Healthy Eating Plate

 Healthy Eating Plate

Use the Healthy Eating Plate as a guide for creating healthy, balanced meals—whether served at the table or packed in a lunch box. Click on each section of the interactive image below to learn more.

HEALTHY OILS

WATER

VEGETABLES

FRUITS

HEALTHY PROTEIN

WHOLE GRAINS

Looking for a printable copy? Download one here, and hang it on your refrigerator to serve as a daily reminder when planning and preparing your meals! Translations of the Healthy Eating Plate are also available in over 25 languages.

Building a Healthy and Balanced Diet

Make most of your meal vegetables and fruits – ½ of your plate.

Aim for color and variety, and remember that potatoes don’t count as vegetables on the Healthy Eating Plate because of their negative impact on blood sugar.

Go for whole grains – ¼ of your plate.

Whole and intact grains—whole wheat, barley, wheat berries, quinoa, oats, brown rice, and foods made with them, such as whole wheat pasta—have a milder effect on blood sugar and insulin than white bread, white rice, and other refined grains.

Protein power – ¼ of your plate.

Fish, poultry, beans, and nuts are all healthy, versatile protein sources—they can be mixed into salads, and pair well with vegetables on a plate. Limit red meat, and avoid processed meats such as bacon and sausage.

Healthy plant oils – in moderation.

Choose healthy vegetable oils like olive, canola, soy, corn, sunflower, peanut, and others, and avoid partially hydrogenated oils, which contain unhealthy trans fats. Remember that low-fat does not mean “healthy.”

Drink water, coffee, or tea.

Skip sugary drinks, limit milk and dairy products to one to two servings per day, and limit juice to a small glass per day.

Stay active.

The red figure running across the Healthy Eating Plate’s placemat is a reminder that staying active is also important in weight control.

Healthiest Leafy Green Vegetables

 Green leafy vegetables, also called dark green leafy vegetables, leafy greens, or greens, are edible plant leaves. A person can eat some leafy greens raw, while others may require cooking. As the name implies, people can typically identify these vegetables by their green color and edible leaves.

How to include in the diet?

Some ways people can try to add leafy greens to their diet include:

Salads- Put greens that people can eat raw, such as spinach and beet greens, into a bowl; add some vinaigrette or lemon juice; and eat them as a salad.

Healthy bowls. Make a healthy bowl by adding greens to a bowl full of proteins, fruits, and whole grains.

Wraps- Combine romaine, cabbage, or Swiss chard leaves with other ingredients as a filling for a wrap.

Soups. Some greens, such as book choy and Swiss chard, are soup staples. Stir chopped greens into soups or stews during the last few minutes of cooking.

Pizza. Replace meats and processed toppings with greens to make a healthier pizza.

Sautes and stir-fries- Toss greens together with noodles, vegetables, nuts.

Pesto- Use leafy greens in place of basil as the staple green in pesto.

Sandwich- Aside from the usual tomatoes, pickles, and avocados, people can add greens like lettuce, arugula, and spinach to sandwiches.

Sauces- People can chop or puree leafy greens and add them to sauces. For example, people can blend vegetables such as beet greens and add them to marinara sauce.

Smoothies- Combine greens like spinach with other healthy fruits and vegetables such as beets, carrots, cucumber, and ginger to make a healthy green drink.

Add-ons- Greens can add extra flavor to meals. People can cook them in many ways, such as by grilling, steaming, boiling, braising, and stewing.

Replacing as many processed foods as possible with whole foods will drastically improve health.

Leafy green vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet. They’re packed with micronutrients and flavor, and they’re low in calories.

Some examples of leafy greens include kale, spinach, arugula, and endive, as well as greens from beets, collards, and turnips.

Health

The meaning of health has evolved over time. In keeping with the biomedical perspective, early definitions of health focused on the theme of the body's ability to function; health was seen as a state of normal function that could be disrupted from time to time by disease. An example of such a definition of health is: "a state characterized by anatomic, physiologic, and psychological integrity; ability to perform personally valued family, work, and community roles; ability to deal with physical, biological, psychological, and social stress".Then in 1948, in a radical departure from previous definitions, the World Health Organization (WHO) proposed a definition that aimed higher: linking health to well-being, in terms of "physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".Although this definition was welcomed by some as being innovative, it was also criticized as being vague, excessively broad and was not construed as measurable. For a long time, it was set aside as an impractical ideal and most discussions of health returned to the practicality of the biomedical model.

Just as there was a shift from viewing disease as a state to thinking of it as a process, the same shift happened in definitions of health. Again, the WHO played a leading role when it fostered the development of the health promotion movement in the 1980s. This brought in a new conception of health, not as a state, but in dynamic terms of resiliency, in other words, as "a resource for living". 1984 WHO revised the definition of health defined it as "the extent to which an individual or group is able to realize aspirations and satisfy needs and to change or cope with the environment. Health is a resource for everyday life, not the objective of living; it is a positive concept, emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities".Thus, health referred to the ability to maintain homeostasis and recover from insults. Mental, intellectual, emotional and social health referred to a person's ability to handle stress, to acquire skills, to maintain relationships, all of which form resources for resiliency and independent living.This opens up many possibilities for health to be taught, strengthened and learned.

Since the late 1970s, the federal Healthy People Initiative has been a visible component of the United States’ approach to improving population health.In each decade, a new version of Healthy People is issued,featuring updated goals and identifying topic areas and quantifiable objectives for health improvement during the succeeding ten years, with assessment at that point of progress or lack thereof. Progress has been limited to many objectives, leading to concerns about the effectiveness of Healthy People in shaping outcomes in the context of a decentralized and uncoordinated US health system. Healthy People 2020 gives more prominence to health promotion and preventive approaches and adds a substantive focus on the importance of addressing social determinants of health. A new expanded digital interface facilitates use and dissemination rather than bulky printed books as produced in the past. The impact of these changes to Healthy People will be determined in the coming years.

Systematic activities to prevent or cure health problems and promote good health in humans are undertaken by health care providers. Applications with regard to animal health are covered by the veterinary sciences. The term "healthy" is also widely used in the context of many types of non-living organizations and their impacts for the benefit of humans, such as in the sense of healthy communities, healthy cities or healthy environments. In addition to health care interventions and a person's surroundings, a number of other factors are known to influence the health status of individuals, including their background, lifestyle, and economic, social conditions and spirituality; these are referred to as "determinants of health." Studies have shown that high levels of stress can affect human health.

In the first decade of the 21st century, the conceptualization of health as an ability opened the door for self-assessments to become the main indicators to judge the performance of efforts aimed at improving human health.It also created the opportunity for every person to feel healthy, even in the presence of multiple chronic diseases, or a terminal condition, and for the re-examination of determinants of health, away from the traditional approach that focuses on the reduction of the prevalence of diseases.