---

Homepage

---

World Population: Nutrition Challenges

According to the Global Nutrition Report 2020, one in nine people in the world are hungry or undernourished, and one in three people are overweight or obese.
Undernutrition and nutrient deficiency is estimated globally to cause the deaths of between 3 and 5 million people per year.(4)

The World Health Organization estimates that, during the last decade, around 1.9 billion adults were overweight or obese, while 850 million are undernourished.

By 2050 there will be about 2 billion adults over age 60 on the planet; and over 8 billion people.

As governments continue their efforts to teach and educate about the health benefits of eating a well nutritioned diet; they must also address the challenges: an aging population, and obesity.
Obesity continues to be a health issue for both young and adults on a global scale.

Ever Evolving: Nutrition

Nutrition continually changes because research involving nutrition brings forth new information and once reviewed and accepted by medical experts; this information is often used by government agencies who oversee the recommedations for public nutrition at any given time.
This is moreso important since it is now accepted that there is correlation between nutrition, diet, and health.

Canadian Nutrition Standards

In Canada, nutrient based nutrition standards were first published in 1939, and were updated from time to time.
In 1983, these were renamed RNIs; Recommended Nutrient Intakes.
The USA also implemented similar nutrition standards about the same time. Theirs was RDAs; Recommended Dietary Allowances; first published in 1943.
Intake recommendation levels for protein, vitamins, and minerals were based on amounts that would prevent deficiencies.
Since those early years, knowledge of nutrients and its association with disease, has changed significantly, and with that, recommendations for nutritional intakes has also changed.
Although overt nutrient deficiencies are now mostly obsolete: prevalence of diet related diseases have increased.
Heart disease, obesity, and cancer illnesses are the foremost medical concerns since 1990s.

Canada USA Collaboration

Because of this, nutrition scientists from Canada and USA collaborated to develop new nutrition guides to replace the existing RNIs and RDAs. These include all vitamins and minerals.
The new guidelines are named Dietary Reference Intakes - DRIs.
These new guidelines are designed to prevent nutrient deficiencies and promote a healthy dietary lifestyle.
In addition to recommendeded intakes of minerals and vitamins,
Canada and USA also have dietary and nutrition eating guides; with recommendations for selecting and eating food groups.

Canada's was originally named Canada's Official Food Rules, and was first introduced in 1942.
This was during wartime, with food shortages; and food rationing was implemented. The government wanted to optimize the nutrient intake of Canadians.

In 1961, Canada's Food Rules became Canada's Food Guide and the guide has been changed several times since then.
Each new change incorporated new nutritional knowledge about the relationship between food choices and health. The most current revisions took place in 2007; and recently 2019.
Eating Well with Canada's Food Guide, is the name given to the 2019 guide, and, it promotes the necessary nutrients for optimal nutrition for Canadians.

Dietary Reference Intakes

DRI is the daily recommended consumption of nutrients. Our body gets nutrients from the foods we eat. Some foods provide more nutrition than others.

In the United States, the Institute of Medicine, specically the Food and Nutrition Board (FNB), develops DRIs.
They also change the DRIs from time to time based on new nutritional evidence and the adequacy of the American diet.

Most countries now have established food guides. Following these Food Guides established by your government will provide you with specific food groups to consume so that you get proper nutrition.

The Basis of Nutrition

"A healthy diet includes a variety of nutrient-dense foods from each food group as well as a variety of foods from within each group.
It balances energy and nutrient intake with needs and moderates choices to keep intakes of energy, fat, sugar, salt, and alcohol within reason."(3).

Adequacy and Nutrient Density

To ensure adequacy, a diet must be rich in nutrient-dense foods. Nutrient density is a measure of the nutrients a food provides compared to its energy content.
Nutrient-dense foods contain substantial amounts of nutrients per kcalorie.
For example, broccoli is more nutrient-dense than french fries. Broccoli is a good source of calcium, vitamin C, vitamin A, and folate, and only contributes about 20 kcalories per 125 ml (1/2 cup).
French fries provide little vitamin A and much smaller amounts of vitamin C, calcium, and folate and contribute about 80 kcalories per 125 ml.

Why Nutrition is Important

The human body needs nutrients for the growth, maintenance, and repair of cells. Nutrition is the scientific study of nutrients and how the body uses them.
Public health experts in Canada, USA, and other countries, are concerned with eating habits because rates of many serious chronic diseases are associated with certain dietary practices.
People may be able to live longer, healthier lives, by improving the nutritional quality of their diet.

Major Food Groups

Before developing a food guide, nutrition experts classify foods into major food groups, according to their natural origins and key nutrients.

In Canada and USA, the major food groups are very similar: grains; dairy (milk and milk products); fruits; vegetables; and protein-rich foods, such as meat, nuts, and eggs. You can also include healthy oils like olive oil.

Grains include foods like whole wheat bread, brown rice, oats. Dairy includes foods like fat free milk, and alternative milk drinks like unsweetened soy, almond and rice milk, cheddar cheese, and plain unsweetened yogurt.

Vegetables include brocolli, bok choy, spinach, kale, brussel sprouts, and carrots.

Fruits including strawberries, cantaloupe, bananas, blueberries, avocado.

Protein foods like eggs, lean chicken no skin, lean and xlean hamburg, beef liver, pork, tofu.

Nuts and seeds,
healthy varieties like almonds, walnuts, brazil nuts, cashews, chia seeds, flax seeds and pumpkin seeds.

In most instances, dietary guides provide recommendations concerning amounts of foods from each group that should be eaten daily.
It is important to note that the nutritional content of foods within each group often can vary.
For example, 7 ounces of fresh sliced apple and 7 ounces of fresh orange slices each supply about 100 kcal. However, the apple contributes about 8 mg of vitamin C, whereas oranges supply about 89 mg of the vitamin C. That is why the food guides recommend choosing foods from all the food groups when planning your daily meals.
And, you can research any specific food online to get its' nutritional profile. Example search: 'Avocado Nutrition'.

Nutritional Requirements

Factors that determine an individual's food intake include: age, sex, lifestyle, general health status, and, any medications. Based on a generally healthy person, and research methods, scientists are able to 'estimate' the body's nutritional requirements.

What Is Nutritional Requirement

A nutrient requirement is the smallest amount of a nutrient that maintains a defined level of nutritional body health.
In general, this amount supplys certain cells with the nutrient or prevents the nutrient’s deficiency disease. Many nutrients are stored in the body, and mostly in the liver, body fat, and bones. For best nutrition, a person needs to consume enough of those nutrients to maintain storage efficiency.
When one’s intake of a stored nutrient is low or one’s need for a nutrient becomes increased, such as during illness recovery, the body takes some from storage. By having optimal levels of stored nutrients, the person can avoid or delay developing disorders that are a result of the nutrients’ deficiency.

Nutrients

The six classes of nutrients are: carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, vitamins, minerals, and water.
The human body can many nutrients, but about 50 nutrients are dietary essentials that must be supplied by food.
Carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and vitamins are organic nutrients; minerals and water are inorganic nutrients.
Carbohydrates, fats, and proteins are macronutrients; vitamins and minerals are micronutrients. Plant foods contain a variety of phytochemicals. Many phytochemicals are beneficial antioxidants, but some phytochemicals are toxic.

Calorie

A Calorie is the heat energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 liter of water 1 degree Celsius. A gram of carbohydrate and a gram of protein each supply about 4 kcal; a gram of fat provides 9 kcal. Alcohol 7.

Energy from Food

The amount of energy food provides by weight.

Nutrient Dense Foods

When compared to carbohydrate, protein, and alcohol, fat supplies the most energy per gram.
Some foods are energy dense, some are nutrient dense, and some are energy dense and nutrient dense like certain nuts. Walnuts for example, are energy dense and nutrient dense.

Determining a Food's Energy

Example: an average donut weighs 100g and has 400 calories.
To get the energy, Divide the calories by the weight of the food: 400 ÷ 100 = 4 energy
The donut provides 4 grams of energy.
Strawberries - a serving that weighs 100g has 32 calories: 32 ÷ 100 = .32 energy; so you would need to eat more strawberries to get the same energy that the donut provides.
As mentioned, nuts are unique, as they are dense but also nutrient dense.
Also, a nutrient dense food has little or no solid fats, added sugars, refined starches, or sodium. So, they are most often healthy; and using nuts as our example; they also contain healthy fats.
Broccoli, leafy greens, fat-free milk, oranges, lean meats, and whole-grain cereals are also examples of nutrient dense foods.

Functional Foods

Aimed at health conscious consumers. these foods contain specific nutrients and or target health conditions. Usually they contain healthy ingredients or additional quantities of healthy ingredients.

Empty Calorie Foods

Basically, all junk foods and alcohol have calories and energy but they do not contain nutrition. So, for someone who needs more nutrition in their diet, junks foods are not suitable for this purpose.

Special Diets - Dietician

A registered dietician is someone who knows a lot about eating healthy macronutrients and micronutrients. They study the biochemistry of foods; how foods digest in the human body; and they learn best practices for eating optimal foods. With their nutrition background, they are skilled at assessing bad food ingestion behaviors and can plan a better approach to an indivudual's daily food intake.
A nutritionist is similar to a dietician; but they may not have the same educational background as a dietician who is registered.
They follow a standard nutritionist framework when assessing an individual; including factors such as: food likes and dislikes, a person's budget, support systems(peers, family), health status, occupation, and the ability to prepare foods.

Dieticians work in a variety of settings; including health institutions, public awareness campaigns, food chemistry and research, and their own business as a dietician.

Malnutrion - OverNutrition

Malnutrition and overnutrition are the two most prevalent forms of nutrition deficiency.
In addition to malnutrition; where someone does not get enough nutrition, is also over nutrition. It is also a form of malnutrition because a person overeats but overeats the wrong type of foods. This type of eating often results in obesity.

Other reasons people do not get enough nutrition in their diets include;

Selecting nutritionally inadequate diets because of lack of knowledge about nutritious foods or the importance of nutrition to health.

People with low incomes and older adults living on fixed incomes are often at risk for malnutrition because they have limited financial resources for making healthy food purchases.

Other people who are at risk of malnutrition include those who have severe eating disorders, are addicted to drugs such as alcohol, or have serious medical problems that interfere with their body's ability to absorb or use nutrients.


YOU MAY LIKE:

---

Free Android Wine App

White Wines:Chardonnay, Chenin, Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc

---

Develop Android Apps - Free Tutorials Click Here

---

If you Liked 'Nutrition Basics', Give Us a Social Mention

You May Also Like:

Make Sushi At Home | Pro Tips Photography