Nutrients
Food for Health
Food Choices

Choices are highly personal
 Social or behavioral motives

Personal preference
 Taste
 Sweet and salty
 Genetics


Habit
Ethnic heritage or tradition
Food Choices


Social interactions
Availability, convenience, and
economy
 Benefits of home-cooked meals

Positive and negative associations
 Emotions
 Boredom, depression, anxiety
 Stress
Food Choices

Values
 Religious beliefs, political views,
environmental concerns


Body weight and image
Nutrition and health benefits
 Functional foods
 Examples
How Healthy is the Typical
American Diet?

Processed and convenience foods are easily
obtainable but may not provide necessary
nutrients.
 Processed and convenience foods contain
elevated levels of calories, sodium and fat.
 50% of the population does not consume
sufficient amounts of foods that provide
necessary nutrients.
Nutrition-Related Deaths
The Nutrients

Macronutrients:
 Carbohydrates
Micronutrients:
 Proteins
 Minerals
 Lipids (fats)
 Vitamins
 Water
Nutrient Composition of the Body
Energy-Yielding Nutrients

Provide kcalories
 Carbohydrate = 4 kcal/g
 Protein = 4 kcal/g
 Fat = 9 kcal/g

Alcohol
 Not a nutrient
 Yields energy ~ 7 kcal/g
Why do we need food?

Energy
 Amount in a food depends on macronutrient
composition
 How do we get the energy from food?
 Breaking of chemical bonds
 Excess energy is stored

Metabolism
 Food provides materials for building body
tissues
 Nutrients involved in regulation of bodily
activities
Vitamins

Thirteen vitamins
 Water-soluble vitamins
 Fat-soluble vitamins

Facilitate energy release from
macronutrients
 Almost every bodily action requires
assistance from vitamins

Many are vulnerable to destruction
 Vitamin C, thiamine, folate
Minerals & Water

Minerals
 At least 16 essential minerals
 Macrominerals and microminerals
 Structural and regulatory roles
 Indestructible
 Causes of mineral losses from foods

Water
 Medium for nearly all body activities
 Most immediately important for survival
Nutrient Intake and
Health

Malnutrition can be eating too little
or too much of one or more
nutrients.
 Undernutrition is malnutrition
caused by eating insufficient
amounts of energy-providing foods.
 Overnutrition is malnutrition caused
by eating an excess of energyproviding foods.
Nutrient Density
Nutrient density is a measure of the
nutrient a food provides compared to its
energy content.
 A nutrient-dense diet is a healthy diet.
 Broccoli is more nutrient-dense than
French fries.

Nutrient Density
Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Everything in Moderation
Moderation means all types of foods
and beverages are okay, as long as
they are taken in moderation.
 Moderation means not consuming too
much energy, fat, sugar, sodium or
alcohol.

Eat a Variety of Foods

No one food provides all necessary
nutrients.
 Selecting a variety of foods helps the body to
obtain all necessary nutrients.
Balance Your Choices
There is no good food or bad food.
 Balancing foods allow all foods to fit in a
healthy diet.
 Balance calories in with calories out.

What is Normal Eating?
Normal eating is going to the table hungry and eating until you are
satisfied. It is being able to choose food you like and eat it and truly get
enough of it—not just stop eating because you think you should. Normal
eating is being able to give some thought to your food selection so you get
nutritious food, but not being so wary and restrictive that you miss out on
enjoyable food. Normal eating is giving yourself permission to eat
sometimes because you are happy, sad or bored, or just because it feels
good. Normal eating is mostly three meals a day, or four or five, or it can
be choosing to munch along the way. It is leaving some cookies on the
plate because you know you can have some again tomorrow, or it is eating
more now because they taste so wonderful. Normal eating is overeating at
times, feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. And it can be undereating at
times and wishing you had more. Normal eating is trusting your body to
make up for your mistakes in eating. Normal eating takes up some of your
time and attention, but keeps its place as only one important area of your
life.
In short, normal eating is flexible. It varies in response to your hunger, your
schedule, your proximity to food and your feelings.
Copyright © 2012 by Ellyn Satter. Published at www.EllynSatter.com.
Understanding Science
Nutrition is a science.
 Developing an understanding of the
processes in nutritional science will help
us to understand the relationship
between nutrition and health.
 Understanding nutritional processes will
help us to make wise nutrition
decisions.

The Scientific Method
Advances in nutrition are made using
the scientific method.
 The scientific method uses an unbiased
approach to examine the interaction of
food, nutrients and health.
 The steps in the scientific method are:

– Observation
– Hypothesis
– Theory
What Makes a Good
Experiment?
A well-conducted experiment requires:
– Quantifiable Data
• Can we measure the information in a scientific
manner?
– Appropriate Experimental Population
• Is the population large enough and pertinent to
the study?
– Proper Controls
• Can we ensure that the population ate or drank
what we said they did?
Types of Nutrition Research
Studies
Observational studies can include
epidemiology, the study of diet, health
and disease patterns, and correlation.
 Human intervention studies are also
known as clinical trials.
 Laboratory studies are conducted in
research facilities such as hospitals or
universities.

Identifying Reliable Nutrition
Information

Does the information make sense?
– For example, can you really lose forty
pounds in one week?

Where did the information come from?
– Information from personal testimony or
from one health care professional is
probably not reliable.
Identifying Reliable
Nutrition Information

Is the information based on well-designed,
accurately-interpreted research studies?
 Is the sale of a product linked to the
information?
 Who will benefit when you purchase this
product?
 Has this product stood the test of time?
Food and Health

Food plays vital role in supporting
health
 Chronic disease – epidemic levels
 Multiple factors over multiple years
 Leading causes of death in US

Risk factors related to food
 Overweight and obesity
 Inflammation
 Clustering effect
Is it the genes or the lifestyle?
Nutrigenomics: The study of
how diet affects genes and how
genetic variation can affect the
impact of nutrients on health