In your lifetime, you’ll spend about 6 years eating about 70,000 meals and 60 tons of food. What you eat affects your energy level, well-being, and overall health (see the box “Eating Habits and Total Wellness”). Of particular concern is the connection between lifetime nutritional habits and risk of the major chronic diseases, including heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes. Choosing foods that provide adequate amounts of the nutrients you need while limiting the substances linked to disease should be an important part of your daily life. The food choices you make will significantly influence your health—both now and in the future.

Creating a diet plan to support maximum fitness and protect against disease is a two-part project. First, you have to know which nutrients are necessary and in what amounts. Second, you have to translate those requirements into a diet consisting of foods you like to eat that are both available and affordable. Once you have an idea of what constitutes a healthy diet for you, you may also have to make adjustments in your current diet to bring it into line with your goals.

This chapter provides the basic principles of nutrition. It introduces the six classes of essential nutrients, explaining their role in the functioning of the body. It also provides different sets of guidelines that you can use to design a healthy diet plan. Finally, it offers practical tools and advice to help you apply the guidelines to your own life. Diet is an area of your life in which you have almost total control. Using your knowledge and understanding of nutrition to create a healthy diet plan is a significant step toward wellness.

After reading this chapter, you should be able to List the essential nutrients and describe the functions they perform in the body

Describe the guidelines that have been developed to help people choose a healthy diet, avoid nutritional deficiencies, and protect themselves from diet-related chronic diseases

Discuss nutritional guidelines for vegetarians and for special population groups

Explain how to use food labels and other consumer tools to make informed choices about foods

Put together a personal nutrition plan based on affordable foods that you enjoy and that will promote wellness, today and in the future