Kara Morton is a third year medical student at University of Louisville School of Medicine. You can follow her on instagram.
What do you think of when you hear the word “nutrition?” Do you think of losing weight, extreme dieting, keto, detoxes, or intermittent fasting? Do you think of fruits and vegetables, vitamins and minerals, macros, and calories? Nutrition takes all of these things into account, and more!
Nutrition is defined as “the process of providing or obtaining the food necessary for health and growth.” So, by definition, nutrition deals with the food we eat and its health-promoting properties! The healthy food choices you make each day are vital for every aspect of your health and wellbeing.
A diet made up of a variety of healthy foods has been shown to prevent and reverse many chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, arthritis, and many more! This is true even if these diseases run in your family. A healthy diet can be more powerful than your genetics. This means that, even if diabetes runs in your family, the right food choices could help you avoid developing diabetes in the first place! Sharing these healthy food choices with your family might even help them get rid of their diabetes, too!
Proper nutrition and healthy food choices are also crucial for brain health, including mental health and cognition! Healthy diets have been linked to less depression and anxiety, better sleep, and improved school performance!
Along with the benefits already talked about, proper nutrition can also help balance out your hormones, boost your energy level, strengthen your immune system, and even clear up your skin!
But how do you know if you need to make better food choices? Living in the United States means that we live in a society that emphasizes convenience: fast food, snacks that come in packages, frozen dinners, and super-sized meals. It is almost impossible to avoid these things altogether, even though we know how unhealthy they are. This means that EVERYONE has room to improve their daily food choices!
Building a healthy diet is essential for countless reasons, and this content is dedicated to helping you make the healthiest food choices in your day-to-day life!
Additional Resources
For more detailed information, visit any of the following pages:
- The American Heart Association diet and lifestyle webpage
- An ethical plant-based vegan diet,
- The American College of Lifestyle Medicine
- Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
- USDA’s 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans
