Good nutrition increases a person’s ability to continue to be an active, healthy member of the community, so diet should provide all the necessary nutrients and be appealing, not to mention easy to eat and digest. It’s essential to seek out the proper balance between completely different nutrients to realize health advantages such as lower risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and some cancers. The core elements of a healthy dietary pattern include the consumption of vegetables, fruits, grains, dairy, protein foods, and oils while also minding portion size. Sweets and snacks can be part of a balanced diet if you control the quantity.
More often than not, affordability influences access to foods that support healthy dietary patterns. There’s a gap between the current food budgets of the poor and the spending needed for a nutritious diet, which translates into the fact that lower household income is associated with poorer diet quality and, consequently, poorer health outcomes. Nutrient-dense foods are more expensive than calorie-dense foods, pushing consumers towards less healthy, ultra-processed options that contain various additives. As a rule, healthy foods are twice as expensive as less healthy foods – you can buy them in bulk and keep them forever.
People Living In Lower-Income Neighborhoods And Areas Without Local Food Stores Eat More Sweets And Snacks
Food offers us energy that comes in the form of proteins, minerals, vitamins, and fats, so be must be careful what we consume and in what amount to suit the metabolism for normal functioning. The ability to choose a nutritious diet hinges upon inequalities in food access. To be more precise, discrepancies have been observed across geographies, social groups, and income levels. Individuals living in neighborhoods with few supermarkets, fast food outlets, corner stores, and other outlets available within a given distance of home, school, and other locations consume more sweets and snacks. According to researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of Alabama, Birmingham, people who live in neighborhoods with many food stores eat fewer sweets and snacks overall.
The fact of the matter is that regions with a median household income below the national or regional average are unfairly exposed to targeted marketing for bakery sweets, candy, desserts, savory snacks and crackers, and nutrition bars. Tactics include tracking people’s digital footprint, pushing out ads on social media, and offering better prices for large purchases. The promotion aims to shift food preferences towards the marketed items, often resorting to linguistic styles, cultural symbols, and the norms of targeted consumers. Unhealthy food marketing is aggressively targeted at children and minoritized populations who don’t necessarily understand what they read on the labels.
Sweat Treats And Salty Snacks Bring Comfort And Satisfaction – But Their Appeal Runs Deeper Than That
We like to nibble on chocolates, raw cookie dough, milkshakes, soft drinks, and cake. Most of us don’t realize that sugar can produce addiction-like effects, such as loss of self-control, overeating, and weight gain. Sugar and other foods that spike blood sugar activate the brain’s reward system – the mesolimbic dopamine system – and too much stimulation can lead to cravings, tolerance, and addictive behaviors. Sugar found in whole ingredients, such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, isn’t a big problem because the amount tends to be modest and packed with other healthful nutrients.
The real problem is added sugar, which can be found in many foods, like drinks, cereal yoghurt, desserts, and sauces. A high diet in added sugars has been linked to obesity, diabetes, heart and liver disease, dementia, and even cancer, so it’s important to either to avoid or cut back on the amount and frequency of foods where they’re present. If you sometimes want to eat chocolate, choosing a high cocoa product is recommended. Natural sugars are present even in cocoa ingredients, though in negligible amounts; cocoa powder as an ingredient is always unsweetened.
A person may crave salt or salty foods such as popcorn, chips, or fries due to a sodium deficiency or a medical condition, like Addison’s disease, where the kidneys constantly leak salt, leading to light-headedness, cramps, or feeling washed out. Eating too much salt can cause high blood pressure, which increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Some foods have more salt than a bag of chips, including but not limited to canned soup, refrigerated biscuits, parmesan cheese, salad dressing, and low-fat vanilla yoghurt. It’s vital to check the labels of the foods to understand what you’re putting in your body.
How Can We Ensure Everyone Has Access To Healthy Food, Particularly In Vulnerable Communities?
Though the researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of Alabama- Birmingham didn’t look at the health impacts of sweets and snack consumption, we know from previous research that these foods are associated with high-calorie intake and weight gain. Making gradual, positive dietary changes, such as swapping milk chocolate for dark chocolate with several times more antioxidants than red wine or green tea, can lead to big results. A healthy diet has many advantages, such as strengthening visceral organs’ functions, boosting mood and warding off depression, and preventing various chronic diseases.
As one of the largest suppliers of value-added chains, ofi helps improve food security so that all people, at all times, have access to plentiful, safe, and wholesome food that meets their dietary needs. Speaking of which, access to healthy foods can be improved in the following ways:
- Upgrading and maintaining markets that provide nutritious food to all communities, notably low-income and historically marginalized communities. This suggests that policy solutions are necessary to address the affordability of healthy diets.
- Having to rely on socially unacceptable means to procure food is a common experience across cultures. More precisely, individuals feel a stigma about using food charities like soup kitchens, food aid, or gifts from friends and family. Education helps respond to misconceptions and negative comments by sharing facts.
- Opening up more stores to improve access and affordability. The decreased distance to a supermarket or grocery store improves food security, the consumption of fruits and vegetables, and the redemption of benefits.
This list isn’t exhaustive and doesn’t include all the possible options.
