What we eat defines us. cont'd

 

Dietary diversification siply put is eating varieties of food groups/classes in a single diet or spread across meals for the day. This is because no single food roup provides all the nutrients required by man for optimal growth and development. Consumption of a monotonous diet (single food group) overtime may lead to nutritional deficiency condition(s). Such conditions include Kwashiorkor, Marasmus, Marasmic Kwashiorkor etc and these are common among children in developng countries especially suh-saharan Africa and India.

Note that the body cells (building blocks of all body components) require nutrients only for effective performance of their duties, however nutrients are provided majorly through dietary sources (food groups).

Although, food/dietary diversification plays an important role in achieving the nutrients' requirements of the body, there are recommended intakes of all food groups to prevent over consumption of some. This is because not all nutrients are required in the same volume/quantity, a reason why they are categorized (to be discussed in the next article). As a result of these, health/nutrition organizations published a universal acceptable recommended intake of the food groups.

An important guide to achieve dietary diversification is the Food Guide Pyramid- a pyramid shaped guide of healthy foods divided into sections to show the recommended intake for each food group.



Following this pattern above has proven  to be nutritionally healthy. Grains based foods are obviously required more than the other groups because of man's energy requirements, while fat and fat based products are to be consumed sparingly as indicated by the pointed end of the pyramid. In the developed countries the term serving sizes are used to measure the quantity of food eaten or to be eaten from these food groups, these help them in adhering to the recommended intake. On the otherhand, this has not yet been embraced in the developing countries like Nigeria, because culturally we don't measure what we eat.  As a result we under or over consume certain nutrients. Food guide pyramid is essential and a necessary tool towards maintaining consumption of healthy diets.