preview

Obesity And The Western Diet

Better Essays

The basis of our being is cellular, with nutrition being one necessity a cell needs to function. Nutrition comes from the food we consume where it is digested and broken down into simple nutrients. Each food having a different nutritional value. Is the diet we, as American’s, consume nutritionally filled? What role does a typical western diet play in relationship to the diseases we treat in healthcare today? In going back to the diet of our ancestors, consuming a Paleolithic diet, also known as a caveman or stone-age diet decreases the amount of chronic inflammation one has, thereby reducing risk factors for major diseases we treat in healthcare today. You are what you eat. Food is fuel; a necessity for human existence. As human beings have progressed, industrialized, and revolutionized, what we ingest has followed suit. This food progression has been termed the western diet. It consists of high fat, sugar, refined starches, oil, nonhuman mammal milk including their products, and beans. Alongside the western diet, western diseases have emerged: cardiovascular heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and some cancers (Frassetto, Schloetter, Mietus-Synder, Morris, & Sebastian, 2009). A common denominator of all of these diseases, centered on metabolic syndrome, is a chronic state of systemic low-level inflammation (Ruiz-Nunez, Pruimboom, Dijick-Brouwer, & Muskiet, 2013). In the Paleolithic diet refined grains, nonhuman milk, milk’s associated products, sugar, and beans

Get Access