Fat's the issue: eating in your 30s and 40s

At this stage of life, maintaining a reasonable weight and staying healthy means taking a closer look at diet, says Dr Wynnie Chan

We're more at risk of over nutrition than malnutrition in our 30s and 40s, and it's not because we eat more. Compared to the frenetic pace of our 20s, our lives tend to become settled and as a result less active.

During this time a woman's energy requirement is around 1,940 calories a day, give or take a hectic lifestyle. This sounds a lot, but scoff a couple more Mars bars and you'll be pushing the daily requirement - 2,550 kcals - of a man in the same age group.

Quality and quantity
More women are choosing to wait until their 30s and early 40s to have children, and so vitamin intake becomes even more of a priority. A pregnant woman should be watching her intake of folate and iron before and after she conceives. A deficiency of folate has been linked to spina bifida in babies. Pregnant and breastfeeding women have to increase their calorie intake.

Fat's the issue
It is thought that at least half of the population - male and female - is overweight or obese. Most experts agree that eating more calories than we need is the most effective way of putting on weight. And of course eating more calories than we need more often than not involves that food baddie, fat.

Diets high in fat are high in calories, but fat is a less efficient fuel than other food groups. In its 1995 report on obesity, the Department of Health suggested that excess energy from carbohydrates is more likely to be used up as energy, whereas excess fat in the diet ended up on the body as - quite simply - fat.

Keeping your vitamin and mineral uptake when you're watching calories requires careful planning, but it's necessary if you are to avoid health problems like osteoporosis (brittle bones). Check our food table to make sure you're getting enough.

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