"Getting the Nutrients You Need"

A healthy diet is an important part of a healthy lifestyle. A healthy diet gives you all the nutrients you need in the right amounts. Nutrients are substances in food that body cells use to do their work, get energy, and grow. The 6 kinds of nutrients that your body needs are carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, minerals, and water. Carbohydrates and fats give you energy. Your body uses proteins mostly for growth and repair, although proteins provide energy too. Vitamins and minerals do lots of different jobs to keep your body working right. For example, some vitamins help fight diseases and some minerals help build body cells. Among other things, water helps remove cell wastes and helps keep your body temperature steady. No single food has every nutrient. To be healthy, you need many kinds of food. The Food Guide Pyramid can help you plan meals and snacks that give you the correct amount of each nutrient. The pyramid suggests the number of servings you need each day for most food groups. Eat at least the smaller number of servings in each set of numbers. Eat more if you don't have enough energy or are too skinny. Start with more servings of bread, cereal, rice, and pasta. Those foods should be the biggest part of your diet. Eat healthy snacks. Watch out for foods at the top of the pyramid! You can get the little amount of fat you need from the two groups just below the top. Fatty foods increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and some kinds of cancer. Fatty and sugary foods can cause you to gain too much weight. Sugary foods can also cause tooth decay. Fruits, vegetables, and whole grain breads and cereals do more than provide nutrients. They also provide fibber. Fibber helps food move through your digestive system like it should. Fibber may also prevent colon cancer.