A healthy diet is a diet that helps to maintain or improve overall health. A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition: fluid, macronutrients, micronutrients, and adequate calories. For people who are healthy, a healthy diet is not complicated and contains mostly fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and includes little to no processed food and sweetened beverages. A healthy lifestyle includes getting exercise every day along with eating a healthy diet. A healthy lifestyle may lower disease risks, such as obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, and cancer. Dieting is the practice of eating food in a regulated and supervised fashion to decrease, maintain, or increase body weight, or to prevent and treat diseases, such as diabetes. A restricted diet is often used by those who are overweight or obese, sometimes in combination with physical exercise, to reduce body weight. Some people follow a diet to gain weight. Diets can also be used to maintain stable body weight and improve health. Human nutrition deals with the provision of essential nutrients in food that are necessary to support human life and health. Poor nutrition is a chronic problem often linked to poverty, food security or a poor understanding of nutrition and dietary practices.[1] Malnutrition and its consequences are large contributors to deaths and disabilities worldwide. Good nutrition is necessary for children to grow physically, and for normal human biological development. Health, as defined by the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. The World Health Organization makes the following five recommendations with respect to both populations and individuals
Maintain a healthy weight by eating roughly the same number of calories that your body is using.
Limit intake of fats. Not more than 30% of the total calories should come from fats. Prefer unsaturated fats to saturated fats. Avoid trans fats.
Eat at least 400 grams of fruits and vegetables per day. A healthy diet also contains legumes, whole grains, and nuts.
Limit the intake of simple sugars to less than 10% of calorie
Limit salt/sodium from all sources and ensure that salt is iodized. Less than 5 grams of salt per day can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
The Nutrition Source of Harvard School of Public Health makes the following 10 recommendations for a healthy diet:
Choose good carbohydrates: whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and beans. Avoid white bread, white rice, and the like as well as pastries, sugared sodas, and other highly processed food.
Pay attention to the protein package: good choices include fish, poultry, nuts, and beans. Try to avoid red meat.
Choose foods containing healthy fats. Plant oils, nuts, and fish are the best choices. Limit consumption of saturated fats, and avoid foods with trans fat.
Choose a fiber-filled diet which includes whole grains, vegetables, and fruits.
Eat more vegetables and fruits—the more colorful and varied, the better.
Include adequate amounts of calcium in the diet; however, milk is not the best or the only source. Good sources of calcium are collards, bok choy, fortified soy milk, baked beans, and supplements containing calcium and vitamin D.
Prefer water over other beverages. Avoid sugary drinks, and limit intake of juices and milk. Coffee, tea, artificially-sweetened drinks, 100-percent fruit juices, low-fat milk, and alcohol can fit into a healthy diet but are best consumed in moderation. Sports drinks are recommended only for people who exercise more than an hour at a stretch to replace substances lost in sweat.
Limit salt intake. Choose more fresh foods, instead of processed ones.
Drink alcohol in moderation. Doing so has health benefits, but is not recommended for everyone.
Consider the intake of daily multivitamin and extra vitamin D, as these have potential health benefits.
Other than nutrition, the guide recommends frequent physical exercise and maintaining a healthy body weight
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