My Nutrition Blog by Madison LEE

The Importance of a Balanced Diet

mdlee3 — 2025-09-12 00:22:04 UTC

Why do we need a well balanced diet you ask? Well this is important because if we have a balanced diet then we will stay healthier and it can gives us essential vitamins, provide us energy and fuel, support our organs and can boost our immunity. It will also protect us from chronic diseases like cancer and heart disease. If we have an unbalanced diet, we risk things like bad mental health, becoming overweight, or poor liver and kidney health. It can also affect our height, give us poor wound healing, and we will have more infections and bad mood swings.

But if we know the 5 different food groups it can prevent us from all of this. There are:

Grains: Bread, Rice, Pasta

Dairy: Milk, Yogurt, Cheese

Fruits: Apples, Oranges, Bananas,

Vegetables: Cucumber, Tomato, Celery

Poultry: Chicken, Tofu, Eggs

How much food should we be eating?

We have learned all about what we should be eating and why, but we don't know how much so this is how much the average 12 year old kid should be eating.

Grains: 5-6 servings

Dairy: 3 cups

Vegetables: 2 1/2 cups

Fruit: 1 1/2 cups

Poultry: 140g

What are the good and bad nutrients?

mdlee3 — 2025-09-12 00:38:48 UTC

Macronutrients. You may or may have not heard of it before, but I'll teach you what they are. Our 3 main macronutrients are carbohydrates, protein, and fats. These are our big nutrients, that we need to consume in large amounts in order to make sure that we are getting the amount we need.

Have you ever wondered how basketball players can play basketball endlessly without getting tired for a while? Well something that plays a massive part in this is carbohydrates! It's essential because it is a main fuel source that let's you jump highly, sprint, and quickly change your direction, and it will power your brain and muscles.

A good meal to get all your nutrients at once would be a type of meat like chicken for protein, some bread for carbs, a bit of veggies and top it off with some olive oil or avocado for some healthy fats.

We know about macronutrients, but what are micronutrients? Well, they're basically the complete opposite and we want to consume these nutrients in small amounts. Here are three micronutrients and the different types of foods we can find them in:

Iron: Red meats, legumes, oysters, tuna

Vitamin A: Liver, eggs, mangoes

Zinc: Oatmeal, meat, yogurt

When you hear nutrients, you might think they're all good. But it may not be that way. Cause the same for most foods, if you consume too much sodium there will be consequences. We need sodium because it helps regulate our fluid balance and supports our nerves, but if we have too much then it will result high blood pressure, bloating, increased thirst, weight gain and regular headaches. Sodium is still essential, so we need to be having no more than 2,300mg a day.

Australian Guide to Healthy Eating

mdlee3 — 2025-09-12 07:45:04 UTC

The Australian Guide to Healthy Eating teaches humans no matter what age what a healthy diet looks like and how it can improve our wellbeing and protecting us from different diseases. It is presented in a plate with some sections bigger than the other and it features the 5 food groups. The food is rated using HSR and you put the food into a health calculator and it tells you how healthy it is. A strength is that it provides a very clear format for people to understand. There is not any diets for people with allergies or diseases.