Healthy Eating: A Whole Diet Approach

				The importance of a healthy and varied diet A good diet is important for good health. A healthy and varied diet can help to maintain a healthy body weight, enhance general wellbeing and reduce the risk of a number of diseases including heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and osteoporosis. What is a healthy diet? A healthy diet is a diet based on breads, potatoes, and other cereals and is rich in fruits and vegetables. A healthy diet will include moderate amounts of milk and dairy products, meat, fish or meat/milk alternatives, and limited amounts of foods containing fat or sugar. No single food can provide all the essential nutrients that the body needs. Therefore, it is important to consume a wide variety of foods to provide adequate intakes of vitamins, minerals and dietary fibre, which are important for health. The following pages in this section explain how to achieve a healthy diet. © British Nutrition Foundation, 2007