There is no one cause of obesity; however, if you want to understand the causes so you can find the solutions to obesity it is important to stick to the basics. There are three over-arching factors that people can control that have a tremendous influence on how people become obese and what they can do about it. The factors are all found in each individual.
Every one struggling with controlling their weight must understand they are at cause, meaning they cannot solve the problem by passing the reason for the obesity to someone or something else. They must become educated on the issue and most importantly they must take action!
The three principle factors causing obesity involve your diet, exercise, and psychological factors. If you want to lose weight you really need to address all three. In this article we will focus on the first of the three key factors, diet.
Nutrition, Diet, and their influence on Obesity and Health.
Americans have become obsessed with diets and dieting. Americans spend roughly 50 billion dollars annually on diet plans, products, nutritional supplements, herbal remedies, vegetarian products, and other health foods. To lose weight the simple answer is to consume fewer calories than you burn in a given day and to do that over time. To maintain your weight you need to consume the same amount of calories as you burn.
If our goal is to be healthy how much you eat as well as what and when you eat does matter. The principles for having a good, healthy diet include maintaining or developing self-discipline to change behavior.
Basic Nutritional Principles
Your ultimate objective is to adopt a practical nutritional approach that will enable you to maximize your over-all well-being. Nutrition education will be crucial for you to achieve that objective. It needs to provide you with the knowledge to make good decisions that will lead to your ability to maintain a healthy weight while enabling your body to fight diseases. When you can eliminate disease you will increase both your life expectancy and quality of life. Your eating habits will have a significant impact in your ability to reach that goal.
The Food You Eat Makes a Difference!
We all must have vitamins and minerals in our diet. Our bodies consist of minerals. One other nutritional component we need to take in are antioxidants, which attack free radicals. Free radicals appear to have increased in our industrialized world at the same time that antioxidants seem to have become more scarce in our diets. By increasing your nutrition education you will improve your ability to make decisions that will allow you to battle the health issues brought on by mineral deficiencies or free radicals.
By having your diet about 2/3 fruits and vegetables you will be eating foods that are high in nutrient rich water. We need water; our bodies are about 2/3 water and we benefit by having plenty of water in the very foods we eat. It would be best if the fruits and vegetables were organically grown and eaten raw or lightly steamed. When we cook vegetables many important enzymes are destroyed. It is best to lightly steam them to maintain the best nutritional value.
Time to Eat
There is another principle that says when we eat does matter to our health and to manage our weight. There are two potentially competing thoughts here. One is that we need to eat more often (about five meals a day), even if that entails eating around bed time. The other thought involves the understanding that our bodies go through cycles that includes breaking down foods (digestion) and eliminating the waste. If we eat while our bodies are trying to eliminate wastes our bodies cannot function optimally.
If we look at these schools of thought we can balance those out by not eating too late at night (generally after 8 pm) unless it is fresh fruit. We also wouldn't want to eat too early in the morning (generally not before 8 am), again, unless it is fresh fruit.
The Principle of Moderation
One of the important principles in life is the principle of moderation. It certainly applies to our dietary habits. It cannot be overemphasized that it is very important to not over eat. For many people food can be so enjoyable it can be difficult to eat in moderation. If you can simply apply this one principle the results managing weight would be dramatic for many people. Moderation does mean watching both what you eat and how much you eat. You can get away with eating "junk" foods in moderation. You also need to watch the amount you eat, particularly as you begin to eat more often.
These principles are been gleaned from numerous books on diet and nutrition. They are guidelines rather than hard and fast rules. Adopting these guidelines and furthering your nutrition education will ensure you are doing what is necessary to take control of your own health.
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