Last night, I attended a virtual meeting held by WHO & FAO about the Healthy Diet Concept update. I joined that meeting 45 minutes before the end. However, I was taking screenshots and taking notes during that time. So these are what I want to share with you.
A healthy diet helps us to protect ourselves from non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and cancer. The practice of a healthy diet is necessary for all ages. Dietary patterns could change with increased production of processed food, rapid urbanization, or changing lifestyles. People tend to consume high-energy, fats, and salt/sodium foods. Besides, many people do not eat enough vegetables, fruit, and dietary fiber, such as whole grains. Many dietary patterns are healthy. What makes them healthy is that they meet the four principles of a healthy diet; adequacy, balance, diversity, and moderation.
Adequacy is important because essential nutrients are required for various bodily functions. Furthermore, energy and nutrient requirements are specific for age, gender, body size & body composition, physical activity levels, physiological states, and disease conditions. Therefore, energy intake should be in balance with energy expenditure.
Diversity means we consume various food to gain various nutrients from food. However, diets without diversity put individuals at higher risk of vitamin and mineral deficiency. The risk of vitamin and mineral deficiency is lower for children aged 6-23 months who consume at least 5 of 8 groups daily (WHO); and for women 15-49 years of age who consume at least 5 of 10 food groups daily (FAO).
Balance means balance in foods across the three main sources of energy in the diet; protein, fats, and carbohydrates. Both excess and deficiency of these nutrients could impact our health. For instance, excess protein could lead to a metabolic burden, while deficiency could experience protein and amino acid deficiency. Likewise, excess fat increases the risk of unhealthy weight gain, while deficiency increases the risk of essential fatty acid deficiency.
Moderation means limiting foods and dietary components which associated with negative health outcomes. We need to limit energy intake from free sugars to <10% and, if possibly <5%, from saturated fat to <10%; from trans-fat to <1%. Besides that, we should limit sodium to <2 g/day (5 g salt), preferring unprocessed or home-processed food to high-processed food to help limit saturated fatty acids, trans-fatty acids, sugars, salt, and non-sugars sweeteners. Then, it is better to use water as a main source of fluids and avoid giving children sugar-sweetened beverages.
Thus, protecting and enabling food safety is key because if it is not safe, it is not food.
Komentar
Posting Komentar