Healthy Diet - How Eating Healthy Can Prevent Illnesses and Leave You Healthier

Fresh vegetables are important components of a healthy diet. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Bettina Berlin  | 

Unlike the people a few hundred years ago, we don't need to worry anymore about food. Today, we can get almost everything, anytime of the year. But is that always a blessing? Is it not this confusing offer of so many products advertised greatly, that often leads us to make the wrong choices?

Not everything lives up to its promises, and not every product is healthy. Many foods contain additives that can badly influence your health, and in our hectic time we more and more often grab ready-made meals and fast food, calorie-loaded chocolate bars or chips. It's a proven fact that unhealthy nutrition can lead to various severe conditions and illnesses, like obesity, high blood pressure or diabetes, each of which again can trigger other diseases. Eating healthy, on the other hand, can lower the risk of such health problems significantly:

Some foods help preventing diseases
Healthy eating avoids unnecessary strain on the body
A healthy diet prevents overweight and the illnesses that might follow
Healthy foods preventing diseases
It is proven that some foods, because of the nutrients they contain and their influence on our body, help to prevent certain diseases. These are mainly fruits and vegetables, foods that are cherished in a healthy nutrition and eaten regularly. Some examples for foods with a positive impact on your health are:

Lemons: fight fever, colds and pneumonia
Carrots: protect arteries and eyes, reduce diarrhea and constipation
Onions: inhibit stomach cancer, fight asthma and chronic bronchitis
Oranges: prevent colds and flues, but also more severe illnesses like heart disease, stroke and certain types of cancer
Brokkoli: prevents ulcers and cataracts, also seems to prevent lung, breast and colon cancer
Less strain on the body
The core principle of eating healthy is to give your body what it needs when it needs it how it needs it. A healthy diet focuses on providing nutrients in a balanced way, meaning you ensure eating all nutrients you need in the right amount, whilst avoiding overeating and unhealthy foods which place unnecessary strain on your body:

Fat is an important nutrient which your body needs, but we often eat way too much of it and the wrong fats. Eating healthy keeps your fat intake to the level you need and rather chooses healthy fats like vegetable fats.
Overeating with carbohydrates, a common problem of our time, places a big strain on your body too. A healthy diet avoids this by cutting down on carbs and preferring the complex ones.
Unhealthy food additives like preservatives don't have a place in a healthy diet.
People suffering from various illnesses often experience a relief of symptoms when following a certain diet. A vegetarian for example helps to remove toxins from the body, thus reducing arthritis pains.
Preventing overweight and its follow-diseases
It is common knowledge that unhealthy eating habits are one of the most frequent reasons of overweight and obesity. A healthy diet on the other hand can effectively prevent overweight and at the same time significantly lower the risk of its following diseases like diabetes, heart attack and stroke. And even more, eating healthy, when combined with increased physical activity, is the most effective way to lose weight.

Hopefully, by now you grasped the fact that eating healthy is definitely worth the effort. If you eat healthy, you will significantly lower your risk of suffering severe illnesses. So, what is eating healthy? Lots of fruit and vegetables, whole grain products, moderate amount of dairy and protein-rich foods (meat, eggs, legumes, fish) and as little as possible sugar and fat. There is no magic formula to prevent illnesses, but a healthy diet will certainly make a good impact on your health. That's why it's worth it.


Bettina Berlin is an Occupational Therapist with special interest in healthy nutrition as it can improve health and help prevent many diseases she saw her patients struggling with. If you want to learn more about healthy eating, visit http://www.elishas-quick-recipes.blogspot.com today and learn how to make your favorite dishes healthier and how to prepare healthy meals in the little time your hectic schedule allows you!