Food and drink

If it tastes good…

We all have busy lives – a hectic work and home life can all put pressure on our time – so choosing convenience seems sensible.  And a healthy appetite’s a good thing isn’t it?  But do we always make the right choices when it comes to food?

As NHS staff we’ve become good at spotting when service users’ health might benefit from a better diet but how about ourselves?  We owe it to ourselves to give our own health some priority too.  We already get a lot of messages about the importance of a healthy diet and perhaps it all seems a bit of a nag but it really is important stuff!

Making sure that you are eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day makes a big difference to your health. Eating healthily is also about eating the right amount of food for your energy needs.  The NHS “eat-well” plate recommends basing meals on around a third starchy foods (bread, rice, potatoes). Eating more fish, reducing fat, sugar and salt and drinking more water is the way to a healthy diet and, combined with enough physical activity, maintaining a healthy weight.

Eating more fruit and vegetables doesn’t have to be expensive; tinned, frozen and dried are just as good and it’s also cheaper to eat foods that are in season.  Most of our salt intake comes from processed foods – so try to reduce these.  You can reduce fat in your diet in a number of ways.  By cutting off visible fat from meat, spreading fats more thinly and cutting down on fatty and sugary snacks.

Cutting out the junk food and making sure your diet is balanced means you will be avoiding unnecessary health risks and you will feel better too.  If you’ve made positive changes to your diet and felt the benefits don’t be afraid of sharing with them patients, they’ve told us they appreciate advice from people that have made changes.

For more information about healthy eating see eatwell or NHS choices

For instance, did you know?

• One in three deaths from cancer and one in three deaths from coronary heart disease are attributable to a poor diet

• Reducing salt intake to the recommended 6gms a day for adults would contribute to a 17 per cent reduction in high blood pressure in the UK population

• In England only 26 per cent of people claim to eat 5-a-day – i.e. five portions of fruit and vegetables. 

Click here for Your Guide to the Eatwell Guide

The Eatwell Guide: How to use it in promotional material

The Eatwell Guide:

• Meat, fish, eggs, beans and other non-dairy sources of protein 
• Fruit and vegetables 
• Food and drinks high in fat and/or sugar
• Milk and dairy foods
• bread, rice, potatoes, pasta and other starchy foods.

Healthy Eating on a Budget

Rhubarb Farm

Christmas can cause a lot of anxiety within families where someone is living with an eating disorder. With pressure to eat lots of food and attend family and other social gatherings, it can be difficult not to feel anxious and overwhelmed at this time of year.

There are things you can do to reduce some of this anxiety. Read the advice of one of our eating disorders specialist nurses.