Healthy diet
A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition: fluid, macronutrients such as protein, micronutrients such as vitamins, and adequate fibre and food energy.
[5] Nutrition facts labels are also mandatory in some countries to allow consumers to choose between foods based on the components relevant to health.
A diet of minimally processed foods close to nature, predominantly plants, is decisively associated with health promotion and disease prevention and is consistent with the salient components of seemingly distinct dietary approaches.
Efforts to improve public health through diet are forestalled not for want of knowledge about the optimal feeding of Homo sapiens but for distractions associated with exaggerated claims, and our failure to convert what we reliably know into what we routinely do.
[34] In 2022, the American Society for Preventive Cardiology defined a healthful dietary pattern as a diet consisting predominantly of fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, plant protein and fatty fish with reduced consumption of saturated fat, salt and ultra-processed food.
[35] The National Heart Foundation of Australia's "Healthy Eating Principles" include plenty of fruit, vegetables and whole grains with a variety of protein sources such as fish and seafood, lean poultry with a restriction on red meat.
The Mediterranean diet, which includes limiting consumption of red meat and using olive oil in cooking, has also been shown to improve cardiovascular outcomes.
[48][49][50] The ketogenic diet is a treatment to reduce epileptic seizures for adults and children when managed by a health care team.
[51] Preliminary research indicated that a diet high in fruit and vegetables may decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease and death, but not cancer.
[52] Eating a healthy diet and getting enough exercise can maintain body weight within the normal range and reduce the risk of obesity in most people.
Research suggests that increasing adherence to Mediterranean diet patterns is associated with a reduction in total and cause-specific mortality, extending health- and lifespan.
[5] The World Health Organization has estimated that 2.7 million deaths each year are attributable to a diet low in fruit and vegetables during the 21st century.
[74] Vending machines are criticized for being avenues of entry into schools for junk food promoters, but there is little in the way of regulation and it is difficult for most people to properly analyze the real merits of a company referring to itself as "healthy."
[75] The British Heart Foundation released its own government-funded advertisements, labeled "Food4Thought", which were targeted at children and adults to discourage unhealthy habits of consuming junk food.
[79] The UK government 2020 Obesity Strategy encourages healthier choices by restricting point-of-sale promotions of less-healthy foods and drinks.
[80] The effectiveness of population-level health interventions has included food pricing strategies, mass media campaigns and worksite wellness programs.
[82] Mass media campaigns in Pakistan and the USA aimed at increasing vegetable and fruit consumption found positive changes in dietary behavior.
[82] Reviews of the effectiveness of worksite wellness interventions found evidence linking the programs to weight loss and increased fruit and vegetable consumption.
