While we soar through these beautiful weeks of fall, this week the blog brings you a glimpse into how the food you consume impacts every area of who you are as a person! Join DC Metro Area dietitian Kay Loughrey as she explains each of the areas of holistic health and how your nutrition impacts each one. Knowing more about how nutrition impacts your whole person is one of the best ways to keep working towards a happy life as your most healthy self!
Holistic nutrition is “physical, behavioral, spiritual, and socioeconomic wellbeing” as defined by the National Library of Medicine. This means that your physical body, the way you act, your spiritual-emotional-mental health, as well as your socioeconomic health all come together to make you. Every area of these can be impacted by the food you eat and vice versa! Why is this important, you may ask? For the same reason that you want all four of your tires properly inflated on a long road trip so that your car can function at its best, you also want all areas of your life properly taken care of in your journey of life!
Physical Health
Probably one of the largest categories impacted by nutrition, physical health includes the healthy functioning of your body as well as staying healthy from illness and diseases. Your physical health can be negatively impacted when your intake of food excludes fresh fruits and vegetables as well as whole foods, all of which have important micronutrients that our bodies need to fight off disease and function normally on a healthy level. Consuming a regular amount of processed foods, especially those high in sugars, salts, and saturated fats can lead to serious physical health complications such as diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. Yet a healthy intake of whole foods while being careful with your intake of sugars, sodium, and trans fats will allow your body to thrive!
Behavioral Health
Behavioral health refers to the prevention of stressors and stress related physical symptoms resulting from life crises and trauma. Nutrition can impact your behavior health when the food consumed causes a stressor or stress cue to feel worse than normally would be. An example of this could be dehydration, where the lack of proper amounts of water could cause a stressful even to be heightened. Another example could be excessive amounts of caffeine where the caffeine is agitating the nervous system causing a stressor cue to feel worse than normal.
Spiritual-Mental-Emotional Health
Mental and emotional health have long been studied in connection with nutrition. Fatigue, focus, reaction time, decision making, stress, and negative mood shifts have all been linked to poor nutritional choices, especially foods that have been highly processed. Eating regular amounts of whole foods and limiting highly processed foods has been shown to decrease risk of instances of depression by as much as 30%!
Socioeconomic Health
Seriocomic health refers to the ability to afford and access proper health care as well as proper nutrition as a result of a healthy level of socioeconomic level. This does not mean that one needs to have a high socioeconomic status to have socioeconomic health, however a lower socioeconomic status does impact ability to access good whole food choices as well as proper health care. Persons of all socioeconomic statuses can make it their goal to make the healthiest food choices they can with the resources they have. Shopping wisely, exploring farmers markets, and joining food assistance programs can be helpful for this!
The foods we choose to eat each day can have a very large impact on every area of our life! One way to help make sure that you are making food choices that will help you live as your healthiest version of you is a practice called mindful eating. Mindful eating means consciously thinking about what you are eating as well as focusing on how you feel as you eat. Through mindful eating, we can make choices that help each area of our whole self be happy and healthy! Learn more about mindfulness and healthy food choices here.
Resources
National Library of Medicine. “Defining Whole Health.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK591719/#:~:text=Whole%20health%20is%20physical %2C%20behavioral,individuals%2C%20families%2C%20and%20communities. Accessed October 8, 2023.
Wang J, Geng L. Effects of Socioeconomic Status on Physical and Psychological Health: Lifestyle as a Mediator. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019;16(2):281. Published 2019 Jan 20. doi:10.3390/ijerph16020281. Accessed October 8, 2023.
American Medical Association. “What is behavioral health?” https://www.ama- assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/what-behavioral-health. August 22, 2022. Accessed October 8, 2023.
Sutter Health. “Eating Well for Mental Health.” https://www.sutterhealth.org/health/nutrition/eating-well-for-mental- health#:~:text=A%20healthy%2C%20well%2Dbalanced%20diet,can%20slow%20down%20rea ction%20time. Accessed October 8, 2023.
Grajek M, Krupa-Kotara K, Białek-Dratwa A, et al. Nutrition and mental health: A review of current knowledge about the impact of diet on mental health. Front Nutr. 2022;9:943998. Published 2022 Aug 22. doi:10.3389/fnut.2022.943998
Harvard Medical School. “Nutritional psychiatry: Your Brain on Food.” Harvard Health Publishing. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/nutritional-psychiatry-your-brain-on-food- 201511168626. September 18, 2022. Access October 8, 2023.
Kay Loughrey, MPH, RDN, LDN
Transformational Speaker, Breakthrough Coach, Nutritionist-Dietitian
Karis N. Hicks
North Carolina Central University M.S. – Nutrition Studies
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