Have you ever heard the saying you are what you eat? In some logic, this is accurate, because if you eat unhealthy foods you are prone to be an unhealthy person. The foods we consume are exceptionally important to our ability to grow, preserve function, and prevent illness. Therefore, if you value your health, you should learn as much about healthy eating as possible.

 Healthy eating is imperative from the day we are born. As a child, we grow quite quickly and this is owed in part to the foods we eat. Foods all have nutrients that provide us not only with fuel to live our daily lives, but also with the very substances that build our bones, muscles, and organ tissues. Not getting an adequate amount of one nutrient or another can cause a variety of problems, including stunting our growth.
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 For mothers who are nursing, nutrition is vital because breast milk contains the nutrients a child needs to grow and develop properly. Upon growing older, these nutrients are then found in food, but don’t think that healthy eating isn’t important for growth after you’ve gone through puberty. Cells constantly break down and rebuild, so healthy eating for growth continues to be important until the day we die.

 Maintaining function is also not important without healthy eating. In out daily lives, we use energy to think, walk, talk, breathe, and perform any other accomplishment. The energy it takes our body to do these things comes from two places: fat reserves in the body or our daily food intake. If you don’t eat healthy foods, you will find that you are storing more fat that needed or that you aren’t getting a sufficient amount and you feel slow-moving or weak.
 
 Along with energy providing nutrients, like fats and carbohydrates, we also need the right nutrients to allow our organs to do their jobs. Hormones and other substances in the body make sure that all is working properly. If you don’t eat the right nutrients, your body cannot manufacture these hormones and, as a result, cannot function properly.

 Lastly, healthy eating is important in order to avoid illness. When we do not get the right nutrients, or body’s natural defense system against diseases weakens, allowing viruses and bacteria to assault the body. It’s like a well-trained defense force if the defense force doesn’t have enough to eat, it will not do well in battle. Without healthy foods and plenty of water, our bodies simply could not function on a day-to-day basis. Learning how to eat healthy foods is therefore and important lesson, and one which we should begin with education as children.