How Poor Nutrition Affects Your Overall Health
The lifestyle choices you make today can determine the quality of your health and overall well-being, including what you eat and drink. Although 46% of US adults have a poor-quality diet, not everyone consciously makes poor nutritional choices. There are moments when the hustle and bustle of modern life significantly impacts your diet, resulting in meal choices that affect your body. You may not see the consequences now, but it’s best to know the effect poor nutrition has on your health beforehand, including those below.
- Impaired physical performance and energy levels
Food provides fuel for the body, but you must also be mindful of the nutritional quality of your meals. That is what provides long-lasting physical performance for a few hours until your next meal. Quality food contains all the major and micronutrients to combat fatigue, weakness, and a general sense of lethargy. On the other hand, poor nutrition causes a decline in physical performance and energy levels because your body is deprived of essential enzymes to meet its physical demands. You can binge on a diet high in processed foods, and you will be full. However, you will be hungry again in no time because that meal lacked what has come to be known as dense nutrition. In other words, junk foods provide temporal fuel, which is highly aided by added sugar. It is very similar to a sugar rush that fills you with sudden energy but leads to a crash, leaving the same energy levels in shambles. When this happens over time, you will be exposing your body to a lifetime of impaired physical performance and energy levels.
- Accelerated aging and cellular damage
Did you know that poor nutrition can quicken the aging process? It starts gradually at the cellular level until it starts to show earlier than usual. That is also when your vulnerability to chronic diseases sharply increases. The question, however, is, what is in less-nutritious foods that cause this chain reaction? The first answer is the lack of antioxidants in these meal choices. Antioxidants neutralize harmful free radicals, which are the major causes of cellular damage and oxidative stress. The second answer is the excessive sugar in non-nutritious foods. Sugar is a key driver of aging and bodily inflammation. Their excessive consumption has been linked to many chronic health conditions like diabetes. Avoid cellular damage and accelerated aging by incorporating antioxidant-rich foods into your diet. It’s worth noting that certain hormonal conditions like Polycystic Ovary Syndrome make some women susceptible to poor insulin regulation. That predisposes them to Type 2 diabetes, which also accelerates cellular damage and rapid aging. In such cases, it would be best to consider taking hormone balance supplements to control that.
- Compromised bone health and density
Aside from the impact on the cellular level, your body’s physical structure also takes a hit due to poor nutrition. The bones need calcium, vitamin D, and magnesium to perform optimally, but poor nutrition stifles that. Doing this over time can lead to conditions like osteoporosis, increased risk of fractures, and compromised bone health. It doesn’t help that modern lifestyles favor highly processed foods over nutrient-rich options. Fortunately, you can make a difference in your life by choosing better. Contact a nutritionist to help you make informed food choices that promote bone health and limit your risk of osteomalacia and osteoporosis. The future of your bone health will depend on the healthy choices you make today.