Chapter 2 – Planning Healthy Diets
2.1 Introduction and Learning Objectives
What makes a diet “healthy”? What does the word “healthy” even mean?
Each of us might picture something different when we think of a healthy diet, and if you travel around the world, you’ll find even more variation in how people define this term.
Indeed, humans are incredibly flexible when it comes to food. We are omnivores, and we can survive and thrive on a wide variety of different foods. The foods that nourish our bodies are often the same foods that nourish our souls, bringing us together with friends and family, celebrating traditions and conjuring memories of meals past.
We’ll begin our study of nutrients —the substances in food that nourish us—with an overview of the general functions of each. Then, we’ll l consider some tools for choosing foods that will provide us with all the nutrients we need. Because whatever the deep and complex meanings that food brings to our lives and our culture, we also want to choose foods that will promote wellness, fuel our activities, prevent disease, and enable us to long, healthy life.
VIDEO: “A Diet for a Healthy World” by the World Health Organization (June 2020) (I:39 minutes)
Chapter 2 Learning Objectives
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
- 2.1 Define basic nutrition concepts and explain how nutrition influences health, wellness, and chronic disease risk.
- 2.2 Describe the factors that influence food choices, including biological, social, cultural, economic, and environmental influences.
- 2.3 Identify the six classes of nutrients and explain how nutrient recommendations are established using the Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs).
- 2.4 Evaluate food and nutrition information by interpreting Nutrition Facts labels and applying principles of healthy diet planning.
- 2.5 Describe the evolution of dietary guidelines and food guidance systems and explain how they support healthy food choices.
attributions
This section is an adaptation of “Introduction to Designing a Healthy Diet” in Nutrition: Science and Everyday Application, V. 1.0 by Alice Callahan, PhD; Heather Leonard, MEd, RDN; and Tamberly Powell, MS, RDN under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Consumes both plants and animal foods.
Carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, vitamins, minerals and water.
