- General Goal: To inform
- Specific Goal: At the end of my speech, the audience will gain critical insights into various strategies for healthy eating.
- Central Idea: Healthy eating is critically essential for good nutrition and health. It protects individuals from a wide range of chronic and non-communicable diseases and ensures improved memory and brain health.
Introduction
Did you know a significant majority of Americans do not eat healthy diets? More than 80% are not eating enough vegetables, whole grains, and fruits, while a third of American adults are obese (Blackstone et al., 2018). The leading cause of obesity is due to lack of sufficient knowledge on strategies for healthy eating.
Today, I have the opportunity to talk to you about the key strategies of healthy eating. Contrary to popular beliefs, eating healthy is not expensive and requires only a few simple tactics. Although I am not a nutritionist, my presentation is based on credible empirical evidence from a wide range of previously conducted research.
Today, I will discuss three strategies for healthy eating: I will first talk about the importance of making a food journal and planning meals and snacks for each week based on the available budget. Then, I will be discussing why serving meals regularly in smaller dishes is good for your body. Finally, I will be looking at why eating at home is better than eating out. Now that you are aware of the overview, let’s begin discussing my first point.
Body
It is critically important to make a food journal and plan meals and snacks for each week based on your available budget. A recent study revealed that it costs a little more per day to eat a healthy meal (Beets et al., 2018). Food journals are a cost-effective way of keeping track of how much you spend on food. Individuals who consistently keep food journals and plan their meals tend to stay healthy and eat balanced diets.A good food journal should contain more grains and at least one meatless meal in a weak while at the same time ensuring more fruits and vegetables. Planning meals, drinks, and snacks using food journals help one realize if they are consuming enough of each food group, promoting better nutrition. It is easier to determine if you react to certain foods by keeping a food diary. Writing down what you eat and how you feel after helps you realize your intolerance towards some ingredients or food choices.
A food journal or diary makes it easier to understand one’s eating habits and makes it easier to make changes to the diet and ensure healthy eating.Several studies concur that people who successfully keep food journals are likely to have balanced diets and maintain healthy weights (Reinders et al., 2017). Record-keeping helps one lose weight by informing them about their food choices and unhealthy eating habits to make necessary changes. Moreover, writing down the time and mood for the day when keeping a food journal can help identify triggers to unhealthy eating. Recognizing specific triggers will help you get rid of unhealthy eating habits.
Now that we’ve successfully discussed the importance of making a food journal and planning meals and snacks for each week based on the available budget, let’s talk about why serving meals in smaller dishes but regularly is good for your body.
Serving meals in smaller dishes but regularly is great for your body and general wellbeing. Smaller but regular meals help in controlling appetite while at the same time ensuring efficient metabolism. Studies have shown that individuals who serve larger dishes at once gain weight more than those who serve smaller and regular portions (Reinders et al., 2017). Small portions provide nutrients to the body throughout the day and stabilize blood sugar levels. Mini-meals also aid in improving one’s metabolism. A good metabolism increases energy levels making one very active and alert throughout the day.
Although making a food journal to plan weekly meals and serving smaller portions are great healthy eating strategies, it is vital to discuss why eating at home is better than eating out.
Frequently eating at home is crucial for an individual’s health and general wellbeing as it helps avoid fast or junk foods. Individuals who eat at home instead of eating in restaurants or hotels tend to control their foods’ ingredients, thereby enabling them to maintain a healthy diet (Leung et al., 2017). Having control over how your food is prepared helps avoid food allergies. Dining at home also results in significant cost savings on food as it is less expensive than eating in a restaurant. Dietary choices in hotels or restaurants are often limited, making eating out less healthy as most options are processed and sugary. Eating at home means one can control their calories which is significant in weight loss.
As I conclude my speech today, I would wish to leave you with this quote about the importance of eating healthy from the famous playwright ‘The Miser’ “One must eat to live, not live to eat.”
Conclusion
Healthy eating simply requires individuals to adopt a few cost-effective eating strategies. Today, we discussed three approaches that are essential in healthy eating. First, we discussed the importance of making a food journal and planning meals and snacks weekly based on the available budget. Then, we talked about why serving meals in smaller dishes but regularly is good for your body. Finally, we discussed why eating at home is better than eating out. I hope that you have learnt and gained some new critical insights regarding the strategies of eating healthy. Although it is sometimes difficult to achieve healthy eating, it is our responsibility to monitor our food consumption and ensure appropriate dietary intake.
References
Beets, M. W., Brazendale, K., Weaver, R. G., Turner-McGrievy, G. M., Huberty, J., Moore, J. B., Khan, M. M., & Ward, D. S. (2018). Economic evaluation of a group randomized controlled trial on healthy eating and physical activity in afterschool programs. Preventive Medicine, 106, 60–65.
Blackstone, N. T., El-Abbadi, N. H., McCabe, M. S., Griffin, T. S., & Nelson, M. E. (2018). Linking sustainability to the healthy eating patterns of the dietary guidelines for Americans: A modelling study.The Lancet Planetary Health, 2(8), e344–e352.
Leung, A. W. Y., Chan, R. S. M., Sea, M. M. M., & Woo, J. (2017). An overview of factors associated with adherence to lifestyle modification programs for weight management in adults. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 14(8), 922.
Reinders, M. J., Huitink, M., Dijkstra, S. C., Maaskant, A. J., & Heijnen, J. (2017). Menu-engineering in restaurants – adapting portion sizes on plates to enhance vegetable consumption: A real-life experiment. The International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 14(1), 41.