Healthy and balanced diets
July 1st, 2015 by Liliane Baines
The plethora of dietary advice is overwhleming. There’s sugar-free; wheat-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, carb-free; casein-free to name but a few.
And even within the same publication – often in the same issue – the advice can be contradictory.
So what is a girl to do? We want to be healthy – take care of our bodies and eat right. But we don’t want to miss out on all the fun. Nor miss out on the vital mineral, vitamins and nutrients our body needs for fuel, growth and cell repair (read good skin, hair and nails).
No single foodstuff (other than breastmilk for babies under 6 months) contains all the nutrients our bodies need. The more varied our diet the more likely we are to provide our body with all it needs. The more we restrict or cut out food from our diet the more likely we are to miss out on the valuable nutrients those foods contain.
It’s not sexy, it’s not new, it’s not exciting but a healthy and balanced diet is best.
For more on the potential dangers of extreme healthy eating:
Hadley Freeman investigates the qualifications of some well-known wellness bloggers – are they really in a position to make medical claims? The Guardian, June 27 2015
Kim Willis shares her personal story of how her search for a healthy diet turned into an eating disorder – orthorexia Grazia, 16 June 2015
Following a gluten-free diet when you don’t need to could be making you illThe Daily Mirror, 27 June 2015