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Nutrition ~ What are the Nutritional Needs?
by Nishanth Reddy
http://www.fitness-wellness-guide.com
Nutrition as it applies to our daily lives means that we
take in what we need to maintain our body's healthy state.
Nutrition has become an important word thanks to the
involvement of the USDA in our daily food requirements, and
the FDA's involvement in determining what is and is not
dangerous for us to consume.
But what is our responsibility in the nutrition game? Do we
understand what our nutritional requirements are, how to
fulfill those requirements, and how to look for real
nutritional value in our foods?
I'm not sure that nutrition has been successfully addressed
in its own right. We hear nutrition in relation to our
vitamin intake, our fortified cereals and milk, and in the
context that we need "nutritional value" from our food
choices. But what really is nutrition when applied to our
daily bodily functions?
Today, we must determine how much nourishment we need, how
much physical exercise we need, and how best to accomplish
those ends. Calorie needs, nutritional needs, physical
needs, and education about those needs now is information we
should all understand, at least as it applies to our
individual self.
If you will visit your local doctor, library, or fitness
center, there is massive amounts of information available to
help educate and to help you make good health choices, no
matter what the age group.
Nutrition refers to the nurturing of our body, in our
ability to keep it healthy and functioning as it is supposed
to do. Our ability to provide the body with all it's
necessary food, vitamins, and minerals so that we continue
to thrive in our daily life processes.
If you were to take a cross section of the population, and
check for adequate levels of the most used and fortified
vitamins and minerals, you would probably find that as high
as 80% or the population is lacking in a least one of the
vitamins and minerals.
Now, that doesn't sound too bad, until you stop to think,
what if it's calcium? A calcium deficiency brings on
osteoporosis, a deteriorating of the bone. This disease
alone costs millions in medical expense to the population.
Can you see how a little more cooperation and open-minded
participation on the part of our medical field could result
in far fewer health problems? It would also have provided
the general population with a viable way to discern their
nutrition, vitamin and mineral needs, accurately.
So how do we determine that we are providing the essential
nutritional needs? That knowledge comes by educating
ourselves about what our individual needs are, the needs of
our family, and then taking that knowledge and applying it
to the foods we buy, that we prepare, and that our families
consume.
Quite often, our vitamin and mineral needs outweigh our
caloric needs. In those instances, we turn to manufactured
vitamins and minerals to fill the gap. This is a part of our
nutritional needs, also.
Nutrition is one of the most complex areas to gain useful
knowledge about, because there are so many components, and
because each person has their own individual needs.
Women needs differ from those of men, and older women's
needs differ from those of a young girl. As we age, our
needs constantly change; therefore continual education about
nutrition is a fact of life. The nutritional needs of a
cardiac patient are different than those of a healthy,
middle-aged hiker.
Can you see the complexity of the situation now? What we
really need is to develop a scale that determines the
nutritional needs of our bodies on a cellular level, so that
as we age, as our physical condition changes, or our health
changes, we can recalculate our needs, based on cellular
changes and content in our body.
Individuality is the key to understanding each person's
nutritional needs, and then working to educate us is the key
to fulfilling those nutritional needs. Good nutrition
should be the ultimate goal of every person alive.
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