The old line 'you are what you eat' is actually very accurate. The food we eat can have a huge impact on our health and wellbeing. A balanced, healthy diet provides a supply of all the essential nutrients in the right quantities for health.

By eating a healthy diet and being physically active, we can maintain a healthy body weight and reduce our risk of developing diet-related illnesses, such as heart disease and cancer. However, although healthy eating is pretty straightforward, there's much confusion among the general public about what constitutes a healthy diet, as well as a belief by many that they're already consuming a healthy diet.

To become and remain healthy, our bodies need good food, and the time and energy to process it and use it. Healthy eating provides all the necessary nutrients to create and repair tissues, to sustain a healthy immune system and to enable the body to execute daily tasks with ease.

Links between diet and disease are better understood than ever before, and there's a large body of evidence showing that what you eat has an enormous impact on health. Our lifestyles and eating habits have changed drastically over the past couple of decades. We now rely more on convenience food and nutritional supplements than on fresh food. Much media attention has focused on what foods you shouldn't eat, rather on what foods you can and should eat.

Remember, there's no such thing as a bad or good food - moderation and balance is the key. Food should be enjoyed - it's possible to eat delicious, tasty food that's healthy too.

The aim of a healthy diet and lifestyle in adulthood is to ensure you're fit, healthy and full of vitality in the short term, with healthy teeth, immune system, skin and hair, abundant energy and an ideal body weight. In the long term, the aim is to minimise the risk of chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer and osteoporosis.

To understand how you can eat healthily, it's important to know which types of food you need to consume and why. Your body needs a well-balanced diet, with a good supply of carbohydrates, especially high-fibre foods, water, vitamins, minerals and a certain amount of protein and fat. First, you need to know the foods and ingredients to base your food intake on - and the best way to get the right balance is to follow the guidelines of the Balance of Good Health. This gives the proportion of the five main food groups that we should be eating every day. The groups are:

Healthy adults* shouldn't need a vitamin and mineral supplement if they choose foods from the four groups every day. In fact, research shows that people who eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day have much lower rates of coronary heart disease and cancer, while the same benefits have not been demonstrated for vitamin supplements.
It's not only the antioxidant vitamins that protect our health - fruit and vegetables also contain a whole variety of other natural and bio-active substances known as phytochemicals. Simply taking a vitamin or mineral supplement can't replace the disease-combating effects of real food.