How Healthy Is Your Diet?
Want to put the spring back into your step and get set to sizzle in summer?
Then now’s the time to take stock of your diet and make sure you’re getting all the nutrients you need for maximum health and vitality.
In an earlier era, when our diet was dictated by the seasons, spring brought an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables after the long and gloomy winter, and an opportunity to replenish reserves of important nutrients.
Back then, there was a clear link between nutritional status and the availability of fresh foods.
But even now, when food miles mean that produce is flown around the world to ensure availability all year around, the seasons still shape our nutritional status.
A 2014 study which tracked diet and the seasons found that intakes of vitamin A, vitamin C, omega-3 fatty acids, and protein were lower during the winter than spring.
It also confirmed what most of us know — that between Christmas and comfort eating we also consume the most calories during winter.
Dr Emma Derbyshire, a public health nutritionist and member of the Health Supplements Information Service, who has provided expert advice to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on A Fit and Healthy Childhood says: ‘Eating a good diet is the best way to achieve good nutrition, but there is evidence to show that many of us seem unable to manage this.
She continued: ‘The National Diet and Nutrition Survey shows that vitamin and mineral intake is worrying low particularly in certain population groups, such as young women and the elderly.
‘This is why I recommend bridging these daily nutrition gaps with a multivitamin supplement.’
Bleak British winters add to the problem because they make it impossible to manufacture vitamin D which is crucial for immunity.
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