a_wellness_nutrition_basics

= WELLNESS =

Glossary Words
= West, Dorothy. 2004. //Nutrition, Food, and Fitness//. Illinois: The Goodheart-Wilcox Company, Inc. . =


 * 1) ** Wellness: ** an individuals overall state of good health.
 * 2) ** Quality of life: ** an individual’s state of satisfaction with his/her life and life choices. This can increase or decrease depending on the perception you have on your current situation.
 * 3) ** Optimum Health: ** a state of wellness characterized by peak physical, mental, and social well-being.
 * 4) ** Risk Factor: ** a characteristic or behaviour that influences a person’s chance of being injured or getting a disease.
 * 5) ** Diet – ** all foods and beverages that you consume.

Wellness exists on a continuum. It can change throughout our lives and be affected by many outside forces. The chart below from your textbook illustrates the sway from one level of wellness to the complete opposite level.

(West, 2004, p.11)
 * == Wellness Continuum == ||
 * ** Premature Death ◄-►Optimum Health ** ||
 * Low energy level || Moderate energy level || ===High energy level=== ||
 * ===Frequent illness=== || ===Some illness=== || Infrequent illness and quick recovery from illness ||
 * Inferior stress management skills || Average stress management skills || Superior stress management skills ||
 * Poor social relationships || Fair social relationships || Excellent social relationships ||
 * Poor social relationships || Fair social relationships || Excellent social relationships ||

==== The Three Components of Wellness ====


 * 1) **__ Physical Health __** – Your body’s general fitness is encompassed here. How well does your body handle lack of rest, poor food choices, lack of exercise, excessive stress? If these things challenge you then your body is not working to its peak performance ability.
 * 2) **__ Mental Health __** – is connected to your inner feelings about yourself in relationship to all that is around you. Excessive stress, irrational fears and depression are signs of deteriorating mental health.
 * 3) **__ Social Health __**** : ** is impacted by the personal connections you make with others around you. How do you get along with peers and family etc…? Negative relationships reduce your social health. But building strong social skills provides the tools needed to deal with problem situations.

An Holistic Approach to Wellness incorporates the above components and requires that they be equally weighted. Just as much time must be spent nurturing each of these areas.

=
Factors That Affect Wellness =====


 * __ Factors Contributing to Disease __ **


 * 1) **__ Unhealthful Lifestyle Choices __** : Lifestyle choices account for about half the factors that contribute to poor health/wellness. Choices that lead us to consume high fat diets or tobacco smoke can lead to heart disease, cancer and stoke. Lifestyles that are influenced by major stress or lack or exercise have the same negative affect on an individual’s health.
 * 2) **__Poor Environmental Quality__**: The concern here is what impact the environment has on our wellness. Air Quality, Water Safety, Food Safety and exposure to extreme weather are all components that can impact our personal health. Health and Safety at work is also a factor here.
 * 3) **__ Inadequate Health Care __** : While health care has made some amazing advancements, it also has the potential for problems. Incorrect medications, improper care and incorrect diagnosis are just some problems that can arise.
 * 4) **__ Heredity __** : 25% of the causes leading to death can be linked directly to factors of heredity. We carry the same genetic problems that our relatives carry. We have a greater assurance of dealing with health issues if the previous generations of our ancestors also were predisposed to a particular illness.


 * __ Factors that Promote Health __ **


 * 1) **__ Choosing a Healthy Lifestyle __** – Diet is one of the most important aspects of a healthy lifestyle because poor diet can result in many potential illnesses. Some key activities that promote good health are:
 * Eating three or more regularly spaced meals, including breakfast.
 * Supplying body with all its required nutrients
 * Sleeping 8 to 9 hours each night
 * Maintaining a healthy weight
 * Stay active
 * Choose not to smoke, drink alcohol or do street drugs
 * 1) **__ Resist Negative Peer Pressure __** – Negative peer pressure can lead to unhealthy choices. The pressure to fit into a group will often force you into situations that you would not otherwise put yourself into. Situations that lead to food and drug habits that are detrimental to ones health.
 * 2) **__ Improve Your Environment __** - We often forget that impact we have on our environment, but if we think carefully about the amount of toxin we put into our universe then we have to also think or ways to change this. Carpool with friends, don’t use aggressive cleaning products, don’t litter, etc.. we need to make sure that we take the necessary actions that lead to a healthy environment for all.
 * 3) **__ Choose Quality Health Care __** – Having a health care provider that is on top of your individual needs is extremely important. Any concerns about your health need to be discussed immediately to insure you stay healthy.

Making changes to your lifestyle and habits may not be easy, but is always available to everyone at every moment. If you are behaving in a way that threatens your health you need to start taking the appropriate actions that insure optimal health for your future.


 * __ Nutrition __ ** : an understanding of all the processes involved in the consumption of food.


 * __ Nutrients __ ** : the basic components of food that nourish our bodies and sustain our health.

=Nutrition Basics: Why Food Matters = Each of us consumes about 50 tons of food in a lifetime. From this mammoth pile of goodies we obtain four basics of life – water, energy, protein, and a tiny bit of vitamins and minerals.

Key Points: • Water: Water is our most urgent nutritional need and probably the one least studied in nutrition education classes. Find out why the body uses so much water, discover how much water we need and how “water out” = “water in.” • Energy: Energy has to come from food. Everybody knows that, right? Answer these two questions. How many calories do you burn jogging for thirty minutes? How many calories do you eat in a six-ounce bag of french fries? The answer to both questions is the same – no calories. Zip, nada, zero. You can’t burn calories, and you can’t eat them either. Learn the difference between carbs and fats and find out why calories count and why most diets don’t work. • Protein: You’ve seen sci-fi flicks where a cyborg is blasted by fire, hit by bombs, shredded by a ten-tonne masher, then regenerates the missing body parts? We do that every day! You shed thirty to forty thousand skin cells every minute -- more than your household pet. And you replace them all. Like the sci-fi cyborg, you grow new skin -- over nine pounds each year. You constantly rebuild all your body parts. That’s protein at work. • Vitamins and Minerals: We eat rocks. Well, okay, not literally, but the minerals in all the living bodies on Earth are recycled. The iron in the blood of your veins right now may have graced a cliff in Arizona eons ago. Discover why we need to “eat rocks” and what happens if we don’t get vitamins from food.

Water Of the four basics, water is the most important to our lives. We can live surprisingly long without food, but only a matter of days without water. Two-thirds of your weight is water. The average adult contains about 76 pints of water. Men, with a higher proportion of muscle to fat, usually have a higher percentage of water than women. How much water do you need daily? You need about a quart of water for each thousand calories you use. That means a typical adult male who uses 2,500 calories a day needs about two and a half quarts of water. But you don’t need to get all that water from the tap or a bottle. Food contains lots of water. On average, food is two-thirds water—just like you.

Water by weight: • Watermelon contains 92% water • An orange contains 80% water • Lettuce contains 95% water • Meat contains 70% water

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Some of the two to four quarts of water you need daily comes from food. You need water frequently because you use it constantly. You’re sweating right now even when you aren’t active; it’s how you keep a steady body temperature.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Why do you need water? <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• To flex a muscle, any muscle <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• To blink your eyes <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• To carry oxygen and nutrients to your cells <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• To cushions your joints <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• To converts food into energy <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• To help remove waste

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">In hard exercise, you can lose over a quart and a half of water in an hour. A typical adult drinks about 70 ounces of water a day and gets 30 ounces from food. “Water In = Water Out.” During a day you lose about 54 ounces in urine and feces, 30 ounces through sweat, and 17 ounces in water vapor. You breathe out water each time you exhale.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">With just a loss of three percent of water in your body, your body begins telling you that it is dehydrated.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">The signs of Dehydration are: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• Dry lips and mouth <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• Weakness or dizziness <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• Headache or nausea <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• Muscle Cramps

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Despite how important water is to our body, it does not give any energy to our body.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Energy <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Fats, carbs and protein can be seen with a microscope, but calories cannot be seen because it is not a thing. The way we measure energy is by calories. Now remember, you burn energy, not calories, as calories are just a measurement tool.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">You can figure out how many calories are in your foods just by looking at the Nutritional Food Label: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Fat Calories + Carb Calories + Protein Calories = Total Calories

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Calories per gram <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• Fat has 9 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• Carbs have 4 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• Protein has 4

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Look at a food label: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• Total Fat 8g x 9 = 72 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• Total Carbs 18g x 4 = 72 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• Total Protein 4g x 4 = 16 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Therefore: 72+ 72+ 16 = 160 calories

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Fats, proteins, and carbohydrates all provide energy. Fat (butter) provides more than twice as much energy per ounce than protein (meat) and carbohydrate (potato). In fact, fats, carbohydrates, and proteins have the same molecular structure – carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Carbohydrate generally contains hydrogen, oxygen as well as water – H2O. That’s why it’s called carboHYDRATE. Fat and protein has only an occasional oxygen atom at the end of the chain that do not combine to make as much water

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Just as “Water In = Water Out,” “Energy In = Energy Out.” The energy out is “burned” in every day life. Energy “In” is the calorie value of the food we eat. If we eat more energy than we use, we store it in the form of fat.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">A pound of fat stores about 3,500 calories. To lose a pound of fat you have to use 3,500 more calories than you take in. That means a 150-pound person has to jog at nine minutes per mile pace for over four hours to lose just one pound.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Your body requires energy to: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• Think <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• Grow hair <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• Create blood cells <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• Sleep <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• Veg-out <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• Heart to beat

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">The more energy you use, the more energy your body requires.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Nutritionists recommend you get energy from a variety of foods: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• 55% from carbohydrates <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• 15% from proteins <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• 30% or less from fat

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Every cell in your body requires a sugar called glucose. Your brain can only use glucose for fuel. That is why over half your calories should come from carbohydrates, especially complex carbohydrates, as they provide other nutrients, too. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Take for instance a can or pop vs. a slice of bread. A can of pop only has sugar, whereas a slice of bread also has dietary fiber, protein, and various vitamins.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Fat is important because it: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• Keeps your body warm <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• Provides energy <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• Cushions your organs <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• Carries vitamins to cells <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">• Keeps the brain and nerves in working order

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Protein <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">You have the genetic knowledge to take apart a cream puff or a fish and reassemble it into human parts. We eat in order to turn other organisms into us. Each of the trillions of cells in your body is made mainly of water and protein. Your cells don’t live as long as you do, so the human body is a construction site during your whole life. You make new body parts every day. Scratch your head or arm right now – go ahead. You just flaked off thousands of dead skin cells. You shed more than your household pet. Every minute about 30,000 to 40,000 skin cells fall off from your body. And you replace every one of them. The skin you have today is not the same skin you had two months ago. Like the sci-fi cyborg, you grew new skin. In fact, you grow over nine pounds of new skin every year. Skin is about 1/12th of our total body weight.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">It’s not just skin – you’re constantly rebuilding all your body parts. In the last minute your stomach replaced half a million cells in its lining. You completely re-line your stomach every three days! Now, that’s protein at work.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Each protein is made of amino acids linked like beads in a necklace. We use about twenty different kinds of amino acids, and arrange them into thousands of proteins -- much like the 26 letters in the alphabet can be made into thousands of words. Each protein is organ specific – that means the protein your skin needs is different from what your lungs or heart needs.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">It’s like you have a protein production plant that uses twenty amino acids as raw ingredients. Eleven you can make “in house” on the factory floor. But the others you have to have delivered. This is delivered to you by eating food.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Animal protein contains all the essential amino acids you need to make protein. That’s the main reason people eat animals. We also get protein from plants. An egg has nearly the perfect balance of required amino acids our body needs. The best plant source is the soybean. Its protein does have all the essential amino acids.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">In short, the answer to the question “what do you do with protein,” is “just about everything connected with living.”

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Vitamins And Minerals <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">We also need tiny amounts of minerals in our food. Plants trap tiny bits of minerals washed from rocks by rain or dissolved in fallen leaves. The minerals in all the living bodies on earth are all recycled. At this moment your blood may contain iron that was once found on a cliff centuries ago in Arizona!

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">From food we get iron, calcium, iodine, phosphorus, sodium, potassium, magnesium, chlorine, copper, cobalt, zinc, and manganese among others. Other chemicals we get from food in very small amounts are called vitamins and are commonly named by letters of the alphabet – A, B, C, and so forth. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">These vitamins are chemicals we have to get from food – we cannot make on our own. Vitamins help almost every chemical reaction in our bodies. We need Vitamin C to make collagen – that’s a protein that gives your skin both strength and elasticity. Without Vitamin K your blood doesn’t clot and a nosebleed could be mean life or death. We can’t make red blood cells without Vitamin B12.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Dietary fiber is also important to have in your daily diet. We can’t digest this tough plant material, but adults must have one ounce a day to help move food through the digestive system. This can easily be found in oranges, celery and rhubarb.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Keep in mind, vitamins, minerals, and fibers do not add to muscle strength, supply energy, or cure diseases; though they are very important. We are all recycling experts. The frozen yogurt you had for dessert yesterday was made up of molecules that may have once been part of a dinosaur, a person who lived in ancient Greece, or a slug beneath the sea eons ago. All creatures, those alive now and those long dead, feed one another. Nutrition is a part of the ongoing process that is life on this planet.





Here's a link to the Calorie movie, **"Calorie Confidential"**: http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1552937589