How healthy would you rate your diet? Are you an Olympian 10, self-cultivating a plethora of rainbow vegetables, rearing organic livestock in the rolling hills and only drinking rainwater collected from the morning dew? Or a lowly one - a self-confessed lover of all things artificial where a tomato dare not grace your plate for fear of being brutally swiped away?
It’s easy to place yourself if you’re on either end of the spectrum, but when it comes to the middle ground, it’s harder to discern. One group of eaters are doing fantastically well at meal times but devastatingly pedestrian in-between. These are the Healthy Unhealthies who cook meals from scratch with a wide variety of natural foods but, between mealtimes, find their fingers exploring a packet of sweets, sprinkling on the sweeteners or sipping diet drinks.
The Healthy Unhealthies (about 26% of us) believe they feed their bodies power fuel. However, their teeth continue to rot, their gums remain diseased, and their bodies become sicker with each passing year. Sadly, “bad” snack habits can outweigh the benefits of healthy meals. It’s so easy for the “wrong” nibbles to sneak into our daily diets with the ever-increasing food choices, confusing food advertising and befuddling health messages.
Read more: New year, new attitude to dieting - 10 ways to improve your diet in 2025
Moreover, it feels slightly knotty for most people to admit that something they do voluntarily is causing disease. It’s much easier to blame someone or something else for causing disease and take a pill, but when we do eventually take the bull by the horns and honestly examine our diets and snacking habits, we can expose the things that we may deep down already know are harmful to our health and so be able to bring about change.
If you’re one of the Healthy Unhealthies, try starting 2025 by jettisoning those naughty snacks; miserably, once or twice a week is really what our bodies are truly able to withstand.
Try swapping to more natural snack choices like nuts, whole fruits, unsweetened popcorn, homemade salsas and corn tortilla chips, unflavoured yoghurts or no-sugar banana pancakes coupled with good old plain water as often as possible (mint or cinnamon can be added to drinks).
Small adjustments to snacking patterns can heal or halt the progression of many diseases, and stability can reign in the mouth and further afield – health doesn’t have to feel out of control forever.
