Nutrition Final Project

Health and wellness go hand in hand together. Health is the physical and mental body being free from illness, injury, or disease. For example, managing chronic conditions such as lowering blood pressure or controlling diabetes goals, and losing weight. Where wellness an active process of becoming aware of and making choices towards a healthy and fulfilling life (What is Wellness?, n.d.). In simple words, wellness is more than being free from illness, injury, or disease. Wellness matters! Why? Because, your well – being does not only effect your emotions but, it also effects physical, and mental well-being.

The concept of wellness is universal phenomenon nevertheless, its different across the world. It is dynamic notion of ever changing with the evolution of society and its technologies. Different concept of wellness is complex throughout different cultures and societies. The different arguments can be heard throughout everyone’s daily life for instance, “because that’s just the way it is” or “because that’s what makes sense to me.” Those notions are irrelevant because it does not have concrete support.

Wellness has an ancient root. Wellness has gained popularity since 1950s (Global Institute of Wellness, n.d.). Ancient wellness had been recorded since 3,000 – 1500 BC in Ayurveda. Ayurveda is Hindu oral tradition system where it strives to create harmony between body, mind, and spirit (Global Institute of wellness, n.d.). In the 19th century wellness movement went to alternative methods of healthcare which focused on self-healing, holistic approaches, preventative care like, homeopathy, osteopathy, chiropractic, and naturopathy (Global Institute of Wellness, n.d.). In the 20th century, wellness movement begins to gain momentum (Global Institute of Wellness, n.d.). Now, more government sponsored programs to promote healthier lifestyles being launched. Today, even more than half of global employers are using health promotion strategies and one third of the world is investing in wellness program (Global Institute of Wellness, n.d.). Thus, we can say that society has taken wellness and health and spread it like a wild fire. Society have taken the advantage of technologies and social media is taking advantage of these technologies to spread the word on how to become healthier.

Social practices and social norms of wellness have shaped everyone tremendously. For instance, models and actors have had most influenced the power of being healthy and well. Today, there are shows for yoga, work out sessions being aired on television to be the epitome of health. Nevertheless, at the end of the day everyone is responsible for their own health and wellness, whether if it’s there, their families, and their communities (Wellness.each have a role to play, n.d.).

Maintaining an optimal level of wellness is important to live a high quality of life. Wellness matters because everything we do is related to our well-being. Our well-being directly affects our actions and emotions. If we start taking responsibilities for our own health and well-being, we can improve health daily. Certain factors influence our state of wellness, including nutrition, physical activity, stress reducing methods, good relationships, and career success.

As public health leader we can create a framework for community wellness. The framework can be focused on prevention and health promotion for the community. For example, a physical therapy can educate his or her individual patient during clinical encounters about the benefits of good postures and work place injury prevention. From a public health perspective, to help the community the same physical therapy could participate in a program focused on educating larger scales community based proper posters and work place injury prevention.

Proper nutrition is one of the most essential part of being healthy and living long life. People dealt with food since beginning of our civilization. As per saying, “we are what we eat.” So, what we eat; it becomes our intake nutrients and it plays an important part of being healthy. For example, getting big Mac from McDonalds does not provide enough nutrients to body. But the food absorbs only increased amount of fatty acid. According to World Health Organization (WHO), “nutrition is the intake of food, considered in relation to the body’s dietary needs.” Good nutrition is an adequate, well balanced diet combined with regular physical activity (WHO, Oct 5, 2017). And poor nutrition can lead to reduced immunity, increased susceptibility to disease, impaired physical and mental development, and reduced productivity (WHO). According to WHO, malnutrition is estimated to contribute to more than one third of all child death. We have heard about climate change but what about global nutrition crisis?

There are different forms of malnutrition, which includes, undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, overweight and obesity. Undernutrition is when a person does not get enough food to eat, causing them to be wasted (someone is too thin for their height), and stunted (too short for their age) (WHO, October 5, 2017). Micronutrient deficiencies is when a person does not get enough vitamins and minerals in their diet. Overweight and obesity is linked to an unbalanced or unhealthy diet resulting in eating too many calories and lack of daily exercise. Just in the US, obesity is now the number one cause of preventable death. Poor nutrition is causing serious challenge to public health globally. According to Global nutrition Report, between 2 to 3 billion people are malnourished. The problem of poor nutrition causes early death and disabilities, particularly among children, and pregnant women in many countries. Globally, poor nutrition causes nearly 6.3 million child death and it is costing governments billions in healthcare costs, lost productivity, and economic growth (Greenslade, 2014).

Poor nutrition is related to major health risks that can cause illness like, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, osteoporosis, and other health problems. When consuming highly nutritious food it maximizes the optimal energy of body and mind. Poor nutrition lowers the productivity and your overall well-being. Poor nutrition causes fatigue, decreased mental effectiveness, irritability, lower energy levels, reduced ability to think clearly, high levels of stress and depression (Butler, 2016). For instance, when we do not eat breakfast one morning or even a coffee, we become agitated, irritable, out of place and we tend to make comment like, “Ohh! I am not awake, yet I need coffee or food in our system.” Poor nutrition does not just affect our body but also our mind.

Nutrition is a most important part of our health and development. Good nutrition is related to improved infant, child, maternal health, stronger immune system, lower risk of non-communicable diseases (WHO, Aug 28, 2017). A healthy nutritious food intake is critical for normal brain development. And, poor nutrition lack iron and iodine deficiencies which causes impair cognitive and motor development.

Poor diet is connected to almost every disease and health issue. In the most advanced market diet quality is poor thus, poor diet is responsible for disease burden. Today, societies have developed their own range of strategies to influence their diet behavior. Proper nutrition is very important in developing children. Because, proper nutrition helps in brain development, enhance metabolism, and overall health. A poor diet can lead to imbalanced energy for instance, consuming more calories than what body needs or consuming less calories than what body need which causes you to feel tired and exhausted. This can also lead to increased risk of overweight or obese or anorexic. Eating behaviors starts from the first year of life. Children learn from their parents what, when, and how much to eat by observation thorough others. The goal is to promote good health and reduce chronic disease through proper nutrition in developing children.

There are different strategies to consume proper nutrition in children. One of the strategies can play an important part in promoting lifelong healthy eating is school based program (CDC, 1996). Because, through school food services children learn to eat nutritious food and school can provide education on proper nutrition. Through school children can learn to adapt healthy eating with Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Food Guide Pyramid (CDC, 1996). Schools are ideal because, schools can reach to almost all children and adolescents (CDC, 1996). Schools can provide opportunities to healthy eating habits (CDC, 1996). School can also teach eating social behaviors. For example, schools can target peer pressures that discourage healthy eating.

Another strategy would start from home. For instance, snack and lunchbox. As mentioned before children adapt to what is learned and observed through. Preparing and packing the ideal lunchbox and snacks can enhance their healthy eating. When packing lunchbox snack would include, slices of fruit, small portion of crackers with cheese, tube of yoghurt, slices of vegetables so and so forth. With home packed lunchbox, parents and guardians should choose whole food rather than processed foods. Because, process foods have hidden sugars. Also, incorporating with fruits and vegetables is highly important. Because, without the fruits and vegetables children lacks in vitamins and minerals.

The foremost challenge that impact consumer is that reading labels and calculating nutritional contents for processed food. Another greatest challenge that impact implementing the strategies would be the higher cost of healthy foods. School – based program will be success because it will provide children with better nutrition which would provide health improvement. The strength of the school-based program is that schools are unique place to provide children with opportunities to learn and practice healthy eating behavior.

Reference:

Butler, Natalie. (2016, June 21). Nutrition and Productivity. Retrieved February 11, 2019, from https://www.healthline.com/health/nutrition-and-productivity

Center of Disease Control and Prevention. (1996, January 14). Guidelines for School Health Programs to Promote Lifelong Healthy Eating. Retrieved February 15, 2019, from https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00042446.htm

Eller, Kate. (2017, October 24). These 27 medical problems are caused by a poor diet | health enews health enews. Retrieved February 11, 2019, from https://www.ahchealthenews.com/2017/10/24/27-medical-problems-caused-poor-diet/

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