Diet and Nutrition by Victor Mushimbami

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 Basic nature of Diet

In this essay, I will discuss the importance of diet and nutrition for our health and well-being.

People of the earlier eras were more serious when it comes to diet than we are today. They understood the importance of food coming from the kitchen rather than fast processed food. They gave their time to cooking because they knew how vital food is to our bodies. (Rachel, 2000, "The History of Diet and Nutrition".

Food is very important to our bodies. That is what makes choosing what to eat, important as well. What we eat makes us healthy. The World Health Organization defines health as "the state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity". (World Health Organization, n.d.). What we take in as food has the power to influence us today and in the future. We should therefore not aim to filling up our stomachs, but to nourishing our bodies daily. (Carroll et al., 2015, "Nutrients | Free Full-Text | Association between Dietary Patterns during Pregnancy and Birth Size Measures in a Diverse Population in Southern US".

Nutrients in Diet

Nutrients are found in the food we eat. These are chemical substances that food provides to our body. They are needed for growth, maintenance and tissue repair. There are classes of these nutrients. According to Carroll et al. (2015), they are:

1. Carbohydrates

2. Fats

3. Protein

4. Minerals

5. Vitamins

6. Water

There are essential nutrients that our body produces, however, they are not enough as needed. Other nutrients are therefore supplied from the food we eat, our diet. There are more than 40 essential nutrients. Calcium, and vitamins A and C, are part of those essential nutrients. (Carroll et al., 2015, "Nutrients | Free Full-Text | Association between Dietary Patterns during Pregnancy and Birth Size Measures in a Diverse Population in Southern US".

Nutrients have got vital roles they play. They provide energy to our bodies, they support tissue maintenance, while others help in regulation of basic body processes. There is a need of additional nutrients for our body to function well. For example, vitamin B12 is essential for the production of red blood cells and the maintenance of the nervous system, but it is only found in animal products. Therefore, vegans and vegetarians need to supplement their diet with vitamin B12 or consume fortified foods. (Colón-Ramos et al., 2015, "Nutrients | Free Full-Text | Nutrient Intake and Status in Adults on Alternative Diets".

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Analyzing the diet for scientific evidence to support it’s effectiveness.

According to Carroll et al. (2015), "There are factors that cause obesity and overweight and these are poor diet and physical inactivity". These produce the epidemic of overweight and obesity. These factors are affecting men, women and children. Poor diet can also affect normal body weight. We most of the times think that the only people who can be affected are fat people. Poor diet and physical inactivity are the number one causes of cancer, diabetes, thinning bones and heart disease. (Carroll et al., 2015, "Nutrients | Free Full-Text | Association between Dietary Patterns during Pregnancy and Birth Size Measures in a Diverse Population in Southern US", [5](^5^)).

Almost all of us have the thinking that lack of enough food is what puts our well-being at risk. It is good that you are reading this. Too little or too much food can put our well-being at risk. We can have enough, but unbalanced diet or little, but still unbalanced food.

Nutritional and dietary status

Nutritional status is about the condition of the body related to intake and how our bodies use nutrients taken from our food. On the other hand, dietary status refers to what we have been eating or our food. The dietary status, what we are eating, may be more than enough, but our nutritional status poor. What we eat affects our nutritional status. For proper and healthy nutrients, let us be careful in what we call food. Some of the food are harmful to our bodies. The nutritional problem is as a result of our dietary status, what we are eating. (Lutz et al., 2014, "Nutrition and Substance-Use Disorder", [10](^10^)).

A person’s nutritional status might be known by testing urine, stool and blood. They are able to show the kinds of nutrients the body obtained from food and how it used them.

My controlled experiment to test the effectiveness of the diet

My experiment will be on fast and processed food. These are the most common in my community and many shops are opening with a lot of delicious foods, but processed. I want to test if changing diet can really impact our lives. In order for my experiment to be successful, I watched a video on YouTube, where a UK doctor with an obesity expert, did an experiment on these processed foods and their effects within 30 days. My experiment will also be a 30 days experiment and I might involve 5 to 8 people, depending on how willing they will be. According to the video, the doctor has been having a balanced diet. The normal percentage of these processed food he eats is about 20%, very healthy. He changed his diet by turning to processed food. He raised it to 80% of eating processed food. Can changing diet really affect our health?

Experiment

The first food was his favorite, fried chicken. According to him, the chicken was so delicious and perfect. Do you know what made it look and taste delicious? The chemicals they added to it. Well, he did not mind that. He ate three pieces of this highly processed chicken.

The processed food were his main food. They were his three meals every day and his snack. He slowly started having cravings for more of these foods. He needed more of them, it was like an addiction of these foods. He could not stop eating, not only for the sake of experiment, but because it now had effects on his health. He could feel more side effects along the way to his 30 days of experiment. He could wake up with a hangover because of salt and sugar in the processed food.

Some foods may look pretty healthy in our eyes, but they are not. No matter how pretty healthy they may look like, they can still be counted as processed foods. Multiple chemicals are listed on the ingredients list. They affected him and caused him to be waking up around 4 AM. Having a good sleep became a problem. Talk of headache, but still wanting to eat more. He could not control his hunger. There was something wrong with the hormone that tells us we are full or hungry. I remember him saying, he stayed 48 hours without having a bathroom.

Highly processed food. Pexels-photo

 The Results after 30 days 

In this section, I will discuss the results of a 30-day experiment on processed foods conducted by a UK doctor and an obesity expert. The experiment was documented in a YouTube video by BBC. (BBC, 2019, "UK doctor switches to 80% ULTRA-processed food diet for 30 days \uD83C\uDF54\uD83C\uDF55\uD83C\uDF5F BBC", [1](^1^)).

The doctor had been eating a balanced diet before the experiment. He changed his diet by increasing his intake of processed foods to 80%. He ate foods such as fried chicken, pizza, burgers, chips, and chocolate. He wanted to see how this diet would affect his health and well-being.

He went back to the obesity expert after 30 days. He did not expect what he heard. They measured his weight and his appearance before and after the experiment. As a result, his stomach was more dramatic, and his body shape altered. His weight went up by 6.8 kilograms and his body fat went up by 2 kilograms. Imagine what would have happened if he continued eating these highly processed foods for six months?

They also tested his blood and brain activity. They found that the hunger hormones in his blood went up by 30%. There was a decrease of the full hormones and an increase of the hunger hormones. This is why he felt hungrier and craved more processed foods. He also had trouble sleeping, headaches, and constipation.

The experiment also showed that the change of diet affected his brain. Eating processed foods became something his brain started telling him to do whether he liked it or not. It became a must eat. This is what we find in people with addiction. Processed foods are highly addictive and dangerous to our brain. They stimulate the reward system in the brain, which releases dopamine, a chemical that makes us feel good. However, over time, the brain adapts to the high levels of dopamine and reduces its sensitivity. This means that we need more and more processed foods to get the same pleasure. (Gearhardt et al., 2011, "Can food be addictive? Public health and policy implications".

If he could be affected like that, think about our children. Their brains are still developing. This means that the changes or effects of processed food could even be greater. We should be very careful with what we are giving our children. They may become addicted to processed foods and suffer from obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other health problems.

In this section, I will discuss my plan to do a similar experiment on diet, specifically on processed foods. It will be in a different way. I will look for 5 to 8 volunteers whom I could track their diet for 30 days. This diet is what they usually eat, the most food they call main meal. I will record their weight and observe their body shape. This will help, because I don’t have equipment for this experiment. I will also be asking them their side effects along their way to our 30 days experiment. After the experiment, I will send them to the clinic for a test.

This would take some time, for it is not common in our community. It is something our health professionals are not doing. However, I think it is important to raise awareness of the dangers of processed foods and the benefits of a balanced diet. I hope that my experiment will show the impact of processed foods on our health and well-being, and encourage people to make healthier choices.

Reference

Lutz, A. C., Mazuri, E. E., & Litch, A. N. (2015). Nutrition and diet therapy. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/univ-people-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1757248

Rachel, L. (2000). Birth of modern diet. Scientific American. P. 76.

UK Doctor. (2021). 30 days experiment: Can changing diet really affect our lives? (Video). YouTube. https://youtu.be/T4PFt4czJw0