Healthy Eating Habits for Healthy Moms and Babies

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If you have just welcomed your little one into the world, then it is important that you remember to eat healthy in all the hullaballoo surrounding a new baby. A nutritious diet is crucial for breast-feeding moms because they are the vesicles of nutrients at a time when crucial physical and psychological developments are taking place in their babies. The less toxins and preservatives you allow into your system while breastfeeding, the better your baby’s chance of developing into a strong child and later adult. If you are a new or expecting mom, here are a few tips for maintaining an optimally healthy diet and baby:

· Stay hydrated: It is important to stay hydrated when (if) you are breastfeeding. Drinking lots of water will help you replenish the fluid you lose from breastfeeding. Drink at least 8 if not more glasses of water a day.

· Eat your fruits and veggies: All of the vitamins and nutrients we need to support physical development and maintain our immune systems are found in fruits and veggies, and the greener the better. Babies need as many nutrients as they can get, so you need to make sure your body is a vitamin temple.

· Avoid the processed food trap: Processed food is a major danger to new mothers because it is an easy alternative when they are tired and lacking energy, but it can be very harmful both to mom and baby. Processed food drains you of energy, fills your body with unhealthy preservatives, and weakens your immune system. All of these negative health benefits are then transmitted to your breastfeeding baby.

· Make a plan: Healthy eating requires conscious planning, and this is especially true when you have an infant. A new baby can be a new set of stresses that you have never experienced, and this can throw you off and make you susceptible to developing bad eating habits. Work with your partner to develop a grocery shopping and meal plan of action that facilitates nutritious eating. Make lists, use a weekly meal planner, or make healthy food in bulk and deep freeze it. However you decide to do it, being organized about your eating habits will help you eat healthier.

Newborn babies are completely dependent on their mothers to provide them with the nutrition that they need. If you have a newborn baby then healthy eating should be your number one priority. Nutritious eating is a lifestyle choice that takes a conscious effort and good planning, but it is worth it and it makes both babies and the family environment healthier.

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What Fuels Our Love Affair With Junk Food?

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It is no secret that people love junk food. Aside from the high rates of obesity sweeping across the Western world, evidence of our worship at the junk food alter is displayed in the amount of fast food chains and companies churning out sugary sweets and processed salty snacks. We all know that there are absolutely no health benefits associated with candy bars, French fried, and cupcakes, and yet we continue to eat them to excess. But why?

Nutrition experts believe that a variety of factors go into our love of food that is not good for us, most notably psychological factors: we crave unhealthy foods when we are unhappy, stressed, or manically happy. Junk food is a comfort food-it makes people feel good, even if only for a brief time. Time is a luxury in modern life and is a quick fix for our stress or inability to focus on eating healthy and cooking nutritious meals.

But there may also be an evolutionary reason that we crave junk food. According to Dr. Leigh Gibson, a Reader in Biopsychology at Roehampton University, cravings can be linked to prehistoric times when humans needed to acquire foods high in calories for survival. Craving high calorie, junk food type foods meant that you could go longer between meals when food was an uncertainty. The problem today is that society has evolved too rapidly for physiological evolution to catch up. In the privileged Western world, food is in excess, but we are still wired to crave it as if it were scarce. In tandem with our psychologically stressed lives, this creates a recipe for disaster.

So how do you avoid the junk food pitfall? There is no secret to avoiding those sweet and salting foods. Like most other things in life, eating healthy is a choice that is reinforced by a daily, conscious effort. A nutritious diet and exercise are the keys to living a healthier, happier life, so it is important to maintain control over your cravings for junk foods-they are a quick mental and physical fix that contribute to long-term health problems like diabetes and heart disease. Still, don’t feel guilty if you find yourself craving a bag of crisps or a Mars bar: our love of junk food is a part of our biological make-up. But if you believe in mind over matter, then you know that you can curb your junk food cravings and stay on the healthy lifestyle path. There is nothing wrong with indulging yourself in a sweet or salty treat, but it shouldn’t become a lifestyle.

Healthy Eating Habits for Healthy Moms and Babies

What Fuels Our Love Affair With Junk Food?

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