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Dieting is the practice of eating food in a regulated way to decrease, maintain, or increase body weight, or to prevent and treat diseases such as diabetes and obesity. As weight loss depends on calorie intake, different kinds of calorie-reduced diets, such as those emphasising particular macronutrients, have been shown to be no more effective than one another. As weight regain is common, diet success is best predicted by long-term adherence. Regardless, the outcome of a diet can vary widely depending on the individual.
In nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food.
Nutrition is the biochemical and physiological process by which an organism uses food to support its life. It provides organisms with nutrients, which can be metabolized to create energy and chemical structures. Failure to obtain sufficient nutrients causes malnutrition. Nutritional science is the study of nutrition, though it typically emphasizes human nutrition.
A nutrient is a substance used by an organism to survive, grow, and reproduce. The requirement for dietary nutrient intake applies to animals, plants, fungi, and protists. Nutrients can be incorporated into cells for metabolic purposes or excreted by cells to create non-cellular structures, such as hair, scales, feathers, or exoskeletons. Some nutrients can be metabolically converted to smaller molecules in the process of releasing energy, such as for carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and fermentation products, leading to end-products of water and carbon dioxide. All organisms require water. Essential nutrients for animals are the energy sources, some of the amino acids that are combined to create proteins, a subset of fatty acids, vitamins and certain minerals. Plants require more diverse minerals absorbed through roots, plus carbon dioxide and oxygen absorbed through leaves. Fungi live on dead or living organic matter and meet nutrient needs from their host.
Human nutrition deals with the provision of essential nutrients in food that are necessary to support human life and good health. Poor nutrition is a chronic problem often linked to poverty, food security, or a poor understanding of nutritional requirements. Malnutrition and its consequences are large contributors to deaths, physical deformities, and disabilities worldwide. Good nutrition is necessary for children to grow physically and mentally, and for normal human biological development.
A saturated fat is a type of fat in which the fatty acid chains have all single bonds. A fat known as a glyceride is made of two kinds of smaller molecules: a short glycerol backbone and fatty acids that each contain a long linear or branched chain of carbon (C) atoms. Along the chain, some carbon atoms are linked by single bonds (-C-C-) and others are linked by double bonds (-C=C-). A double bond along the carbon chain can react with a pair of hydrogen atoms to change into a single -C-C- bond, with each H atom now bonded to one of the two C atoms. Glyceride fats without any carbon chain double bonds are called saturated because they are "saturated with" hydrogen atoms, having no double bonds available to react with more hydrogen.
A fad diet is a diet that is popular, generally only for a short time, similar to fads in fashion, without being a standard scientific dietary recommendation, and often making unreasonable claims for fast weight loss or health improvements; as such is often considered a type of pseudoscientific diet. Fad diets are usually not supported by clinical research and their health recommendations are not peer-reviewed, thus they often make unsubstantiated statements about health and disease.
Vegetarian nutrition is the set of health-related challenges and advantages of vegetarian diets.
Calorie restriction is a dietary regimen that reduces the energy intake from foods and beverages without incurring malnutrition. The possible effect of calorie restriction on body weight management, longevity, and aging-associated diseases has been an active area of research.
A healthy diet is a diet that maintains or improves overall health. A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition: fluid, macronutrients such as protein, micronutrients such as vitamins, and adequate fibre and food energy.
Specific dynamic action (SDA), also known as thermic effect of food (TEF) or dietary induced thermogenesis (DIT), is the amount of energy expenditure above the basal metabolic rate due to the cost of processing food for use and storage. Heat production by brown adipose tissue which is activated after consumption of a meal is an additional component of dietary induced thermogenesis. The thermic effect of food is one of the components of metabolism along with resting metabolic rate and the exercise component. A commonly used estimate of the thermic effect of food is about 10% of one's caloric intake, though the effect varies substantially for different food components. For example, dietary fat is very easy to process and has very little thermic effect, while protein is hard to process and has a much larger thermic effect.
In human nutrition, empty calories are those calories found in beverages and foods composed primarily or solely of sugars and/or certain fats and oils such as cholesterol, saturated or trans fats, that provide little to no useful nutrients such as protein, fibre, vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, or antioxidants. Foods composed mostly of empty calories have low nutrient density, meaning few nutrients relative to their energy content. The consumption of large amounts of empty calories can have negative health consequences.
A diabetic diet is a diet that is used by people with diabetes mellitus or high blood sugar to minimize symptoms and dangerous complications of long-term elevations in blood sugar.
A low-fat diet is one that restricts fat, and often saturated fat and cholesterol as well. Low-fat diets are intended to reduce the occurrence of conditions such as heart disease and obesity. For weight loss, they perform similarly to a low-carbohydrate diet, since macronutrient composition does not determine weight loss success. Fat provides nine calories per gram while carbohydrates and protein each provide four calories per gram. The Institute of Medicine recommends limiting fat intake to 35% of total calories to control saturated fat intake.
Nutritional rating systems are used to communicate the nutritional value of food in a more-simplified manner, with a ranking, than nutrition facts labels. A system may be targeted at a specific audience. Rating systems have been developed by governments, non-profit organizations, private institutions, and companies. Common methods include point systems to rank foods based on general nutritional value or ratings for specific food attributes, such as cholesterol content. Graphics and symbols may be used to communicate the nutritional values to the target audience.
The Western pattern diet is a modern dietary pattern that is generally characterized by high intakes of pre-packaged foods, refined grains, red meat, processed meat, high-sugar drinks, candy and sweets, fried foods, industrially produced animal products, butter and other high-fat dairy products, eggs, potatoes, corn, and low intakes of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, pasture-raised animal products, fish, nuts, and seeds.
Obesity in Mexico is a relatively recent phenomenon, having been widespread since the 1980s with the introduction of ultra-processed food into much of the Mexican food market. Prior to that, dietary issues were limited to under and malnutrition, which is still a problem in various parts of the country. Following trends already ongoing in other parts of the world, Mexicans have been foregoing the traditional Mexican diet high in whole grains, fruits, legumes and vegetables in favor of a diet with more animal products and ultra-processed foods. It has seen dietary energy intake and rates of overweight and obese people rise with seven out of ten at least overweight and a third clinically obese.
Dietary Reference Values (DRV) is the name of the nutritional requirements systems used by the United Kingdom Department of Health and the European Union's European Food Safety Authority.
Weight management refers to behaviors, techniques, and physiological processes that contribute to a person's ability to attain and maintain a healthy weight. Most weight management techniques encompass long-term lifestyle strategies that promote healthy eating and daily physical activity. Moreover, weight management involves developing meaningful ways to track weight over time and to identify ideal body weights for different individuals.
References
- 1 2 Nutrient profiling: Report of a WHO/IASO technical meeting London, United Kingdom 4–6 October 2010 (PDF). World Health Organization. 2011. ISBN 978-92-4-150220-7.
- ↑ Nutrient Profiling, accessed 10/15/2014
- ↑ Hunter, J. G., Cason, K. L., Nutrient Density, Clemson University, 2006(November), accessed 10/15/2014. Nutrient density is defined as "a measure of the nutrients provided per calorie of food, or the ratio of nutrients to calories (energy)."
- ↑ Darmon N, Darmon M, Maillot M, Drewnowski A (December 2005). "A nutrient density standard for vegetables and fruits: nutrients per calorie and nutrients per unit cost". J Am Diet Assoc. 105 (12): 1881–7. doi:10.1016/j.jada.2005.09.005. PMID 16321593.
- ↑ Drewnowski A (August 2009). "Defining nutrient density: development and validation of the nutrient rich foods index". J Am Coll Nutr. 28 (Suppl 4): 421S–6S. doi:10.1080/07315724.2009.10718106. PMID 20368382.
- ↑ Drewnowski A (April 2010). "The Nutrient Rich Foods Index helps to identify healthy, affordable foods". Am J Clin Nutr. 91 (4): 1095S–1101S. doi:10.3945/ajcn.2010.28450D. PMID 20181811.
- ↑ Trichterborn J, Harzer G, Kunz C (September 2011). "Nutrient profiling and food label claims: evaluation of dairy products in three major European countries". Eur J Clin Nutr. 65 (9): 1032–8. doi: 10.1038/ejcn.2011.52 . PMID 21540877.
- ↑ Freeland-Graves JH, Nitzke S (February 2013). "Position of the academy of nutrition and dietetics: total diet approach to healthy eating". J Acad Nutr Diet. 113 (2): 307–17. doi:10.1016/j.jand.2012.12.013. PMID 23351634.
- ↑ FSANZ Board, Nutrient Profiling Scoring Calculator, accessed 10/15/2014
- ↑ Rayner, M., Scarborough, P., Lobtein, P., The UK Ofcom Nutrient Profiling Model, October 2009, accessed 10/15/2014