2
Healthy Eating
This chapter explores what constitutes a healthy diet, with a focus on the
five main food groups. It then describes the role of diet in health in terms
of contributing towards illnesses such as coronary heart disease (CHD),
cancer, and diabetes; protecting the body against such illnesses; and being
part of interventions to improve health once a diagnosis has been made.
Finally it examines the results of large-scale surveys which have described
the diets of children, young adults, and the elderly.
This chapter covers the following:
- What is healthy eating?
- The role of diet in contributing to illness
- The role of diet in treating illness
- Who has a healthy diet?
What Is Healthy Eating?
The nature of a good diet has changed dramatically over the years. In 1824
The Family Oracle of Good Healthpublished in the UK recommended that
young ladies should eat the following at breakfast: “plain biscuit (not
bread), broiled beef steaks or mutton chops, under done without any fat
and half a pint of bottled ale, the genuine Scots ale is the best,” or if this
was too strong it suggested “one small breakfast cup...of good strong tea
or of coffee – weak tea or coffee is always bad for the nerves as well as the
complexion.” Dinner is later described as similar to breakfast, with “no
vegetables, boiled meat, no made dishes being permitted much less fruit,
sweet things or pastry... the steaks and chops must always be the chief
part of your food.” Similarly in the 1840s Dr Kitchener recommended in