Nutrition and Wellbeing

Why do we eat what we eat?

Step 2.11: Nutrition guidelines made easy

ALEX MAVROEIDI: Most people don't know the actual quantities of each nutrient
they require each day, yet most of us manage to obtain approximately sufficient
amounts to maintain adequate health. But is our health optimal?

A panel of UK scientists published a reference book in 1991 called the "Dietary

Reference Values for Food Energy and Nutrients for the United Kingdom." We still
use this today to give guidance on how much macro and micronutrients we need
to consume. It proposes a range of intakes for each nutrient to meet the
requirements of the population.

You can often find the term reference nutrient intake, or RNI, on food packets.
Have a look at the back of your breakfast cereal box to check.

The RNI refers to a recommended intake of a certain nutrient that will meet the
needs of 97.5 percent of the whole population. For example, the RNI for calcium is
700 micrograms per day for adults, which is roughly the amount of calcium you
can get from a pint of milk. This means that if you take a pint of milk each day,
you're almost certainly getting adequate levels of calcium in your diet.

A number of factors can influence the amount of nutrients we need. The

recommended intakes will vary with things like age, sex, body size, certain
physiological statuses like pregnancy and lactation, disease and infection,
problems with digestion and absorption.

Based on the set of dietary reference values, and to promote optimal health, here
in the UK, we recommend that 50% of your total energy intake should come from
carbohydrate sources, 15 percent from protein, and 35 percent or less from fat as
a proportion of total energy consumed.

These percentages can be difficult to calculate and understand, even if you spend
a lot of time looking at food labels. To simplify these scientific guidelines for the
general population, the Eat Well plate was introduced in the UK. This visual aid

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shows people how much of which foods they should eat each day as part of a
healthy, balanced diet.

The Eat Well plate provides healthy eating advice categorised as food groups. It
promotes eating plenty of fruit and vegetables, plenty of starchy foods, some milk
and dairy products, some meat, fish, eggs, beans, and other nondairy protein, and
just very small amounts of foods and drinks that are high in fat or sugar.

The Eat Well plate applies to most people, whether they're healthy weight or
overweight, whether they eat meat or are vegetarian, regardless of ethnic origin.
However, it doesn't apply to children under the age of 2, because they have
different nutritional needs.

Other countries have got similar visual cues. For example, Australia have got their
own version of the plate, and the US have a pyramid-like structure. They all try to
illustrate the same ideas and try and convey the same health messages.

There are a number of other nationwide public health campaigns trying to

encourage us to eat healthily. You might have heard of the 5-a-day message. The
5-a-day is based on advice from the World Health Organisation, which
recommends eating a minimum of 400 grams of fruit and veg a day to lower the
risk of serious health problems, such as heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes,
and obesity. We will discuss these issues in more depth in week three.

As a dietitian, this is one of the most important messages that I try to convey to
people. Yet a lot of people are confused as to what counts as a portion of fruit
and veg.

Does a slice of tomato and half a leaf of lettuce that you had in your BLT
sandwich count as two of your 5-a-day? How many grapes or strawberries are
there in a portion? How about a very large baked potato? Does that count? If you
want to find out more, we have an activity for you after this section.

The next important question to ask is, does the UK population follow this advice,
and do we meet these dietary nutrient recommendations? The National Diet and
Nutrition Survey is an annual survey designed to assess the food consumption and
nutritional status of a UK representative sample of 1,000 people per year-- 500
children and 500 adults-- aged 18 months upwards, living in private households.
In that survey, only a small proportion met the 5-a-day recommendation.

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The latest report was released in 2014, and reveals some interesting facts. In
general, we ate too much fat and sugar. Average saturated fat intakes in all age
groups exceeded the recommended levels of no more than 11% food energy. For
example, average saturated fat intake for adults age 19 to 64 years was around 13
percent of food energy.

Average intakes of added sugars exceeded the recommendation of no more than

11% food energy for all age groups, most notably for young children aged 4 to 10
and teenagers aged 11 to 18 years, where average intakes provided around 15%
and 16% of food energy, respectively.

Other countries have similar nationwide base surveys. For example, the US have
the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

In conclusion, based on scientific evidence, countries all over the world have set
the levels of recommendations for dietary nutrients to promote optimal health.
Some of these recommendations can be difficult for consumers to understand,
follow, and put into everyday eating practice. And in the UK, we still have a long
way to go eating our way to health.

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