The Importance of Balanced Diet

Balanced Diet

Balanced diet entails a combination of various nutrients that is sufficient to give the number of nutritional requirements of the human body. A balanced diet is crucial and is needed for one to have good health. To have a healthy and a proper diet, one should utilize calories contained in fresh fruits, whole grains, legumes, lean proteins, and fresh vegetables. This list of foods will provide to a person all the nutrients (carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, fibres, and minerals) necessary for a healthy system (Carter et al., 2016 pg. 341). Add to this list, water, to make it complete.

Nutritional Issues

Inadequate intake of the various vital nutrients can be very dangerous to some levels and leads to some nutritional issues. Consequences of deficiency of the essential nutrients include anaemia, osteoporosis, heart diseases and stroke, development of goiters, memory loss. Common deficiency diseases include marasmus, kwashiorkor, beriberi, scurvy, rickets, and pellagra. There are major two forms of malnutrition namely; protein-energy malnutrition and Micronutrient malnutrition. Wherein, protein-energy malnutrition results from deficiencies in any, or all nutrients in the body while micronutrient deficiency results when there is a deficiency of a specific nutrient in the body. Micronutrient malnutrition is responsible for some specific diseases like anaemia which results due to lack of iron in the body (Yilmaz et al., 2015 pg.39).

Anatomy of the Digestive System

Anatomically, the human digestive system can be divided into two; those that form the alimentary canal and those that are referred to as the accessory organs. The gastrointestinal tract is hollow and continuous right from the mouth to the anus (Denbow, 2015 pg. 354). At various steps in the alimentary canal, different activities are carried out, like in the mouth, there is a mechanical breakdown of foods. Along the length of the gut, there is a contribution of the accessory organs. Teeth and salivary glands are accessory organs of the mouth that help in the early breakdown of food before it moves to the eosophagus where it is moved to the stomach via peristalsis. In the stomach, the food is churned to produce chime. Down to the intestines, a lot takes place, including the absorption of digested food. There continued digestion of food in the intestines aided by enzymes from accessory glands. In the intestines, there are projections-like fingers called villi that help in the absorption digested food through active transport (Lefebvre et al., 2015 pg. 531).

References

Carter, N.A., Dewey, C.E., Thomas, L.F., Lukuyu, B., Grace, D. and de Lange, C., 2016. Nutrient requirements and low-cost balanced diets, based on seasonally available local feedstuffs, for local pigs on smallholder farms in Western Kenya. Tropical animal health and production, 48(2), pp.337-347.

Denbow, D.M., 2015. Gastrointestinal anatomy and physiology. In Sturkie's Avian Physiology (Sixth Edition) (pp. 337-366).

Lefebvre, D.E., Venema, K., Gombau, L., Valerio Jr, L.G., Raju, J., Bondy, G.S., Bouwmeester, H., Singh, R.P., Clippinger, A.J., Collnot, E.M. and Mehta, R., 2015. Utility of models of the gastrointestinal tract for assessment of the digestion and absorption of engineered nanomaterials released from food matrices. Nanotoxicology, 9(4), pp.523-542.

Yilmaz, F.Ö., Engin, K. and Hunt, A.Ö., 2015. The effects of balanced diets with soy bean extract or meat and bone meal on muscle and liver tissue protein and glycogen levels of the Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus infected with Vibrio anguillarum. Journal of Applied Biological Sciences, 9(2), pp.37-42.