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4: Nutrition

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This chapter describes nutrients, nutrient needs, and healthy eating to achieve good nutrition. It also discusses eating disorders, problems of obesity and undernutrition, and causes and prevention of foodborne diseases.

  • 4.1: Case Study: Fueling Our Bodies Properly
    Like many Americans, 20-year-old Kevin eats fast food several times a week.
  • 4.2: Nutrients
    This colorful display of fresh veggies is not just pretty to look at.
  • 4.3: Healthy Eating
    If you practice yoga, then you know that yoga positions such as the headstand demonstrated here can help you develop good balance. Having good balance, in turn, can reduce your risk of falls and injuries.
  • 4.4: Eating Disorders
    The girl on the left in this sketch is in the throes of a serious disorder.
  • 4.5: Obesity
    Everybody needs food energy just to stay alive, but too much energy consumption, coupled with too little energy use, is too much of a good thing. People who consistently consume more food energy than they use may become obese like the woman pictured here.
  • 4.6: Undernutrition
    Undernutrition is defined as insufficient intake of nutritious foods. People who are undernourished are likely to have low body fat reserves, so one indicator of undernutrition in individuals is a low body mass index (BMI). Adults are considered underweight if their body mass index (BMI) is less than 18.5 kg/m2. Children are considered underweight if their BMI is less than the 5th percentile of the reference values for children of the same age.
  • 4.7: Foodborne Diseases
    Foodborne disease, commonly called food poisoning, is any disease that is transmitted via food. Picnic foods create a heightened risk of foodborne disease mainly because of problems with temperature control. If hot foods are not kept hot enough or cold foods are not kept cold enough, foods may enter a temperature range in which microorganisms such as bacteria can thrive.
  • 4.8: Case Study Fast Food Conclusion and Chapter Summary
    What is wrong with fast food? That is the question that Carlos, who you read about in the beginning of the chapter, asked himself after learning that his friend Kevin eats it five or six times a week, and thinks that this diet is not necessarily that bad for him.


This page titled 4: Nutrition is shared under a CK-12 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Suzanne Wakim & Mandeep Grewal via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.

CK-12 Foundation
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