Year 7 Health - Semester 2 CAT - Nutrition by

Blog 1: Food Groups - 1.1

jschu1 — 2025-09-12 00:12:10 UTC

We need to eat because food and drink provides us with the vital nutrients that help us function. A well-balanced diet enables us to get all the required nutrients for optimized growth, development, and energy. This can improve your quality of life, reduces risk of obesity, protects against infection or disease, and reduces risk of early death. Having an imbalanced diet means to have a lack of or excess of a particular food, for example, sugar. This can have a variety of negative impacts depending on the food. For example, having a defiency in iron can lead to weakness, fatigue, or headaches.

Blog 1: Food Groups - 1.2

jschu1 — 2025-09-12 00:16:36 UTC

The five main food groups are grains, dairy, fruit, vegetables, and lean meats, poultry, tofu, eggs, nuts, fish and seeds. Grains include bread, rice, or noodles. Dairy includes milk, cheese, or yoghurt. Three examples of fruit are berries, apples, or bananas. Three vegetables are spinach, carrot, or eggplant. Finally, three examples of lean meats and poultry, are beef, chicken, or fish. All these foods can easily be included in a person's daily intake, and when consumed in correct amounts, will contribute towards their overall health.

Blog 2: Nutrients - 2.1

jschu1 — 2025-09-12 00:25:56 UTC

Macronutrients are the nutrients that we eat in large quantities to obtain energy. The three macronutrients are protein, carbohydrates, and fats. Carbohydrates are a major source of energy in the body, and is required in young people as they enter a stage of growth. In a game of tennis, this would provide the player energy to play a long game. Food sources of carbohydrates include rice, pasta, or bread. Protein helps build, maintain and repair cells, and is used for muscle development. In tennis, this would help the player build strong muscles to be able to hit the ball back. Food sources of protein include seafood, lean meat, or legumes. Fats are used as a fuel source. They provide more energy than carbohydrates, but are more difficult to break down. In tennis, these would be used after the carbohydrates run out, to give the player a burst of energy. Food sources of healthy fat include fish, avocado, or nuts and seeds.

Blog 2: Nutrients - 2.2

jschu1 — 2025-09-12 00:29:22 UTC

A meal that could include all three macronutrients could be a sandwich with seeded, wholegrain bread, to provide carbohydrates. Inside the sandwich could be grilled chicken, to provide protein, with avocado, to provide healthy fats, and some mayo and tomato to make it taste better. This meal would provide all three essential macronutrients.

Blog 2: Nutrients - 2.3

jschu1 — 2025-09-12 00:35:53 UTC

Micronutrients are essential nutrients that are vital for body function, but only needed in small amounts. Examples of these are sodium, calcium, and iron. Sodium is needed to keep muscles and nerves functioning smoothly. It regulates blood pressure and maintains bodily fluids. Sodium can be found in healthy amounts in vegetables, fruit and nuts. Calcium builds and maintains healthy bones, also giving them strength and structure. It also helps the heart, muscles and nerves function. Calcium is mainly found in dairy such as milk or yoghurt. Iron is used to help the body grow. Iron makes up a protein in the red blood cells, that carries oxygen around the body. Iron can be found in eggs, lean meat, or fish.

Blog 2: Nutrients - 2.4

jschu1 — 2025-09-12 00:39:06 UTC

Risk nutrients are nutrients that provide negative impacts to the body's health if consumed in too high amounts. One example of a risk nutrient is saturated fat. Consuming too much fat can lead to obesity, cardiovascular disease, some types of cancer, even possibly affecting brain health.

Blog 3: Food Selection Models - 3.1

jschu1 — 2025-09-12 00:45:17 UTC

Food Selection Models help people understand how much of each food they should be eating and how they can improve their diet. One example of a Food Selection Model is the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating.

The purpose of this model is to represent the proportion of each of the five food groups recommended for consumption per day. That is, which foods you should be eating the most, and the least, in a day.

The Australian Guide to Healthy Eating is presenting as a pie chart with healthier foods occupying more area on the chart. The greatest area is occupied by grains, then vegetables, then lean meat and poultry, then dairy and fruit. at the bottom of the chart, foods to consume only in small amounts are listed: fats, preserved foods, oils, and artificial foods.

The foods displayed on this model are categorized into the five food groups of grains, vegetables, lean meat, fruit and dairy.

One strength of this food selection model is that is clearly represents which foods should be eaten the most, and which should be avoided. This means that people can understand how their diet should be changed and therefore improve their eating health.

One limitation of the food selection model is that it does not show all the foods that fit into these categories, so people buying products might not always be able to classify them as some they should or should not be eating.