You are what you eat:

Despite the vast amount and variety of foods available, you may NOT be getting the best nutrition.

Surprised?

In fact, the most recent report from the Congressional General Accounting Office notes that only 23% of Americans get the recommended servings of fruit and about 41% get the recommended servings of vegetables (and that was before serving recommendations for fruits and vegetables were increased in 2005).

In addition, according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 65% of the U.S. population is overweight or obese.

Yet many don’t realize that they have a weight problem, and so they ignore health advice and warnings. They think they are ‘stocky’ or ‘muscular’ or that it is middle-age spread, or that they will lose the baby weight soon.

In reality, they are overweight, and the longer they keep the fat on, the more damage they can do to their bodies in both the structural and chemical senses.

Nutrition on the Go: It IS possible

There are many obstacles to eating well: your busy lifestyle, the ready availability of convenience foods, super portion sizes, and conflicting information on nutrition and weight loss.

You might also think that dietary changes made later in life will have little effect on your health.

But there is GOOD NEWS:

Any change is better than none.

Changing dietary habits and losing weight at any time, even in middle or old age, can significantly improve how you feel—and decrease your risk of chronic diseases.

This series of articles will provide you with simple, effective strategies for achieving good nutrition and, in the process, help you keep your weight under control, and increase your chances of good health and disease prevention.

In this series of articles, you will learn the basics of good nutrition and how much of each nutrient you should be consuming.

The focus will be not on fads, but on what we know based on the latest research about  the nutrients that play the most important roles in preventing and managing chronic diseases.

In particular, we will deal with fats, fiber, and specific minerals and vitamins.

You know that eating right will help you maintain a healthy weight and may even protect you against a variety of chronic diseases, including coronary heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, and certain types of cancer, such as colon cancer.

So why is it so hard to eat right, keep our weight at a healthy level, and get the best foods to help us live longer?

That is the goal of this series of articles.

Due to our busy lifestyles, we are not always making the right food choices.  All of us can probably use some tips on the best ways to stick to a healthy diet.

And what about the latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the new food pyramid called MyPyramid?  In this series, you will learn about how to apply these to your daily life as well, to get good affordable nutrition.