With the rapid growth of world economy in the recent years, people are having greater pressure from their work and home. They tend to eat more fast food, have less time for exercise and mostly having sedentary lifestyles. People are also tend to have more business dining with their clients and eat more high calorie or high fat foods. Therefore, there are increasing number of people that suffering from different sub-health problems like hypertension, hyperglycemia, and hyperlipidemia. These sub-health problems may cause diabetes and heart diseases, which are serious threatens to health and people’s lives.
In my family, there are three out of five members that are having more than one sub-health issues. My father has all the three sub-health problems that were mentioned above. He used to have three bowls of rice per meal before he had high blood glucose. However, after noticing the problem, he has to seriously control the dietary intakes. He couldn’t eat any food that contains sugar and strictly control the intake of starch, for example, bread, rice or noodles. Moreover, majority of the population who has high blood glucose would also engage problems of low blood glucose. They are easily to become hungry and demand for snacks. My father will always feel dizzy and lacking in strength when he has low glucose level in blood. That’s very sympathetic for a person to lose the right of enjoying food. This is one of the most important reasons that I want to learn nutritional science and becoming a registered dietitian!
There are many health risks that are associated with High blood pressure, such as stroke, dementia, and neurocognitive dysfunction. According to the journal article, “Effects on Blood Pressure of Reduced Dietary Sodium and the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) Diet”, high blood pressure could be significantly reduced my low sodium diet. The DASH diet basically means eating more vegetables, fruits and also low fat dietary products. People may also have long-term health benefit depending on how long they can insist to their dietary changes.
The idea is also supported by another article called “Effects of the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension Diet, Exercise, and Caloric Restriction on Neurocognition in Overweight Adults With High Blood Pressure”, which further introduces the importance of exercise and weight management in reduction of high blood pressure.
As I started to learn about nutrition, I encouraged my father to exercise everyday and make changes on his diet. Right now, he is doing fast walking about an hour everyday and eats more low sodium food. He also eats more vegetables and fruits, low fat dietary products. And he can see obvious reduction on his high blood pressure and other sub-health problems. Exercising also helps him to be more concentrated on his work! If you or your family is having hypertension or other sub-health problems, do more exercise and have DASH diet! Don’t give up and you can see that your health can be improved even if you are not relying on any medicine!