🌟 Chapter 1: Nutritional Terms – Your Food Vocabulary 🌟

Hello future Food Scientists! This chapter is super important because it gives you the fundamental vocabulary you need to talk about food, health, and disease correctly. Think of these terms as the building blocks for the rest of your IGCSE Food and Nutrition course. Getting these definitions right will make understanding later chapters much easier!

Let's dive into the seven essential terms that describe how we eat and what happens to the food inside our bodies.

1. Diet and Balanced Diet

These two terms sound similar, but they mean very different things!

(a) Diet

A person’s diet is simply everything they eat and drink regularly.

  • It doesn't have to be a special slimming plan! Your diet includes your breakfast cereal, the sandwich you had for lunch, and the water you drank today.

Quick Analogy: Your diet is like your personal food diary—it records all your food choices, good or bad.

(b) Balanced Diet

A balanced diet is a diet that provides all the essential nutrients (carbohydrates, protein, fats, vitamins, minerals, fibre, and water) in the correct amounts and proportions to meet the body’s needs.

  • The proportions are key! For example, eating enough total food (calories) but lacking essential vitamins (like Vitamin C) means your diet is not balanced.

  • A balanced diet helps you grow, stay healthy, fight disease, and have enough energy for daily activities.

Key Takeaway: Everyone has a diet, but not everyone eats a balanced diet. Balance ensures you get the right mix of nutrients, not just enough food.

2. Metabolism

Now we move from what you eat (diet) to what your body does with it (metabolism).

Metabolism refers to all the chemical processes that occur within the body to maintain life. These processes convert food into energy, build new tissues, and remove waste.

The Body’s Engine Room

Think of your body as a busy factory. Metabolism is the entire operation running the factory.

  • Turning Fuel into Energy: Metabolism breaks down food (like glucose) to produce the energy (ATP) needed for breathing, moving, and thinking.

  • Building and Repairing: It also uses nutrients (like amino acids from protein) to build and repair muscles, skin, and organs.

Did You Know? People often talk about having a "fast metabolism." This means their body processes and burns calories quickly, affecting their ability to gain or lose weight.

Key Takeaway: Metabolism is the essential chemical work inside every cell that keeps you alive and energetic.

3. Malnutrition and its Types (The Imbalances)

When a person’s diet is unbalanced—either lacking necessary nutrients or containing too much of the wrong thing—they suffer from malnutrition.

(a) Malnutrition

Malnutrition means literally 'bad nutrition'. It is a state of health resulting from a lack, excess, or imbalance of energy or nutrients.

  • It is a very broad term that covers both eating too little and eating too much.

(b) Undernutrition (Eating Too Little)

Undernutrition occurs when a person does not consume enough energy (calories) or enough essential nutrients (protein, vitamins, minerals) for a healthy life.

  • Consequences include being underweight, poor growth (especially in children), and weakened immunity.

  • Example: A child who is not eating enough protein might suffer from delayed development and muscle wasting.

(c) Overnutrition (Eating Too Much)

Overnutrition occurs when a person consumes too much energy (calories) or too much of a specific nutrient (usually fat or sugar), leading to negative health consequences.

  • This often results in obesity (excess body fat) and increases the risk of lifestyle diseases like Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

  • Example: Regularly eating high amounts of sugary snacks and large portions of high-fat food leads to overnutrition.

Memory Tip:

UNDERnutrition means you have UNDER-filled the fuel tank (too little).
OVERnutrition means you have OVER-filled the tank (too much).

Key Takeaway: Malnutrition is not just about hunger; it's about incorrect nourishment. Both undernutrition and overnutrition are forms of malnutrition.

4. Deficiency Disease

If undernutrition is severe and long-term, it can lead to a very specific health issue: a deficiency disease.

Deficiency Disease

A deficiency disease is an illness caused by a specific lack of one essential nutrient in the diet, usually a vitamin or a mineral.

  • Unlike general undernutrition (which is a lack of many things), a deficiency disease is caused by missing just one key piece of the nutritional puzzle.

  • Example: If you do not eat enough Vitamin C over a long period, you could develop scurvy. If you lack enough iron, you could develop iron-deficiency anaemia.

  • These diseases can often be cured or reversed by simply adding the missing nutrient back into the diet.

Key Takeaway: Deficiency diseases are specific illnesses linked directly to the absence of a particular vitamin or mineral.

🏆 Quick Review Checklist 🏆

Test yourself! Can you quickly define these terms?

  • Diet: Everything eaten and drunk regularly.

  • Balanced Diet: Correct proportions of all essential nutrients.

  • Metabolism: All chemical reactions maintaining life (turning food into energy/building blocks).

  • Malnutrition: Bad nutrition—a lack, excess, or imbalance of nutrients.

  • Undernutrition: Malnutrition due to too little energy or nutrients.

  • Overnutrition: Malnutrition due to too much energy or specific nutrients (often leading to obesity).

  • Deficiency Disease: An illness caused by the specific lack of one nutrient (like a vitamin or mineral).

Great job! You now have a solid foundation for understanding nutritional health. Use these terms accurately in your exams!