Happy National Nutrition Month! Developed by the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics to celebrate the role of nutrition and following a healthy lifestyle, NNM annually highlights the many ways food influences our lives and how that influence goes beyond what’s on our plate. This year’s NNM theme, “Go Further with Food,” is all about thinking beyond food as nourishment, which does just that.
What does it mean to go further with food? It means thinking about the spectrum of ways our diet affects us, from using it to prevent chronic disease to choosing the right foods to fuel for peak athletic performance. Beyond the impact on our bodies, our food choices can also affect our community and environment, when we choose to support local producers and reduce waste. This March, let’s think about the many ways we can go further with food in our own lives.
Go Further for Our Environment
Our diet impacts our carbon footprint and has global impacts. By learning to shop with a concise shopping list that reflects what your kitchen really needs and making use of all ingredients and leftovers, you can do your part to reduce waste. When you embrace a sustainable diet and choose companies with superior sustainability programs, you are also doing your part to bridge nutrition and our environment.
Go Further to Support Your Local Food Community
Looking for another way to use diet to reduce your carbon footprint? It can be as simple as supporting your local farmers and food producers, which means you are choosing foods that don’t need to be transported across the country. Of course, it also means you are supporting your own community, which has not only economic benefits, but health benefits too. Consider taking this support further by learning more about how to support your local farmers and visiting supermarkets, restaurants, and other nearby establishments that also endorse your local food scene.
Go Further to Fuel Your Day
Whether it’s fueling for a long day or a great workout, your food choices impact your energy, your potential output and ultimately your ability to meet your personal goals. Boost the benefits of exercise when you choose the right foods both before and after your workout. In addition to adjusting your diet to fuel your workout, there are ways we can use food to boost our overall energy, reach an ideal weight, or just help us get through a long day (that goes beyond an endless cup of coffee).
Go Further to Prevent Illness
The connection between food and illness is well established. We know that there are fats we should choose, for example, to manage heart disease or ways to consume carbohydrates to reduce diabetes symptoms. But what about the preventative role of food? The role that food plays in keeping us healthy ranges from childhood into adulthood. From eating to protect our bones, or maintain good eye and brain health, our diet has a direct connection to our overall health.