Healthy eating is the first step to making sure that you are getting yourself more fit. There a a lot of great advantages to eating better and these include more energy, better concentration and less stomach and digestive problems. Currently, the typical American diet is low in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and high in saturated fat, salt, and sugar. As a result, more Americans than ever are overweight, obese, and at increased risk for chronic diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and certain cancers.

Older people are most likely to improve their eating habits, but nutrition is important for people of all ages, says Walter Willet, M.D., chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health. “We know that when people have health problems or their friends become ill, these are strong motivators of change,” says Willet. “The more serious the health condition, the more serious the change. We’d rather people made changes early and prevent health problems in the first place.”

So what if you’re feeling trapped by a diet full of fast-food burgers and cookies? You can work your way out slowly but surely. Here are tips to move your eating habits in the right direction.
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Looking to make a change and lose some weight? I have reviewed the top diet on the internet and you can go and read over 200 comments people have made about why this diet has worked well for them, as well as some of the problems.

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This study below that I gleaned from the LA Times shows that just altering your diet may not be able to undo a life of bad eating. Maybe if they included exercise in these peoples lives it may have made a bigger difference to their health.

Overturning three decades of conventional wisdom, a new study of low-fat diets in nearly 50,000 healthy older women has shown that reducing fat intake alone does not significantly reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, breast cancer or colorectal cancer, researchers reported today. Results from the same study reported last month also showed that reducing fats without reducing calories does not lead to significant weight loss.

“Just switching to low-fat foods is not likely to yield much health benefit in most women,” said Marcia Stefanick, a professor of medicine at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, chairwoman of the steering committee for the Women’s Health Initiative study.

“Rather than trying to eat ‘low-fat,’ women should focus on reducing saturated fats and trans fats,” the so-called bad fats, while maintaining their intake of “good” fats, such as vegetable, olive and fish oils.
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Another Really good Reason to be aware of your surroundings and to keep yourself in shape. This article from the associated press show how people are creatures of habit but I have seen so many times that if you really want to change than you have it in your grasp to do so.

Just when we thought we couldn’t get any fatter, a new study that followed Americans for three decades suggests that over the long haul, 9 out of 10 men and 7 out of 10 women will become overweight.

Even if you are one of the lucky few who made it to middle age without getting fat, don’t congratulate yourself _ keep watching that waistline.

Half of the men and women in the study who had made it well into adulthood without a weight problem ultimately became overweight. A third of those women and a quarter of the men became obese.

“You cannot become complacent, because you are at risk of becoming overweight,” said Ramachandran Vasan, an associate professor of medicine at Boston University and the study’s lead author.

He and other researchers studied data gathered from 4,000 white adults over 30 years. Participants were between the ages of 30 and 59 at the start, and were examined every four years. By the end of the study, more than 1 in 3 had become obese.
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Tags: and Blood Institute, arthritis, associate professor, associate professor of medicine, Boston University, cancers, diabetes, director, Elizabeth G. Nabel, food, heart disease, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, lead author, Lung, Mark Vander Weg, Massachusetts, Mayo Clinic, National Heart, obesity, obesity researcher, professor of medicine, professor of medicine and an obesity researcher, psychologist, Ramachandran Vasan, Susan Bartlett, the Annals of Internal Medicine, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, United States