Throughout the month of August, we have celebrated Women’s Month and acknowledged women’s strength, endurance and the balancing act that women manage in various roles and stages of our lives. To end off this month, we look into Healthy Eating and Diet Tips for Women and the unique nutritional needs that we have and how they differ to men. By eating well at every stage of life, you can control cravings, manage your weight, boost your energy, and look and feel your best.
Women and healthy eating
Trying to balance the demands of family and work or school—and cope with media and societal pressure to look and eat a certain way—can make it difficult for any woman to maintain a healthy diet. But the right food can not only improve your mood, boost your energy, and help you maintain a healthy weight, it can also support you through the different stages in a woman’s life.
As women, many of us are frequently prone to neglecting our own dietary needs. You may feel that you’re too busy to eat well or used to putting the needs of your family before your own. Or perhaps you’re trying to stick to an extreme diet that leaves you short on vital nutrients and energy, and as a result you’re often feeling cranky, hungry, and too low on energy. Women’s specific needs are often neglected by dietary research, too. Nutritional studies tend to rely on male subjects whose hormone levels are more stable and predictable, thus sometimes making the results irrelevant or even misleading to women’s needs. All this can add up to serious shortfalls in your daily nutrition.
While what works best for one woman may not always be the best choice for another, the important thing is to build your diet around your vital nutritional needs. Whether you’re looking to improve your energy and mood, combat stress or PMS, boost fertility, or ease the symptoms of menopause, these nutrition tips can help you to stay healthy, active, and vibrant throughout your ever-changing life.
How women’s nutritional needs differ from men’s
As children, boys’ and girls’ dietary needs are largely similar. But when puberty begins, women start to develop unique nutritional requirements. And as we age and our bodies go through more physical and hormonal changes, our nutritional needs continue to evolve, making it important that our diets evolve to meet these changing needs.
While women tend to need fewer calories than men, our requirements for certain vitamins and minerals are much higher. Hormonal changes associated with menstruation, childbearing, and menopause mean that women have a higher risk of anaemia, weakened bones, and osteoporosis, requiring a higher intake of nutrients such as iron, calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, and vitamin B9 (folate).
Why supplements aren’t enough
In the past, women have often tried to make up deficits in their diet through the use of vitamins and supplements. But in some countries, retail supplements are not regulated. Furthermore, while verified supplements may be a useful safeguard against occasional nutrient shortfalls, they can’t compensate for an unbalanced or unhealthy diet. To ensure you get all the nutrients you need from the food you eat, try to aim for a diet rich in fruit, vegetables, quality protein, healthy fats, and low in processed, fried, and sugary foods.
Calcium for strong bones throughout life
Among other things, you need calcium to build healthy bones and teeth, keep them strong as you age, regulate the heart’s rhythm, and ensure your nervous system functions properly. Calcium deficiency can lead to, or exacerbate, mood problems such as irritability, anxiety, depression, and sleep difficulties.
If you don’t get enough calcium in your diet, your body will take calcium from your bones to ensure normal cell function, which can lead to weakened bones or osteoporosis. Women are at a greater risk than men of developing osteoporosis, so it’s important to get plenty of calcium, in combination with magnesium and vitamin D, to support your bone health.
Should you avoid dairy because of its saturated fat content?
Some of the best sources of calcium are dairy products. However, dairy products such as whole milk, cheese, and yogurt also tend to contain high levels of saturated fat. While you can opt for no- or low-fat dairy products instead, recent research on the health effects of dairy have failed to find any benefits of choosing low-fat varieties over full-fat. It’s also worth noting that reduced fat dairy products may contain added sugar, which can have negative effects on both your health and waistline.
The importance of exercise for bone health
In addition to diet, exercise and other lifestyle factors can also play an important role in bone health. Smoking and drinking too much alcohol can increase your chances of developing osteoporosis, while weight-bearing exercise (such as walking, dancing, yoga, or lifting weights) can lower your risk.
As well as being critical for maintaining muscle mass needed to promote healthy weight and metabolic health, strength and resistance training—using machines, free weights, elastic bands, or your own body weight—can be especially effective in helping to prevent loss of bone mass as you age. Try to incorporate resistance training into your exercise routine two to five times a week.
Iron: why you may not be getting enough
Iron helps to create the haemoglobin that carries oxygen in your blood. It’s also important to maintaining healthy skin, hair, and nails. Due to the amount of blood lost during menstruation, women of childbearing age need more than twice the amount of iron that men do—even more during pregnancy and breastfeeding. However, many of us aren’t getting nearly enough iron in our diets, making iron deficiency anaemia the most common deficiency in women.
Anaemia can deplete your energy, leaving you feeling weak, exhausted, and out of breath after even minimal physical activity. Iron deficiency can also impact your mood, causing depression-like symptoms such as irritability and difficulty concentrating. While a simple blood test can tell your doctor if you have an iron deficiency, if you’re feeling tired and cranky all the time, it’s a good idea to examine the amount of iron in your diet.
Part of the reason why so many women fail to get the amount of iron they need is because one of the best sources of iron is red meat (especially liver) which also contains high levels of saturated fat. While leafy green vegetables and beans are also good sources of iron—and don’t contain high levels of saturated fat—the iron from plant foods is different to the iron from animal sources, and not absorbed as well by the body. To help your body better absorb the iron in plant foods, consume them along with foods rich in vitamin C.
The importance of folate (vitamin B9) for women of child-bearing age
Folate or vitamin B9 (also known as folic acid when used in fortified foods or taken as a supplement) is another nutrient that many women don’t get enough of in their diets. Folate can greatly reduce the chance of neurological birth defects when taken before conception and during the first few weeks of pregnancy. Folate can also lower a woman’s risk for heart disease and certain types of cancer, so even if you’re not planning on getting pregnant (and many pregnancies are unplanned), it’s an essential nutrient for every woman of childbearing age. In later life, folate can help your body manufacture oestrogen during menopause.
Diet tips to ease the symptoms of menopause
For up to a decade prior to menopause, your reproductive system prepares to retire and your body shifts its production of hormones. By eating especially well as you enter your menopausal years, you can ease common symptoms.
- Boost calcium intake (along with vitamin D and magnesium) to support bone health and prevent osteoporosis.
- Limit wine, sugar, white flour products, and coffee to ease hot flashes.
- Eat more good fats. Omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acidscan help boost hormone production and give your skin a healthy glow.
- Balance protein and carbs. Strive to eat 25 to 30 grams of protein at each meal and limit refined carbohydrates and added sugars. The drop in oestrogen that comes with menopause can lead to a decrease in insulin sensitivity which causes a lower tolerance to carbohydrates.
- Try flaxseed for hot flashes.
- Eat more soy. Soy products are high in phytoestrogens, plant-based oestrogens that are similar to oestrogen produced by the body. Some studies suggest that soy may help manage menopausal symptoms. Try natural soy sources such as soy milk, tofu, tempeh, and soy nuts.
Reviewed on February 28, 2024 by Tami Best, MS, RDN, CDN, IFNCP, a Certified Registered Dietitian at Top Nutrition Coaching specializing in gastrointestinal issues and mental health modifications
