Personalised Nutrition- why generalised nutrition just won’t do!

I wrote the article in the image below for Health 2000, when I was the Nutritionist working with them on the Care Pack project.

The topic of personalised nutrition is not as basic as one may first think. However, when you understand key concepts that lead you to discovering your personal nutrition and nourishment needs then its also not as complicated as some may think. More blog articles will be released to delve into this topic further, as it extends into so many important areas of health and wellbeing. Below is a brief overview of the importance of personalised nutrition and why more people can benefit from going on this pathway with their own nourishment.

Personalised Nutrition is very important because no two people are the same. Your body is constantly trying to reclaim a state of balance depending on what it is exposed to, thus, what nutrients you need to keep your physical body in balance will be different to your neighbour next door.

Generalised fad solutions to nutrition assume that:

- We are all subjected to the same environment

- We all have the same health priorities, issues and concerns

- All of our bodies' systems and organs work in the same way

These diets don't take into account we all have different life stressors and we react to them in a different way. Therefore, the ability of your body to stay balanced throughout certain periods will be different to someone else.

Today, the demands on our body are rather high. Especially in todays current climate, stress in our environment is rather high. Without the right amount of nutrients to bring the body into balance, certain supplementation may need to be consumed in order to provide stability for our physical health. Thus, personalised nutrition for you may also require consideration of supplementation.

For example, if a systemic imbalance has created an issue in the digestive system where you are receiving pain in the stomach, especially after eating and no specific allergen can be found for a particular food or food protein (i.e. gluten); then this could indicate a lack of digestive enzyme activity. Therefore, supplementation with digestive enzymes would help you to break down your food better and you would be able to assimilate nutrients better into your body for more health and vitality.

When people think about nutrition in terms of a clear cut calories in calories out scenario, or a fad diet scenario they run into problems because nutrition is a science; an art of nourishment and intricate balancing acts of various interlinking systems.

You can read the rest of the article in the image below.