Is pizza friend or foe? 8 facts about body shape and healthy nutrition
We talk a lot about body positivity and accepting ourselves in any form.that does not contradict the desire to feel good, eat healthy foods or wear your favorite clothes without experiencing large weight fluctuations. To what extent are the parameters of our bodies set by genetics and how much can we influence them? Are diets still an absolute evil? Why is it better to be wary of sugar? We have selected eight interesting facts about healthy eating, body perception and its structure that will help answer these and other questions.
Eating disorders are very diverse.
Bulimia and anorexia nervosa are types of eating disorders that are especially heard, but there are others besides them. Drunken binge eating (or "binge eating"), bigorexia (food obsession that will maximize muscle growth), orthorexia (fixation on the "right" diet), a feeling of constant need for diuretics or laxatives, to quickly remove the "excess" water or empty the intestines , - all these disorders, which should not be ignored.
If you are observing in yourself or your loved ones a clear fixation on food or rejection of it, it makes sense to ask for help. Eating disorders are treated in various clinics, including state ones, and several specialists are involved in this process. If somatic diseases are excluded (for example, too intensive work of the thyroid gland, which strengthens the appetite), you can get by with a psychotherapist.
Weight and physique are set by genetics
Our weight, height and shape are primarily influenced by heredity and the basic, or basic, metabolism - how much energy the body spends alone. Of course, serious diseases transferred in childhood, the use of certain drugs or certain physical activities also affect the development of the body - hence the typically different physique of athletes in various sports.
All this means that statements like “everyone can change their body with proper training” are not entirely correct - and efforts to completely redo yourself can lead to frustration. It is better to focus not on changing the shape, but on the joys of training and their benefits: strong back muscles are important for the health of the spine, regardless of whether this is a rectangular back or V-shaped. The genetic norm of weight for a particular person is also not a point value, but an interval, and an endless struggle with “three extra” kilograms is unsuccessful simply because they are not superfluous, but normal.
Fat in reasonable amounts needed by the body
Adipose tissue helps the body to regulate temperature, serves as the most important source of energy, produces hormones, participates in blood formation and immune defense of the body. Both excess and lack of fat are harmful - the keywords of this item are "reasonable amount". This reasonable amount is much higher than on photoshopped photos in magazines or bodybuilders during a competitive period, and maintaining a normal level of body fat is much easier than unnaturally reduced.
A healthy fat content in the body is about 20-30% for women and 10-20% for men, and it can be measured in different ways. To do this, use bioimpedance scales, measurements of skin folds and complex methods such as weighing under water. The body mass index known to all, which is calculated from weight and height, at least does not take into account the level of physical fitness, so it may be too high and indicate "obesity" in a person with a large muscle mass.
The problem of diabetes is not sugar
Most of this disease is known that when it is broken glucose utilization - it becomes too much in the blood, and then you can not eat sugar, and you may need insulin, which destroys glucose. When people talk about the dangers of diabetes, they talk about hypoglycemic or hyperglycemic coma - loss of consciousness due to too low (or high) blood sugar levels. In fact, the main danger of this disease in another.
Diabetes mellitus seriously disrupts blood vessels - from the smallest peripheral capillaries to large ones such as the aorta. At the periphery of the body, this leads to insufficient nutrition of the tissues — and complications such as loss of vision or necrosis of the toes can occur. Complications from large vessels are the same heart attacks and strokes, which are in the first place among the causes of death throughout the world. Prevention of diabetes mellitus - the simple rules of a healthy lifestyle: maintaining optimal weight, physical activity, quitting smoking and reducing the amount of sugar and saturated fat in the diet.
Pizza is no worse than the first, second and compote
It does not matter in what combinations and in what form — liquid, dry, cold or hot — food enters the body. The digestive system still splits the food into molecules, and each component is used for different tasks or removed from the body as unnecessary. That is why the theory of separate nutrition has no scientific substantiation: incompatible products practically do not exist (except conditionally poisonous mushrooms, which become poisonous in combination with alcohol).
The most important thing in a healthy diet is a balanced intake of various substances into the body. The same pizza can be an excellent combination of fresh vegetables, seafood, olive oil and a small amount of complex carbohydrates - or it can be almost a fatty bun without healthy ingredients. This also applies to sandwiches - if the composition and number of their components are balanced, they may well serve as a wholesome lunch.
The perception of beauty can be changed
Having penetrated with the ideas of bodypositive, we begin to contrast the beauty of any body with so-called conventional beauty - but we forget that it, too, is different in different cultures. If for the Western world this is a thin or moderately muscular body, then in many countries of Africa a beautiful body “should be much” - this is clearly shown by the clips. It is well known that “perception” affects the perception of beauty: the more we see people with different figures or faces, the more natural the diversity of features seems to us.
According to a recent study, even a few minutes of viewing photographs was enough for the ideal of beauty to change in people's perception. In the Central American village without electricity, residents were asked to simulate an ideal figure in a special program - before and after viewing photos. Those who looked at photos with thin models made repeated “ideal” bodies thinner, and those who looked at photos of overweight women, on the contrary, modeled the bodies larger. It turns out that in order to normalize the perception of various bodies as attractive, it is necessary that in advertising and in cinema there are more people with different statuses.
Diets have the right to exist
The word "diet" can be interpreted in different ways - both as strict limitations and as general nutritional characteristics. In the first case, the diets are really useless and even dangerous, in the second - they may well be recommended. It has been proven that residents of a number of countries on the Mediterranean coast have a longer life expectancy, and cardiovascular diseases are less common - this is due to the Mediterranean diet. Of course, we are talking about the type of food that is natural for this region, and not about the diet on which they sit for a while.
A more stringent diet, precisely in terms of restrictions, also has the right to exist - its meaning is not in losing weight, but in temporarily abandoning certain products, because they can cause harm. This happens when there are medical indications, for example, after operations or during pregnancy: the ban on raw fish and raw meat is due to the fact that they may contain pathogens that are extremely dangerous for the fetus.
Speed up your metabolism
Basic metabolism (the one that happens in a dream) can be increased - then it will be easier to maintain optimal weight. Doing this helps regular physical activity, including strength exercises. In training, energy is burned, which is taken from carbohydrates in the blood, but in a dream after a hard workout, the body will spend more energy on recovery. The greater the muscle mass, the more energy they need to recover, that is, the basic exchange is higher in muscular people.
That is why it is relatively easy for athletes to maintain weight at the right level - they have high activity and relatively stable nutrition. However, sharp restrictions can become a problem in order to “climb” into the necessary weight category at competitions: a strict diet can be followed by disruptions, and the latter can lead to eating disorders.
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