Balance Diet - a Tip for Healthy Living

According to Oxford Advance Dictionary "Diet" is best described as the amount or variety of food that we eat for medical reasons and for healthy living. For a healthy living, the food we eat must have the right or correct proportion of carbohydrate, proteins, fats, vitamins, mineral salts, water and roughages.

A balanced diet provides enough energy for healthy living and enough material for growth and repair of tissues in the body. So when we want to eat we have to make sure that our food is balanced for we are what we eat.

Many people show signs of under feeding or malnutrition. This may be as a result that they do not get enough food to eat resulting from poverty or not eating the correct amount of the right type of food. This may also be due to their ignorance. When this happens there would be problem in human health and development. When people do not get enough food to eat for a long period they become very thin as their bodies use up the stored nutrient. This condition is known as starvation. A lack of a specific nutrient in the daily diet may result to some deficiency diseases.

Some people eat much starchy food like yam, garri and rice because they are cheap. They became overweight and unhealthy. They forgo portentous rich food because of their expensiveness not knowing that they are body building food which helps much in growth. A balanced diet must have a mixture of protein from animals and plants. Animal protein provides enough essential amino-acids that human body cannot synthesize. Plant protein does not have all these amino-acid thus; the daily diet must have certain amount of animal protein.

Children after late weaning, who eat more of starchy diet may have serious health problems. They may suffer protein deficiency diseases like "Kwashiokor and Marasmus". Children who have been affected with such disease show poor growth, have oedema, and are apathetic and miserable. The marasmus disease occurs in growth and look like "Wizard old man".

For healthy living, one should eat enough balance diet, so as to have good body growth, health and development which consist of right proportion of all the nutrients as needed by the body for a good functioning ability. It also consists of taking enough water and enough fruits and vegetables for such diets protect the body from innumerable disease and illnesses. Remember that prevention is better than cure.