The thought behind eating
There are choices in our everyday lives that can affect our bodies forever. Knowing how to make those choices comes from educating ourselves with enough background information to choose correctly. When it comes to dieting, we are challenged to do the right thing, read the nutrition labels and exercise daily. What most people don’t realize about eating is, there are certain things we each need to intake in order to maintain a healthy standard of living. Nutritional requirements are individual and can vary based on ones gender, age, health status and physical activity level. Women and men differ in what their body needs, as well as children up to young adults. However, everyone needs a balanced diet consisting of protein, carbohydrates, fat, calories, vitamins, minerals and water in order to survive and live out a healthy life. Upon researching the nutritional requirements for men and woman, I have found Kimberly Morrow’s studies in Men’s Daily Nutrional Requirements, as well as John Casey’s in Woman’s Nutrition Needs Special Attention to be exceedingly helpful for my research.
John Casey shares that women need fewer calories than men do, but more nutrients to be in the best condition. Due to female hormones, a woman’s body and nutritional needs change around age 9 when she begins to hit puberty. A healthy diet consists of iron intake with meat, fish and poultry, but most women suffer from lack of iron due to their menstrual period. This natural process in a woman’s body causes an iron deficiency; when women aged 19-50 have a daily requirement of 18 milligrams of iron. When a woman reaches pregnancy, this requirement exceeds greatly. According to WebMD, the average woman being 5ft 6in in height, weighing about 145lbs needs around 1,200 calories every day. Calcium is another area women need due to bone growth into their mid-20s, and older women-experiencing menopause need it due to their decline in estrogen. The daily calcium...