Linking Diet & Health.
After living more than six and a half decades of life, by the age of 65, we will eat more than 70,000 meals, and our bodies will discard enough waste to total the weight of half a house, that’s 50 tons! The food we eat supports our body to grow, maintain, and rebuild the cells, muscles, bones, skin, blood, and every other aspect of our human biomechanics (Sizer & Whitney, 2016). We choose what we eat, and our diet plays a direct role in our health. The food we eat is chemically broken down, starting with the saliva in our mouth and finishing by discarding waste out of the anus. The food digestion process from start to finish operates in the same way for everyone. Still, differences occur in what foods we choose to eat. Those differences create positive or negative effects in the body as our food is broken down and used for all the biochemical processes that occur daily and over time.
Inadequate or Improper Nutrition in Our Children
There is an abundance of research that, in my opinion, does more than merely suggest that malnutrition is a growing problem that is creating health risks and disease. Instead, this research should be understood as undisputed truth and common knowledge. A recent study in the Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal exposes the disturbing nutrition fact that we are not just failing ourselves as adults. We are failing our young children worldwide. The research showed that children had high energy deficiencies due to malnutrition, followed second by high deficiencies in Vitamin A (Radi, 2021). Vitamin A is an antioxidant (Vitamin A, n.d.). Lack of vitamin A in our bodies can lead to blindness, infertility and delayed or stunted growth (Streit, 2018). Nutrition deficiencies are starting at an alarmingly young age.
The HBO documentary film (2012), The Weight of the Nation: Part 3 Children in Crisis, suggests that children who are obese have a 33% higher chance of having diabetes as adults. They are also more likely to have other diseases such as chronic liver disease and cardiovascular disease by their mid 30s and will struggle more to be able to lose weight throughout their lifetime (HBO documentary film, 2012). Children who are obese suffer side effects such as fatty lesions formed in their arteries, joint pain, difficulty breathing, and many children have the “metabolic characteristics of an obese 25-year-old” (HBO documentary film, 2012).
Remember that kids will have eaten 70,000 meals by the time they turn 65. This means that, on average, parents and guardians will have influenced the first 17,230 meals (ages 0–16 years). That’s 17,230 reasons for us to focus on being healthy and raise our children to do the same.
Stay MOTOvated!! Live MOTOvated!!
References
HBO Documentary Films. [HBODocs]. (2012, May 14). The weight of the nation: Part 3 — Children in crisis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T24B6T-hp0E
Hypokalemic periodic paralysis. (n.d.). U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved June 23, 2021, from https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000312.htm
Radi, S. (2021). Nutrient intakes and adequacy among preschool children under blockade in Gaza City, Palestine. Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal, 27(5), 467–473. https://doi-org.proxy-library.ashford.edu/10.26719/2021.27.5.467
Streit, M. L. S. (2018, June 2). 8 Signs and symptoms of vitamin A deficiency. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vitamin-a-deficiency-symptoms#TOC_TITLE_HDR_11
Sizer, F., & Whitney, E. (2017). Nutrition: Concepts and controversies (14th ed.) [E-book]. Cengage Learning. https://content.ashford.edu/books/Sizer.2199.17.1/
Vitamin A. (n.d.). U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved June 23, 2021, from https://medlineplus.gov/vitamina.html
Vitamin A. (2019, July 2). The Nutrition Source. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/vitamin-a/