Further Readings

• Dietary intake is essential for life and an important behavioural risk factor that can significantly impact health. Optimal nutrition is vital for the normal growth and both physical and cognitive development of infants and children. Nutrition plays an important role in maintaining healthy weight, enhancing quality of life and wellbeing, strengthening resistance to infections, and safeguarding against chronic diseases and premature death. Improving nutrition has the potential to improve individual and public health while reducing healthcare costs.¹⁵
• The relationships between dietary patterns and health outcomes have been widely examined. It is well supported that people consuming diets that are low in fat, saturated fat, trans-fatty acids and cholesterol and high in fruits, vegetables and whole grain products containing fibre have lower rates of morbidity and mortality from coronary heart disease.¹⁶

 

Interventions to Promote Healthy, Balanced Diet

• The Food Pyramid can serve as a valuable guide for planning a balanced and nutritious diet, with the exception of diets for infants. It is essential to ensure that all major food groups are adequately represented in one's daily dietary intake, which play crucial roles in supporting overall health and wellbeing.¹⁷
• Dietetic consultations follow a structured nutrition care process of nutrition assessment, nutrition diagnosis, nutrition intervention, and nutrition monitoring and evaluation, which aims at supporting individual clients to modify their dietary behaviours to improve health outcomes. Systematic review of RCTs demonstrated that dietetic consultations were effective for improving diet quality, diabetes outcomes (including blood glucose and HbA1c) and weight control (e.g. changes in weight and waist circumference).¹