The importance of good nutrition Reduce the risk of certain diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, stroke, some types of cancer, and osteoporosis, lower high blood pressure, lower high cholesterol, improve your well-being, improve your ability to fight diseases, and improve your ability to recover from illness or injury. Good nutrition is essential to keep current and future generations of Americans healthy throughout their lives. Breastfeeding helps protect against childhood illnesses, such as respiratory and ear infections, asthma, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). People with healthy eating patterns live longer and have a lower risk of serious health problems, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and obesity.
For people with chronic illnesses, a healthy diet can help control these conditions and prevent complications. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, risk factors for chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, are increasingly seen at younger ages as a result of unhealthy diet and weight gain. Among adults ages 20 to 74, diabetes remains the leading cause of kidney failure, blindness, and non-traumatic lower limb amputation. Eating habits are usually established in childhood and continue into adulthood, so it's crucial to teach children the importance of following a healthy diet from an early age.
The body needs food to survive, but the process of breaking down nutrients from food (or metabolizing them) places stress on the body. Overeating places more stress on the body and could reduce life expectancy. According to research conducted by Columbia University, 18 percent of deaths among white and black Americans can be attributed to obesity. Obesity could lead to a decrease in life expectancy in the United States.
Nutrient-rich diets that do not contain processed foods have been found to have a positive effect on life expectancy. People with adequate nutrition are more productive and can create opportunities to gradually break the cycles of poverty and hunger. Good nutrition is the key to good physical and mental health. Eating a balanced diet is an important part of everyone's good health.
The type and amount of food you eat affects how you feel and how your body works. Nutrition 100 Nutritional Applications for a Healthy Lifestyle, by Lynn Klees, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, unless otherwise noted.