A lot of us have memories of being told to eat our vegetables as children. We were told to eat carrots if we wanted to have better eyesight and that of that if we ate out veggies, we would grow to be tall. But let’s be honest, we all had moments where we refused to eat the broccoli or handed the peas off to our dog under the table. And something parents had to pick and choose their battles and getting you to eat your brussel sprouts was just not worth the tantrum. But one begins to question how important these dietary habits actually were.
Humans tend to not believe anything too much if the results aren’t immediate. And sure, we can assume that maybe you’re taller because you ate all your vegetables as a kid, but we also tend to consider other factors like our genetics to be a greater determinant. What we tend to ignore is how eating a well-balanced meal can affect our metabolism during adulthood.
A study followed a cohort of individuals ranging from ages 3-18 and followed up with them 27 years later. The study focused on the effects that childhood nutrition could have on the development of metabolic syndromes as adults.
Metabolic syndrome includes a wide array of interrelated cardiometabolic risk factors which include obesity, hypertension, and dyslipidemia. To name a few, all of which are related to increased risk of cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes (Jaaskelainen et al., 2012). The study found that there was an inverse relationship between increased vegetable consumption as children and the prevalence of metabolic syndromes, independent of other lifestyle factors like physical activity (Jaaskelainen et al., 2012). Other studies have shown that childhood consumption of vegetables is inversely associated with carotid artery intima-media thickness progression in adults (Juonala et al., 2010).
Other studies have tried to figure out what pathways the early diet manipulation works upon, and some have found it has to do with regulating energy homeostasis and expression of genes that control energy storage and oxidation. Studies seem to show that there are important metabolic and neuroendocrine environmental factors that play a great role in guiding a set point of neural receptors that control both this homeostasis and energy storage/oxidation, especially in utero and during infancy (Innis, 2011). Some have even suggested that controlling energy balance with the appetite complex, with input from the hypothalamus and hormones form adipose tissue could be more easily altered in young children (Innis, 2011).
This does not mean we are doomed to have these diseases as adults because we decided to skip out on vegetables as children. We can still decease our chances of developing cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes with proper diet and exercise regimes (Elagizi et al., 2020). What these studies do offer us is the opportunity to impact the next generation as parents or as physicians, when we stress the importance of eating vegetables to children, not only for their immediate health, but for their long-term metabolic health as well.
Elagizi, A., Kachur, S., Carbone, S., Lavie, C. J., & Blair, S. N. (2020). A review of obesity, physical activity, and cardiovascular disease. Current Obesity Reports, 9(4), 571–581. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13679-020-00403-z
Innis, S. M. (2011). Metabolic programming of long-term outcomes due to fatty acid nutrition in early life. Maternal & Child Nutrition, 7, 112–123. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1740-8709.2011.00318.x
Jaaskelainen, P., Magnussen, C. G., Pahkala, K., Mikkila, V., Kahonen, M., Sabin, M. A., Fogelholm, M., Hutri-Kahonen, N., Taittonen, L., Telama, R., Laitinen, T., Jokinen, E., Lehtimaki, T., Viikari, J. S., Raitakari, O. T., & Juonala, M. (2012). Childhood nutrition in predicting metabolic syndrome in adults: The Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study. Diabetes Care, 35(9), 1937–1943. https://doi.org/10.2337/dc12-0019
Juonala, M., Viikari, J. S., Kähönen, M., Taittonen, L., Laitinen, T., Hutri-Kähönen, N., ... & Raitakari, O. T. (2010). Life-time risk factors and progression of carotid atherosclerosis in young adults: the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns study. European heart journal, 31(14), 1745-1751.
Great post, and I absolutely agree! I am conducting my literature review on nutrition as preventative medicine and was shocked at the lack of emphasis on diet in traditional medical trainings. A 2018 systemic review on nutritional education compared perceptions held by medical student pertaining to their own confidence or knowledge on providing nutrition care, finding that the majority reported insufficient training in confidence preparedness (Crowley et al., 2019). It is an observed correlation that physicians who attempt to better their own edification of beneficial dietary habits are more effective in counselling patients in nutrition and dietary changes to better their health. The need for practical nutrition training for future health care practitioners becomes more glaring with the increased attention to the importance of nutrition as a primary method of health intervention for patients (Commiskey, 2017.). The earlier intervention can be administered, the more likely it would be for patients suffering from chronic maladies due to malnutrition won't need to exist!
ReplyDeleteReferences:
Commiskey, P., DeBolle, S., Buchanan, J., & Sullivan, A. (2017). Food as medicine: The nutrition seminar series. Medical Education, 51(11), 1168–1169. https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.13422 ]
Crowley, J., Ball, L., & Jan Hiddink, G. (2019, September 1). Nutrition in medical education: a systematic review. The Lancet, 3(9), 379-389. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(19)30171-8/fulltext?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=f45872f2e9-MR_COPY_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-f45872f2e9-151202333#seccestitle80