The return from vacation and the resumption of work can be propitious events to desire to change diet. Not necessarily for find the shape after the holiday excesses, but also only for bring some balance back to the table. Even with respect for the environment and health, issues are now increasingly central when thinking about what to eat or buy.
In order to help Italians change their diet correctly, the experts ofItalian Association of Dietetics and Clinical Nutrition and those of Slow Medicine have drawn up five recommendations to identify improper, and at the same time most widespread, practices associated with nutrition that have no benefits for health and the environment.
Here are the tips from the experts if you want to change your diet:
Eat “no” diets or fast
Dietary regimes free from or those that involve fasting days are specific nutritional approaches per certain pathologies e only the doctor can recommend a correct and safe scheme for health.
The examples are many and widespread. There are diets that exclude certain foods (carbohydrates, gluten, fats, lactose, animal proteins, etc.), dietary approaches based on presumed intolerances food (not diagnosed by scientifically validated methods) and on blood groups. Or there are the diets paleolithic, i intermittent fasts and those continuous.
These dietary approaches can provoke damage to health e nutritional deficiencies and they don’t solve the obesity problem. On the contrary, promote eating disorders.
Contact people who are not experts in nutrition
If the need to change your diet (for you or a loved one you want to help) does not arise from the desire to get in shape or change your lifestyle, but because you need to treat an eating disorder, you need to precisely identify the expert to contact.
Avoid going to professionals who are not experienced in the diagnosis and treatment of eating disorders. Because only specialized teams O competent health workers afferent to different disciplines can take charge with multidisciplinary modalities these serious pathologies.
Eating disorders are in fact serious mental illnesses that significantly affect the psychic and physical health of the person, altering the social and relational sphere. THE more frequent abnormal eating behaviors in these diseases are: the food restriction (drastically reducing nutrition, as in anorexia nervosa); the binge (as in binge eating disorder) and using practices to compensate for calories, such as I vomit autoindotto, l’drug abuse and theexcessive exercise (as in bulimia nervosa).
These are complex mental illnesses, which through a physical discomfort express psychological discomfort. And unfortunately, in times of the Covid pandemic, their incidence among young people has increased. It should be noted that, among the mental disorders, they are those with the highest mortality rate among young people.
The approach to eating disorders must include the involvement of different figures. These include child psychiatrists / neuropsychiatrists, doctors with nutritional skills, internists, pediatricians, endocrinologists, dieticians, psychologists, nurses, professional educators, psychiatric rehabilitation technicians and physiotherapists. The treatment in fact it is not limited to the nutritional aspect but must also understand the psychosocial side.
Use excess vitamin or mineral supplements
The habit of using vitamin and mineral supplements for a alleged prevention of oncological or cardiovascular diseases is extremely widespread. Especially in Italy, with a considerable expense to be paid by citizens.
However they are available solid and recent scientific evidence that they have not documented a real protective effect on the oncological risk related to numerous neoplasms deriving from the use of nutritional supplements of micronutrients. There supplementation with vitamin and mineral supplements non produce neither benefits in prevention of cardiovascular diseases. Nor on all-cause mortality in the general population.
The true effective prevention is that represented by correct lifestyle habits. Hence aana diet, physical activity, abstaining from smoking and limiting the use of alcohol. In addition, if you take supplements it is very important to communicate this to doctors during visits because they can alter the results of laboratory tests even significantly.
Stigmatize obesity
Obese people are not to be blamed. This recommendation concerns both the approach a person has towards himself. This is what other people, institutions and health professionals have towards those with excess pounds.
Blaming obese individuals can have a negative impact on their physical, psychological and social health especially if they belong to fragile categories. When it stigma comes from institutions and health professionals can also have negative effects on accessibility, appropriateness and quality of care. The person suffering from obesity must be welcomed and treated with the dignity and respect that one has for all other pathologies.
Follow diets with a high environmental impact
Healthy eating patterns only (healthy diets) such as, for example, the Mediterranean diet can guarantee the physical health of individuals and the planet.
Food has an impact on environmental resources, in terms of consumption of water, soil, energy, as well as gas production, acidification and eutrophication. The “Western diets” (rich in refined foods, animal fats, sugars and low in fiber) are the ones that carry the greatest environmental burden. In addition to being those that favor the appearance of metabolic, cardiovascular, oncological diseases.
The other way around, “Healthy diets” (a predominantly plant based – whole grains, legumes, vegetables, fruit – with good fish content, moderate amounts of meat – preferring white to red ones – and with vegetable fats) have the advantage of being protective for health of individuals. And also more respectful of environmental resources.
By reducing the consumption of meat and increasing that of fruit, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and fish, we therefore bring important benefits to both our health and that of the planet.