Balanced diet (summary)

Eating a healthy and balanced diet is important. It helps you to stay in good health and to feel your best.

Eating and drinking the right amount of food and drink will help you to achieve and maintain a healthy body weight.

Healthy eating means eating the right amounts of different types of foods. This helps you get a wide variety of important nutrients for your body.

The Eatwell Guide is a visual guide that shows you how different foods and drinks make up a healthy balanced diet.

The Eatwell Guide has five food groups. It shows you how much of each type of food should be eaten from each food group for a healthy, balanced meal. You do not need to achieve a perfect balance with every meal, but you should try to get the balance right over a day or a week.

It is important to remember to keep hydrated. The thirst signals in your body are weaker than hunger. Because of this, many people think they are hungry, when they are instead thirsty.

To stop mistaking thirst for hunger, you should drink 6-8 glasses of fluid a day.