 about 13% of the worlds adult population were obese. Not only is obesity affecting adults but 40 million children under the age 5 were overweight or obese in 2018. Obesity is a serious problem affecting health problems like heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer and type 2 diabetes.

 Food additives are a substance added to food for preservation, colour and taste improvement, and texture. Some food additives are harmful and should be avoided but most are safe in small quantities. If you can cut out all food additives in your diet it would be the healthier dession. The use of additives is becoming more frequent due to high demand for food and economic reasons to sell food fast.

 Social media embodies specific body types that affect both women and men's self image on how they are “supposed” to look. This can lead to unhealthy ways to lose weight, unhealthy eating habits and poor mental health.

 Fad diets are popular due to results sometimes achieved in a short amount of time. With a fad diet, you pay more attention to what you eat. This usually causes you to lose water weight and muscle rather than body fat because you're eating less calories than you should. This diet usually fails because restricting calories often leaves dieters hungry causing binge eating. This diet may lead to harmful self image and ongoing eating disorder.

 Changing your lifestyle by working out, getting active, making your own meals instead of eating out and eating fruit and vegetables to get the nutrients you need will benefit your future, mental/physical health.

 Citations 

Cleere, Michelle. (n.d.). Why are people becoming physically inactive these days?: Fitness. Retrieved March 2, 2020, from https://www.sharecare.com/health/fitness-exercise/why-are-people-becoming-physically-inactive

Downs, M. (2005, January 3). Why Do We Keep Falling for Fad Diets? Retrieved March 2, 2020, from https://www.webmd.com/diet/features/why-do-we-keep-falling-for-fad-diets#1

 Food additives. (2018, January 31). Retrieved March 2, 2020, from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/food-additives

 Healthy Eating: Changing Your Eating Habits. (2018, November 7). Retrieved March 2, 2020, from https://www.healthlinkbc.ca/health-topics/ad1169

Lee, H. A., Lee, W. K., Kong, K.-A., Chang, N., Ha, E.-H., Hong, Y. S., & Park, H. (2011, September 28). The effect of eating behavior on being overweight or obese during preadolescence. Retrieved March 2, 2020, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3249260/