Participating in sport is essential for health and mental well-being: Physical activity includes leisure time, movement (for example, walking or cycling), certain professional activities, household chores, play activities and sports. It provides many health benefits, such as reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease and counter the effects of anxiety and stress. It is essential to practice the equivalent of 30 minutes per day.
Leisure is a set of occupations that an individual can engage involuntarily for rest or entertainment. They allow the person to experience lasting well-being, both mental and physical.
Varied diet

It is essential to vary your meals by consuming everything in appropriate quantities. This diet should favour foods that are beneficial to our health (fruits, vegetables, starchy foods, fish, etc.) and limit sugary (confectionery, sugary drinks, etc.), salty (appetizer cakes, crisps, etc.) and fatty products (cold meats, butter, cream, etc.). ).
Well-being foods

  • Stress: Magnesium is involved in more than 300 enzymatic reactions that produce energy and have sedative activity. Magnesium improves stress tolerance by limiting the release of stress hormones (adrenaline and cortisol).
    The main magnesium vector foods are dark chocolate with 80% cocoa, oleaginous fruits (almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, etc.), and whole grains and legumes.

Fatigue- Fatigue: The significant symptoms of iron deficiency are chronic fatigue and reduced physical and intellectual performance. Iron has a significant role in the transport of oxygen because it participates in the construction of hemoglobin. The main iron-carrying foods are organ meats, red meat and legumes.
Vitamin C helps reduce fatigue, and it promotes the absorption of iron from foods of plant origin. This vitamin is abundant in raw fruits and vegetables (citrus fruits, kiwi, blackcurrant, tomatoes, peppers, etc.)

  • Difficulty falling asleep: The “sleep hormone” melatonin is synthesized from its precursor, serotonin. The synthesis of serotonin is itself dependent on an essential amino acid, tryptophan, which is provided by the diet (chocolate, brown rice, eggs or even peanuts). At dinner, limit animal protein sources of tyrosine responsible for the synthesis of dopamine that disrupts sleep quality. In the evening, it is essential to favour a meal based on vegetable proteins (lentils, chickpeas, vegetable steak, etc.), a source of tryptophan to regulate falling asleep.
    The links between nutrition and health are increasingly better understood, and the risk of developing many diseases – cancer, cardiovascular disease, obesity or even type 2 diabetes – can be reduced by following national nutritional recommendations. Based on multiple scientific studies, these recommendations evolve with the acquisition of new knowledge. However, the French are still too few to appropriate them, in particular among the less privileged. Measures to improve the nutritional quality and accessibility (physical and economic) of the food supply and an environment favourable to physical activity have been recommended by the High Council of Public Health within the framework of the preparation of the following national nutrition-health program.

The file was produced in collaboration with Serge Hercberg, professor of nutrition at the Faculty of Medicine (University of Paris 13), hospital practitioner at the public health department of the Avicenne Hospital (APHP), director of the nutritional epidemiology research team (EREN, unit 1153 Inserm / Inra / Cnam), as well as with Mélanie Deschasaux and Mathilde Touvier (EREN).

Nutrition is involved in the onset of most common diseases
Only 42% of adults consume at least five fruits and vegetables per day
ultra-processed foods, additives, pesticide residues: concerns taken into account by research

Understanding how to improve health through nutrition

The modern conception of nutrition integrates food and its psychological determinants and physical activity, conditions energy expenditure. An imbalance of this complex set is implicated in the onset and development of many of today’s most common chronic diseases. Numerous studies have, for example, showing the impact of nutritional factors on the occurrence of certain cancers, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, osteoporosis, or even disorders.
Metabolic drugs such as type 2 diabetes or high cholesterol. Research initially focused on these public health problems, but it is now expanding to other areas: new work indeed suggests the existence of links between nutrition and certain auto-inflammatory diseases. -immunes, such as rheumatoid arthritis or chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), allergies, depression, sleep disorders, cognitive decline and ocular degeneration (AMD, cataracts) …

And if it is still challenging to describe the biological mechanisms capable of explaining the very complex effects of nutrition on health, numerous epidemiological studies have made it possible to establish that a sufficient, balanced and diversified diet is essential for growth. , maintaining immunity, fertility or even successful ageing (cognitive performance, maintenance of muscle mass, fight against infections, etc.).

These studies also show that certain foods, nutrients and behaviours increase the risk of developing specific pathologies. Others, on the contrary, will take preventive action.
Eat well, a whole program.

Nutrition is, therefore, a lever for improving the level of health of the population. Thus, the National Health Nutrition Program (PNNS) has been offering nutritional recommendations since 2001 to prevent the onset of certain diseases and promote public health. Benchmarks accompany these recommendations to promote adequate consumption of different types of food and regular physical activity. The proposed benchmarks make it possible to cover the nutritional needs of almost the entire adult population and maximize the benefits of the nutritional prevention of chronic diseases in the current state of knowledge.

These nutritional benchmarks are based on epidemiological and clinical studies, coupled with mechanical data from experimental research. These include so-called prospective studies, which explore the links between exposure to a portion of food and the risk of developing a disease. Thanks to this type of study, it is possible to define consumption thresholds below or above which the risk of developing a disease is significantly lower.