Part 1: Understand how diet is linked to health

1. Define what is meant by the term ‘healthy diet’.

A healthy diet is something that covers all of your body’s needs, and ensures that your body gets all the nutrients that it requires to stay healthy in day to day life.
The things that you require will vary depending on a number of different factors including age, gender and activity levels.

2. Describe why the healthy diets of adults and children may be different. Provide at least three examples of these differences.
A healthy adult diet provides everything that the body needs to stay fit and healthy

A healthy children’s diet is a diet that provides everything that they need to stay fit and healthy as well as grow …show more content…

It is important to eat a wide variety of foods as part as part of a healthy diet as all the food groups deliver different, but vital, nutritional benefits to our bodies.

Fruit and vegetables are one of our main sources of vitamins and minerals, which the body needs to perform a variety of functions well. For instance, vitamin A helps to strengthen our immune system, B vitamins help us process energy from food, vitamin D helps us maintain healthy teeth and bones, and vitamin C helps to keep cells and tissues healthy.

Fruit and vegetables also contain high amounts of fibre which help to maintain a healthy gut and digestive system.

Starchy foods, also known as carbohydrates, are where we get most of our energy from. As our bodies convert these foods into sugar which is used as energy either immediately or stored for later use.

Carbohydrates also contain fibre and iron which we need to make red blood cells to carry oxygen around the body.

Meat fish, eggs and pulses provide us with protein which is essential for our body. Everything from our hair, muscles, nerves, skin and nails needs protein to build and repair itself.

Also high in protein are dairy products, and they are also great providers of calcium. The most common mineral in the body, calcium is needed for functions including helping blood to clot, and to build bones and teeth.

Once you have completed this Part