Nutrition And Healthy Eating

Nutrition as it applies to our daily lives means that we take in what we need to maintain our body's healthy state. Nutrition has become an important word thanks to the involvement of the USDA in our daily food requirements, and the FDA's involvement in determining what is and is not dangerous for us to consume.

What about eating habits? What about vitamins? What role does our daily intake play in our health? More than you have been lead to believe or understand. The body's ability to remain well under anything other than ideal conditions is a direct result of the nutrition received on a daily basis. The mind's ability to remain well is, again, a direct result of our nutritional intake. For instance, the human brain doesn't develop well without the necessary input of protein in our daily diet. No protein, no intelligence.
Nutrition refers to the nurturing of our body, in our ability to keep it healthy and functioning as it is supposed to do. Our ability to provide the body with all the necessary food, vitamins, and minerals so that we continue to thrive in our daily life processes.

How do we determine that we are providing the essential nutritional needs? That knowledge comes by educating ourselves about what our individual needs are, the needs of our family, and then taking that knowledge and applying it to the foods we buy, that we prepare, and that our families consume.

Health is taught as a science course, and addresses matters of personal hygiene, diseases, and the broad spectrum of health as it applies to the masses. No individual attention is given to how to attain optimal health via our eating habits. It's funny that we skip the most important, fundamental building block to good health: our nutritional and caloric consumption in our food. I personally believe we should have the field of nutrition and physical activity married into something combined to provide every person that enters the school system with a personal knowledge of their bodies' needs, caloric, and nutritional, so that they complete their education with mental and physical competencies, as well as analytical and mathematical competence.

Nutrition is a concept that should be as important to our educational process as our ability to count. The ability to recognize our nutritional requirements, find the foods we need to fulfill those requirements, and differentiate between healthy food consumption and "unhealthy" eating habits is not an option. Not for a healthy, happy, long, and quality life.

What we should absorb as we travel along life's daily path is a way to incorporate good nutrition into our lifestyle. There is generally just as much room for good as there is bad, it just so happens that bad nutritional habits hold more appeal.

Bad nutrition receives more advertising dollars than healthy nutritional options, and is often more visible. But that doesn't mean it's any easier, more convenient, or cheaper. Habits, generally take about two weeks to make the switch from conscious action to unconscious thought. Two weeks is not long, it's not long at all for decisions that will affect you for the rest of your life. It's also not long for the potential reward that comes from setting an example your children can follow, and you can be proud for them to follow. You teach them daily about the good habits you want them to develop, and then you demonstrate a bad one in your nutrition choices. C'mon, mom and dad, let's practice what we preach.