Why is nutrition important?

 Why is nutrition important?

A healthy diet throughout life promotes healthy pregnancy outcomes, supports normal growth, development and ageing, helps to maintain a healthy body weight, and reduces the risk of chronic disease leading to overall health and well-being.

Benefits of healthy eating

A diversified, balanced and healthy diet will vary depending on:

age 

gender

lifestyle

degree of physical activity

cultural context

locally available foods 

dietary and food customs.

The basic principles of what constitute a healthy diet remain the same.

Healthy food starts with a healthy diet in pregnancy (external site), continues with breastmilk for babies (external site) and is important for children and teenagers (external site) and adults (external site) and with ageing.

People who regularly eat:

more foods high in energy, fats, free sugars or salt/sodium and

do not eat enough fruit, vegetables and foods with whole grains