Nutrition and Physical Fitness
(Yes, you can enjoy food and be fit!)

Nutrition and physical fitness.  They may not be twins, but they certainly are siblings!  As the old song goes, “You can’t have one without the other”!

Without adequate nutrition it is impossible for your body to reach its best condition of physical fitness.  No true athlete who disciplines his/her body by rigorous training does so without paying very close attention to his/her healthy diet.

Exercise requires adequate nutrition to repair and rebuild the muscles used when exercising.  This means there must be a balance between the energy consumed (food) and the energy spent in exercise.

It is not difficult to know if a proper balance is met.  Too much food intake for the calories burned will cause a gain in weight.  A very common situation since many Americans are overweight.

On the other hand, if too small an amount of food is eaten to meet the body’s need to repair muscles damaged through exercise, weight is lost and malnutrition can be the result.

Though most of us do not consider ourselves to be athletes, the relationship between nutrition and physical fitness is still important to us.

According to the US government, one-third of adults in the United States and 17% of children are obese.  These are sobering statistics.

Poor nutrition – for people of any age – is associated with major health problems that can be the cause of illness and even death.  The list of associated illnesses is not pretty:

• Heart disease
• Hypertension (high blood pressure)
• Osteoporosis
• Type 2 diabetes
• Certain types of cancer

The risk factors for these diseases and others are increasingly being seen in children.  As parents and grandparents, we need to be aware of these risks in our grandchildren

Just Being Aware Helps

By simply being aware of the dangers that result from poor nutrition choices, we can reduce, or even eliminate, the chances of ourselves or our loved ones having to deal with serious, life-threatening diseases.

A good starting point would be to determine your proper body weight.  Then determine your nutritional needs based on your level of daily exercise.

When you have done that, all that remains is to keep a proper balance between your daily caloric intake and your daily calories used.

Keep a constant weight and you have probably succeeded!

Tell us how you do it! 

More Information

• Healthy Eating Guidelines
• Senior Exercise...Is It Really Necessary? 

Return to the Senior Healthy Lifestyles Home Page

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