The difference between eating healthy and eating healthy

Dietary health is the final health state of the body through long-term dietary intake, which belongs to the outcome dimension.； Healthy eating refers to all behaviors such as dietary choices, combinations, and eating habits taken to achieve the above state, which belongs to the path dimension. One is the destination to be reached, the other is the road to the destination. This is the most essential difference.

Don't think this is a word game. There are really too many people who confuse these two concepts and get into trouble.

Not long ago, I met a girl from the same department in the company cafeteria. She had a fixed lunch of boiled broccoli + boiled chicken breast + brown rice every day. I couldn't even see a few starch seeds, and I didn't even touch the milk tea cake. Asking about it was like "healthy eating". As a result, during the physical examination at work last month, her hemoglobin was found to be low, and her aunt also postponed it for more than half a month. Her face turned sallow, not to mention healthy, and she was not even energetic at work. Do you think the actions she did are what everyone considers "healthy eating"? But her results did not meet the "healthy diet" standards at all. In essence, she regarded the path as the goal, only focusing on the "standard" of the stuck movements, and did not consider whether her body could bear it at all.

On the contrary, I have Sister Zhang who runs the fruit shop downstairs. I see her eating everything every day. When she is free in the afternoon, she will have a cup of bubble milk tea with the landlady next door. After closing the stall in the evening, she will occasionally go to have a skewer. However, the last time the community organized a free physical examination, her blood lipids, blood sugar, and uric acid were all within the normal range. She usually climbs the fifth floor to move goods without being out of breath. , this is a real "healthy diet". If you ask her if she has any fixed "healthy eating" principles, she will most likely not be able to tell you. She just knows that she eats when she is hungry and stops when she is too full.

There have been differences in the understanding of the two in the nutrition circle. The traditional public nutrition faction has always believed that only by strictly following the dietary guideline requirements, consuming the recommended amounts of cereals, potatoes, vegetables, fruits, animal foods, and soy nuts every day, with less salt, sugar, and oil, this standardized "healthy diet" can stably output the results of "healthy diet"； However, the intuitive eating school, which has become increasingly popular in recent years, does not agree with this statement. They believe that everyone's metabolic level, physical needs, and dietary preferences are different, and there is no unified "healthy eating" standard. As long as you can sense the body's satiety signals, do not overeat, do not overeat, and eat things that make you feel comfortable and happy, you will naturally achieve a healthy diet in the long run.

The two sides have been arguing for several years, but there is no standard answer. When I was doing community nutrition science, I met a very serious man. He used a food scale to weigh grams every day when cooking. He did not dare to eat more red meat for fear of being high in fat, and replaced all refined rice and white flour with grains for fear of high blood sugar. As a result, he was diagnosed with iron deficiency anemia after half a year. After questioning for a long time, the doctor found out that in order to meet the standards of "healthy diet", he had not eaten a bite of more than 100 grams of red meat for almost half a year. Do you think his movements are standard enough? But the result is not good. This is a typical example of the path and goal being reversed.

To put it bluntly, the relationship between the two is a bit like driving to a scenic spot: eating healthy is the scenic spot you want to visit, and eating healthy is the road you choose. Some people choose the expressway for faster speed, some choose the national highway to see the scenery, and some people like to take the country road which is a bit far away but can buy souvenirs along the way. As long as you can get to the place safely in the end, it doesn't matter which way you choose. You don't have to compare with others whose path is more "standard", and you can't rush forward when you know that the road ahead is closed, thinking that as long as the road is right, you will get there.

In the past, there were always people arguing on the Internet about whether low-carbohydrates are considered a healthy diet, and whether eating meal replacements is considered a healthy diet. In fact, there is no need to argue. For you, as long as you stick to this eating habit for three months to half a year, and all the indicators in the physical examination are normal, and you eat happily and are not irritable all day long because of food taboos, then this eating method is right for you and can help you achieve your goal of eating healthily.

After all, the reason why we eat well is not to look "self-disciplined" when posting on WeChat. In the final analysis, being comfortable and feeling great is the ultimate goal.