Nutrition counseling isn’t just about healthy eating. Of course, that is a part of it (the biggest part), but if you are going to see a dietitian, it’s usually because you are looking to live an overall healthier lifestyle. Let’s say, for example, you want to lower your cholesterol. There are definitely foods that will help do that, but other factors like stress, exercise, alcohol, smoking, etc. that can also affect your levels, meaning when looking at nutrition, it’s important to look at the whole picture of a person.
So, why am I bringing this up? Our country has one of the shortest life expectancies (79.3 years) than almost all other high-income countries. In 2015, the U.S. ranked 31st out of all the countries in the world for life expectancy. We know that the Standard American Diet (aptly abbreviated S.A.D.) is causing a lot of problems, but life expectancy won’t be solved by nutrition alone.
The Harvard School of Public Health published a study that aimed to answer these very questions. What does cause people to live longer? What can a person do to ensure that they add years to their lives? And what researchers found was that American men and women who lived a healthier lifestyle were 82% less likely to die from cardiovascular disease and 65% less likely to die from cancer compared with those who did not lead a healthier lifestyle. So, what is this “healthier lifestyle” being referenced? Researchers found that maintaining these five habits can add 12 years of life to men and 14 extra years for women. Here they are:
- Don’t smoke. And if you do, stop. Go see your doctor, hypnotist, drugstore pharmacy person, literally anyone in any sort of healthcare affiliated role will bend over backwards to help you find a way to quit.
- Exercise at least 30 minutes/day (walking counts and is fantastic!) -aim for at least 10,000 steps/day
- Eat a healthy diet. This is obviously an enormously vague/open to interpretation concept that elicits tons of confusion (even for those of us in the nutrition world!) This is where working with a dietitian can be very beneficial, but the general theme here is eat more veggies than you currently do, drink more water, include some healthy fats and limit the rest, fried food on a regular basis is bad.
- Don’t drink alcohol for your health. There is no such thing as a good amount of alcohol. If you want to include it, have one glass of something twice a week or two glasses once a week. That buzz and nice feeling you get from drinking, is actually your body being poisoned. Consider this: you can eat a bucket of fried food, a 2L bottle of coke, some actual coke, heroin, and LSD, and if you have a beer with that, your body will prioritize getting the alcohol out of your body ahead of all that other stuff because ethanol is that toxic to your body. Oh, and it inhibits your body’s ability to lose weight by 30%. Sorry to be a buzz kill, but if you are serious about getting your health on track, please know that you’re not doing your body a favor by drinking a few drinks a night because you heard it can be healthy.
- Maintain a healthy body weight. BMI is the measure most often used by doctor’s offices and it is definitely flawed but if looked at along with the waist to hip ratio measurement, can be a useful tool. This article explains how to calculate it properly and what your numbers mean.
Despite being only five habits, they are obviously big ones (HUGE ones, in fact) and it’s definitely not easy to combat all at once. But it’s also exciting to know that so much of your own health is completely, 100% in your control. And even working on one habit at a time, will have an enormously positive impact on your health.
