Healthful Eating

A 30- year- old woman has had the same eating routine for the past 10 years. She wakes up in the morning and began to get her day started by showering and brushing her teeth. She never has time to cook her own breakfast, so she always stop at a fast food restaurant and order a sausage and bacon biscuit with grape jelly. She also orders a hash brown with ketchup and a fruit punch to drink. She proceeds her day and go to work. For lunch, she always dines with her friends. They usually visit restaurants that serve foods such as burgers and chilly dogs. Today, they ate at a pizza place, in which she ate three slices of pepperoni pizza with extra cheese. A couple hours later, while at work, she begin to feel a little hungry again so she gets a bag of chips and a soda from the snack machine. When she is done with work, she decides to have steak and loaded mashed potatoes for dinner. Right before bed, she always has a bowl of butter pecan ice cream. Although this young lady looks and feels healthy, she always has an annual examination. After her check up, her doctor told her that her cholesterol level was extremely high and she was at high- risk for a stroke or heart attack. Her doctor suggested some changes in her eating habits. Although this scenario is not exactly “worst case,” some people are not as lucky. Simple changes, such as understanding correct food portions, getting picky eaters to eat, substitution and satisfying cravings, are vital to healthful eating.

Understanding Food Portions
Many restaurants usually pile the food onto plates often making people feel as though they have to eat the entire serving.   Also, at home, when preparing meals, we overload our plates with large food portions. In most cases, we don’t do this because we are greedy, we do it because we have not been educated on correct food portions and adequate serving sizes. The American Associations of Retired Persons (2007) stated, “The key to a healthy diet and weight management is portion...