Dieting

Diet is what people eat. The consumption of food is necessary to maintain life. A balanced diet is one that includes sufficient quantities foods with carbohydrates for energy, meats for proteins, calcium such as milk for bones, vegetables and fruits for minerals and vitamins. A balanced diet is one that supplies healthy foods in appropriate quantities.

A casual, unplanned eating of whatever someone wants without regard to portions or to calorie expenditures is a diet that likely includes too much food or that is unbalanced can have negative consequences. One of these is that overeating can cause weight gains. While full weight is a sign of good health, it is possible for a person with an unbalanced diet to be at their full weight and still be less than the best of health. This can happened because an unbalanced diet can cause weight and poor health at the same time. An unbalanced diet can even allow the eater to be anemic or to suffer from of kinds of [Page 525]conditions. One of these is weight gains and obesity that require the restoration of a diet that will eliminate the excess weight. This type of diet, a nutrition plan, to achieve goal such as a weight gain or weight loss are called dieting.

Dieting is the ingesting of food in a regular planned manner to reach a particular weight goal. Most of the time the goal of dieting is weight loss; however, weight gain in the form of muscle is the usual goal of athletes. Weight lifters seeking to increase their muscle mass can be vigorous and still be overweight.

Excess weight is a ration between body weight and body height. It is a relatively small range because some people are more muscular than are others. However, in the case of a body builder, the excess weight is muscle and not fat as in the case of those who are obese.

Others who may seek to engage in a diet for gaining weight could include actors. In the case of actors playing a particular role, it may be necessary to gain a number of additional pounds in order to portray their character correctly.

Weight gain diets are important to people who have become malnourished because they were stranded without food somewhere, were ill, or for some other reason. Diets to bulk up the body's muscle mass are frequently used by athletes and soldiers.

Most dieting is done to lose weight. People who have become overweight or obese can benefit by careful development of a weight loss program. Strictly speaking, people on a diet should see to replace fat with muscle. The conversion gives strength to the body as well as reserves of energy. It also reduces the strain on the heart and other systems such as the digestive system and its endocrine parts including the pancreas.

There are a variety of eating disorders that are a very serious problem. Growing numbers of people have them. Most are cases of eating disorders, are a combination of emotional, physical, spiritual and cultural factors. Most of the people who have eating disorders are women, although men are afflicted as well. The most common eating disorders are anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and binge eating.

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