Diet
Dieting is the practice of ingesting food in a regulated fashion to achieve or maintain a controlled weight. In most cases the goal is weight loss, but some athletes aspire to gain weight (usually in the form of muscle) and diets can also be used to maintain a stable body weight.
In nutrition, the diet is the sum of food consumed by a person or other organism. Dietary habits are the habitual decisions an individual or culture makes when choosing what foods to eat. Although humans are omnivores, each culture holds some food preferences and some food taboos. Individual dietary choices may be more or less healthy. Proper nutrition requires the proper ingestion and equally important, the absorption of vitamins, minerals, and fuel in the form of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Dietary habits and choices play a significant role in health and mortality, and can also define cultures and play a role in religion.
There are several kinds of diets:
* Weight-loss diets restricts the intake of specific foods, or food in general, to reduce body weight. What works to reduce body weight for one person will not necessarily work for another, due to metabolic differences and lifestyle factors. Also, for a variety of reasons, most people find it difficult to maintain significant weight loss over time — among individuals that have lost 10% or more of body weight, only 20% are able to maintain that weight loss for a full year.[1]
* Many professional athletes impose weight-gain diets on themselves. American football players may try to “bulk up” through weight-gain diets in order to gain an advantage on the field with a higher mass.
* Individuals who are underweight, such as those recovering from anorexia nervosa or starvation, may adopt weight-gain diets which, unlike those of athletes, have the goal of restoring normal levels of body fat, muscle, and stores of essential nutrients.
