Eating healthy is challenging in our fast-paced society. Increased preference for convenience foods and packaged foods, combined with stress and environmental pollution, make people more vulnerable to health problems. This is where clean eating and eating fresh foods come into play.
While we can’t control the environmental pollutants we’re exposed to, we can certainly adopt a healthy diet. As more people become aware of this, Dr. Irfan Shaikh, head of medical and scientific affairs for Abbott’s nutrition business, highlights a balanced diet, as well as certain activities you can take to age properly.
Start out young
As teenagers grow, three essential systems in their bodies change, including long bones, hormonal maturation, and muscle mass, along with blood and immune systems. To ensure these areas grow properly, you need proper nutrition.
Bone development: Most people think of adequate protein and calcium when they think of bone development, but vitamin D, magnesium, phosphorus, vitamin K, collagen, and essential fatty acids are also essential for bone health and turnover. Consuming these nutrients may help reduce the risk of fractures for teenagers. Fish, eggs, chickpea curry, mixed vegetables, dal tadka, and even some chutneys like flax seed chutney are rich in this nutrient.
Blood: Iron, vitamin B-12 and folate are essential for healthy red blood cell formation. Without enough iron, teenagers can’t make enough red blood cells to carry oxygen around the body. Foods prepared from spinach, such as palak paneer, palak rice palak dal, lentil soup, methi paratha and beetroot poriyal are some of the dishes that are rich in this nutrient.
Hormonal Maturity: A balanced diet, adequate protein, high fiber, stress-free lifestyle, regular exercise, weight control and good sleep are important for successful change of hormonal base in the early years.
Fractures. Eating milk, yogurt and cheese is a good source of calcium intake. Ragi dosa, sesame chutney and paneer, masala are some Indian dishes that are high in protein due to their ingredients.
Vitamin D: It is important for healthy bones and can only be synthesized when the skin is exposed to sunlight. It is found in fatty fish, eggs and vitamin D-fortified dairy products.
Nutritional Supplements: A regular, balanced diet is crucial to meeting daily nutritional needs and building strong muscles as you age. However, while we recognize that muscle is important and eat accordingly, there may be some nutritional gaps.
To fill these gaps, one can include a balanced nutritional supplement such as Ensure HMB which is a science-based nutritional supplement that contains 32 important nutrients and a special ingredient HMB or ß-hydroxy-ß-methyl butyrate that helps prevent muscle wasting. and restore strength and energy.
Every person goes through many milestones throughout life and health should be top of mind at every stage. By embracing your cultural foods that are sourced locally and organically, you can stay healthy as you age.
