THE BASIS OF ‘THE BALANCE OF GOOD HEALTH YOUR BODY NEED

Food provides nutrients to help the body work properly. No single food contains them in the amounts needed, so a mixture of foods has to be eaten. The Balance of Good Health makes healthy eating easier to understand by showing the types and proportion of foods needed to make a well-balanced and healthy diet.
The Balance of Good Health is based on the five commonly accepted food groups, which are:
• Bread, cereals and potatoes.
• Fruit and vegetables.
• Milk and dairy.
• Meat, fish and alternatives.
• Foods containing fat; foods and drinks containing sugar.
Encouraging people to choose a variety of foods from the first four groups every day will help ensure that they obtain the wide range of nutrients their bodies need to remain healthy and function properly. Choosing different foods from within each group adds to the range of nutrients consumed. Foods in the fifth group – foods containing fat and foods containing sugar – are not essential to a healthy diet, but add choice and palatability.
The main nutrients provided by each food group are shown in the table on the next page.
The key message of The Balance of Good Health is the balance of foods that should be consumed to achieve a good healthy diet. This is shown by the different area occupied by each of the food groups in The Balance of Good Health. Although aiming to achieve this balance every day is a sensible and practical approach, it is not necessary to achieve it at every meal. The balance could, however, also be achieved over the period of perhaps a week or two.
The table gives guidance on the food groups and on how to choose well from within them. How much food do people need?
People differ in the amount of energy (calories) they require and that is what affects the amount of food, in total, that individuals need. However much people need, the proportion of food from the different groups should remain the same as shown in The Balance of Good Health.
So, for example, someone with a low daily energy requirement of, say, 1200 calories would need the same proportions of food from the five food groups as someone with a high daily requirement of, say, 3000 calories.
Things that affect people’s overall energy needs are: • gender – women tend to need less energy than men • age – older adults need less energy than adolescents and young adults
• being overweight – being heavier than the healthy weight range for an individual’s height means less energy is required to achieve a healthy weight • being very physically active – the more active people are, the greater their energy needs