I recently wrote a blog for Plant Based Pixie all about The diet of the female population, we also did a vlog to help answer any additional questions on this topic.
This area of nutrition is one which I feel is very often overlooked. This may in part be due to the fact that young females are a fairly hard group to target when it comes to nutrition messages. And in some cases nutrition messages may be fairly low down on priority lists, behind school, friends, exams, work and other stresses faced by teenage girls. However, as Pixie and I touched upon, actually for young females their diet is imperative – not just for them but for the health of the next generation that they may go on to carry.
Fitspo helping?
At the moment there does seem to be more of an interest in health, exercise and nutrition, largely helped by Instagram and the influx of bloggers and those talking about and promoting ‘health’. Of course this is positive, BUT, it’s only beneficial to the young, female population if the messages that are being given out are actually accurate. For example, many have their own take on what ‘healthy’ actually is – gluten free, low carb, raw foods, alkaline diets, you name it – all which have very little in the way of evidence to support them as being a healthy way of eating. Additionally, these “diets” which are often promoted to young women, are unbalanced and could leave people deficient or low in certain nutrients.
This becomes an even bigger problem for females, as we know from dietary surveys that young women are already one of the population groups with the poorest intake of nutrients, especially minerals such as iron and calcium.
Real Role Models
What we need is real role models for young women, role models who promote rounded, varied diets and don’t scaremonger and berate whole foods and food groups (see latest daily mail article for an example of this happening). As Angry Chef puts it: “The only thing that is unsafe, unhealthy and damaging, is needless fear, pointlessly restrictive diets, and the dysfunctional relationships that these create.”
Let’s celebrate food and the variety that we have available to us. Help young women see that healthy eating can be so easy and so NOT restrictive.
Advice for the female population
This is what is covered in the article I wrote for Pixie and the vlog that goes along with it (see below). Additionally some other blogs from me to promote real healthy messages include:
- This article looks at “What actually is healthy?” to help us get to the bottom of our own health.
- This article goes back to basics when it comes to improving the diet, starting with the small changes we all need to get right FIRST “No new you just common sense nutrition”
- And lastly, this is the blog for you if you’re wanting to get to the bottom of what a “Healthy Balanced Diet” actually is.