Healthy Eating Guidelines
Introduction
Eating a healthy and balanced diet is important to get all your essential nutrients and vitamins. It is also important to help the body function properly and to keep things working in perfect order. In this report I’ll be explaining the healthy eating guidelines, why we should stick to them and how we can achieve them realistically. There is a eat healthy plate, which shows what each food groups portion should be in our diet.

. The 8 balance of good health guidelines are;
• Enjoy your food.
• Eat a variety of different foods.
• Eat the right amount to be a healthy weight.
• Eat plenty of foods rich in starch and fibre.
• Eat plenty of fruit and vegetables.
• Don’t eat too many foods that contain a lot of fat.

According to the healthy eating guidelines:
Gender: men need more energy than women.
Age: older adult need less energy than adolescents and younger adults.
Being overweight: being heavier than the healthy weight range for an individual’s weight means less energy is required to achieve a healthy weight.
Being very physically active: the more active people are the greater energy intake their energy needs.
This information along with the 8 balance of good health guidelines will help you maintain a healthy weight and a healthy and balanced diet
Healthy eating:
Healthy eating can be a little bit confusing, unless you have been advised properly. There is loads of different information around about healthy eating, all giving different advice about healthy eating, that why the government has given us these guidelines to help us make the right choices about eating a healthy and balanced diet.
When planning your weekly meals, be aware of these guidelines especially, eat plenty of foods rich in starch and fibre, eat plenty of fruit and vegetables and don’t eat too many foods that contain a lot of fat. These are very good ones and even help you follow the other guidelines. Eating plenty of foods rich in starch and fibre, will keep you fuller for longer and will stop you reaching for those sugary and fatty foods and helping you keep to a healthy weight. Also with carbohydrates, such

As starch and fibres, e.g. pasta, bread, potatoes and other cereals, they contain B vitamins and other important nutrients. The carbohydrates to go for are the wholemeal, whole grains, brown or high fibre versions, as these are better for you, as they are less processed then white versions, so have more of their natural nutrients. While preparing and cooking these foods, avoid; * Having them fried too often (e.g. chips) * Adding too much fat to them, like adding to much butter to them. * Adding rich sauces to pastas, or dressings to potatoes.
Eating plenty of fruit and vegetables will help your body get the right vitamins and minerals, helping to keep illness a bay. The guidelines say to aim for at least 5 fruit and vegetables a day. Fruit and vegetables contain natural sugars (intrinsic sugars) which are a lot better for you than extrinsic sugars. This food group contains vitamins, carotenes, foliates, fibre and even some carbohydrates. Fruit and vegetables are proving to be the food group that people struggle with especially with children. With the guidelines being try and eat at least 5 fruit and vegetable a day, it isn’t that hard to get this as fresh, frozen, canned and dried fruit count as one of your five a day. A glass of fruit juice counts, but no matter how much juice you drink it will only count as one portion. Beans and pulses are also counted in this food group.

If you drink alcohol, drink it in moderation, as alcohol is full of empty calories especially the very popular alchopops, and beer. They are also full of extrinsic sugars so in large amount they can make you put weight on. The best alcohols to drink to help you not put weight on are white spirits like vodka, Bacardi and gin. Just remember to be careful not to mix them with high calorie and sugar drinks like cola.
Getting the most out of your diet.
So it’s not always easy to get everything in your diet, but following the balance of good health, will help you to get the essential things in to your diet.
Practical ways to achieve these guidelines; * Make homemade healthier versions of your popular shop brought meals e.g. homemade pizza, lasagne and Sheppard’s pie. * Add a variety of different food from each food groups, don’t stink to the same foods, e.g. swap white potatoes for sweet potatoes, and swap white bread for bagels e.c.t. * Make sure the potion size is the right amount, as too much will contribute to weight gain, and not enough will leave you feeling peckish.

* Drink alcohol in moderation as it contains lots of empty calories and has a high sugar content especially ‘alcopops’

Mr. Simon Clarke case study.
Mr Simon Clarke’s diet isn’t the worse I have ever seen but there are a few things that need to be changed like; variety, too much fat and sugar intake and not enough fruit and vegetables. Mr Clarke is not getting enough fruit and vegetables in his diet and definitely not enough variety of fruit and veg. He is only eating an apple and orange a week, which is not enough. He also is not having any variety in his diet and mainly sticks to potatoes and bread as his main source of carbohydrates. His alcohol intake is too much and is drinking beer which is also not that good. My advice to him is; * Eat more fruit and vegetables. * One day a week cook off all his weeks’ meals and freeze them, so he doesn’t feel the need to eat high calorie and fat food, when he hasn’t the time or simply wants something quick and easy for his meal. * Make healthy homemade alternatives to his favourite foods, adding extra fruit and vegetables to help getting his 5 a day. * Have more variety in his diet, don’t just stick to certain foods in a food group e.g. swap white potatoes with sweet potatoes, white bread for bagels. * Go for a healthier option, swap chips for jacket potatoes or oven cooked homemade wedges, white creamy sauces for tomato based sauces * Go for a wholegrain or wholemeal option, swap white bread for brown, wholemeal or whole grain bread, white pasta for whole grain pasta. * Keep fat intake down, as being overweight will put more stress on his arthritis and making it more painful for him. He also needs to keep the fat down, so it will help his cholesterol to stay down.
Conclusion:
My conclusion is it isn’t that hard to have a well-balanced diet and these guidelines will help you to achieve this. I think a lot of people are not well informed about healthy eating and get very confused on the whole concept of it. If people were better informed then there would be less obesity and other western diseases. I think we should be informed as young as infant school so they have a good understanding of a good healthy and varied diet by the time they grow up into adults.

Bibliography

GRANT, A. (2012), nutrition, Access to H.E in Health 2012-2013, Basingstoke College of Technology, [9th October 2012]
THE FOOD STANDARDS AGENCY, (2001) The Balance of Healthy Eating, England