Who knew that nutrition affected diseases?

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For those of you that know me, you know that I like to joke around, I try not to sweat the small stuff and I am generally an easy going person.  Some of you may also know that I have been back in school for the last three years trying to finish up a degree that I started almost ten years ago.  That being said, my last and current class in this process is an introduction to nutritional concepts.  Before you start laughing, let me say that this class has really made an impact on my thoughts and actions as far as mine and my family’s nutrition goes.  This class has encouraged us to keep a blog as a final project and being an aspiring writer a blog is right up my alley.  I can now combine two things I love, eating and writing.

Over the next few weeks my goal is to not only blog about different nutritional aspects and how they affect our health but also to incorporate my own personal diet modification plan by implementing small changes every post.

This first post is going to go into more detail about the connection between nutrition and disease.  I am sure most people are already aware that everything they put into their mouth can and will affect them in one way or another.  The thing that most people do not know is what exactly that affect is.  Do you or anyone you know suffers from cancer? Hypertension?  Diabetes?  Atherosclerosis?  Obesity?  Strokes or other heart diseases?  The picture below really hot home with me because I love and I do mean love my diet coke.

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  Nutritional as well as genetic factors can play a large role in whether or not you or someone you know has any of these conditions.  Eating diets that are high in sugar, salt, saturated or trans-fat, not eating enough fruits and vegetables or incorporating enough vitamins and minerals can all play an important role in whether or not you will develop one or more of these chronic illnesses (Sizer & Whitney, 2013, p. 427).

Nutrition and disease play off of each other more than most people know.  If a person eats at McDonald’s for every meal for a solid month, not only will their weight see a change, their overall health will also be affected.  Sure you can make the argument that fast food restaurants are now offering healthier choices but how many times are people actually opting for those healthier choices once the smell of French fries hits their nose?  Even the salad options that are provided at these restaurants are full of hidden calories and fats.  If you want to check out the nutritional value of the McDonald’s menu here is a link for you, McDonald's Menu.  “If the foods you eat provide too little or too much of any nutrient today, your health may suffer just a little today.  If the foods you eat provide too little or too much of one or more nutrients every day for years, then in later life you may suffer severe disease effects.” (Sizer & Whitney, 2013, p. 3)

Source: http://www2.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/ltgb/daviswq1_files/image002.gif

     These chronic diseases that you can get from making poor nutrition choices can lead to an early death.  Other leading causes of death are malnutrition, heart disease, cancer, chronic lung disease, strokes, accidents, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, pneumonia and influenza, kidney disease and suicide (Sizer & Whitney, 2013, p. 3).  Not all of these are related to your nutritional choices but things like malnutrition, heart disease, cancer, strokes, diabetes and kidney disease are.  While malnutrition does not affect a majority of people in the United States, there are other countries that have people that are suffering from malnutrition.  Malnutrition is the result of inadequate nutrition that can either come from a lack of being able to properly digest the food you eat or from an unbalanced diet (Fletcher, 2015, p. 1).

     The bottom line is that if we want to be around to have children of our own or grandchildren and great-grandchildren, we need to start taking better care of ourselves.  We do not want other countries to look at us as if we are America land of the fat and home of the hungry; we want to live up to our moniker of America, land of the free and home of the brave.

    

source: https://today.duke.edu/sites/default/files/stories/get%20moving_H.png?1357585834

My challenge to myself or personal diet modification if you will for this first entry is to add at least one day of exercise to my current exercise regimen.  If I am being honest with myself and with you, right now I do not have an exercise plan my old motto was if it happened it happened.  So taking baby steps, I am going to make myself exercise at least once a week from this point on.  Now that I have initiated a challenge to myself maybe it will motivate someone else out there to make their own changes towards healthier living.

Fletcher, J. (2015). Managing adult malnutrition in the community. Nurse Prescribing, 13(1), 32-36.

Sizer, F. & Whitney, E. (2013).  Nutrition: Concepts and Controversies (13th ed.).  Mason, OH: 

      Cengage Learning.