Nutrition: Breaking Bad Nutrition Habits

The most important information you need to improve your health

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• Publisher: Adams Media
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781440565861
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Nutrition, Dietics & Bariatrics

Looking to fix your family's bad eating habits? The Everything® Healthy Living Series is here to help. These concise, thoughtful guides offer the expert advice and the nutritious recipes you need to get everyone to break their bad habits and start eating healthy.Inside you'll find information on how to break these bad diet habits, as great ways to work the right foods into your diets. With the advice this guide provides, you'll be able to get you family eating healthy in no time!

Breaking Bad Habits

Poor nutrition is often a result of poor habits, developed throughout a lifetime, and encouraged by society. When you’re caring for a family, it’s especially important to have good eating habits, not only for yourself but also to provide a good example for your children. Poor eating habits can be kicked, but it won’t happen overnight. The following section includes all the information you need to know to kick bad habits (like skipping breakfast) and maintain healthy habits going forward.

The Most Important Meal

After twelve hours without nourishment, your body needs a fresh supply in the morning. Your blood glucose needs replenishment so that it can furnish the rest of your body with energy. Your brain, especially, needs glucose, as it has no capacity to store it. Eating breakfast helps your concentration, your ability to problem solve, your strength, and your endurance. What’s more, intake of nutrients in the morning helps to regulate the appetite throughout the day, increasing your chances of meeting your daily nutritional requirements.

Breakfast is especially important for kids. A healthy breakfast improves overall cognitive skills, including memory, which gives them an edge in test taking, attendance, and class participation. Kids that skip breakfast tend to be disinterested, irritable, and lack the focus needed to succeed in class. And because a large chunk of their daily nutrients is missing, they tend to visit the school nurse more often.

Helping children develop a breakfast habit is likely one of the very best ways that parents can ensure lifelong success for their offspring.

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Fact

The Massachusetts School Nutrition Task Force reports a study in which students participating in school breakfast programs reported decreased trips to the school nurse, as well as increased math and reading scores, improved behavior, and attendance.

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If that weren’t enough to convince you to eat your breakfast, know that people who skip breakfast tend to be heavier. Hunger builds up as lunch approaches, and suddenly food is necessary, in any form. In this situation it is more common to throw caution to the wind and eat the first thing that presents itself. Overeating of the wrong foods is the result, and although the day is half over, the daily nutrient intake is far from half complete.

What’s Your Excuse?

The general excuse for skipping the first meal of the day is lack of time. Busy lifestyles do not have to preclude health. You can eat a healthy breakfast in ten minutes or less if you plan for it. A bowl of cereal, a piece of fruit, and slice of toast is adequate.

Some people complain that breakfast upsets their stomach. Try to eat a small bit of fruit or bland toast each day, then slowly increase your intake as your system grows accustomed to it. It is possible that you have simply been choosing the wrong morning food for your sensitive stomach. You may also want to pack yourself a small breakfast snack and carry it with you for later in the morning, when your stomach is less sensitive, such as a nutrition bar or a piece of fruit.

What Is a Healthy Breakfast?

In general you want to eat foods of high nutritional value in the morning. Avoid sugary cereals, which have little nutrients. They raise your blood sugar quickly but then drop it way down to a point at which you are feeling hungry again within an hour. Fast food, too, should be avoided, as it is similarly short on nutrients, and generally contains excessive fat. Low-fat, low-sugar, high-fiber foods are the way to go. These foods help maintain your blood sugar level for hours and start your day with healthy nutrient intake.

Skipping Meals

Food is fuel. You need it for energy. When you don’t eat, you lose energy. It’s that simple. But today busy people find they do not always have time for meals. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to get your daily recommended nutrients if you don’t eat.

The daily nutrients are vital to the healthy functioning of all parts of your body. And although you may not notice when your body is running well, you certainly will notice when it starts to break down.

Good daily nutrition is the easiest way to achieve health and optimal performance. If you’re not an Olympic athlete, you may wonder what optimal performance means for you. Brain function, cognitive reasoning, attentiveness, memory, and moods are all affected by nutrition. And the things you can’t see, including a healthy immune system, are directly related to what you eat as well. Your body needs a constant flow of energy to run smoothly, and eating regularly is crucial to that end.

Fitting It In

As with all successful endeavors, planning is the key. If you typically don’t have time for lunch, brown bag it and nibble when time allows. Energy bars, fruit, even a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich provides an adequate supply of nutrients to get you through the afternoon.

When you skip meals, you are more likely to overeat the wrong foods at the next opportunity. Skipping midday meals leads to unhealthy binge eating in the afternoon and at dinner. Skipping dinner often leads to a similar fate late at night, and sleeping on a full stomach has its own negative impacts.

If time is your problem, planning is the key. Make an effort to shop weekly and stock your pantry with ready-to-...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Breaking Bad Habits
• Home Cooking
• Cooking with the Kids
• Also Available
• Copyright Page