We often look at what we eat to avoid gaining weight, but did you know that your diet is crucial in delaying or accelerating aging? A healthy and balanced diet will help you stay young longer, while poor eating habits will accelerate the aging process. That is why it is essential to know these bad eating habits and try to correct them.
1. Eat fast
Life itself is very stressful, so take advantage of lunch moments to sit at the table, relax, and eat calmly. Stress is one of the factors that accelerates aging. When we eat in a hurry or do it at the work table, the car, etc. the body has a harder time digesting food because stress hormones push blood away from the stomach to the extremities, deteriorating the digestive system. By the way, stress can lead us to eat more than necessary, with the consequent risk of obesity or worsening diabetes.
2. An excess of saturated fat
One of the many dangers of saturated fat is that it accelerates brain aging. There are studies where comparisons have been drawn between saturated and monounsaturated fats. The former accelerated the aging of brain cells, and the latter kept them in a better state despite the passage of time. Saturated fats are very present in red meat or dairy products, and the people who consumed them more frequently are also the ones who obtained the worst results in intelligence tests.
3. We eat too much meat
Beyond the dangers of saturated fat, the excess meat our society eats has other risks. The meat industry uses all kinds of antibiotics and preservatives to get the maximum possible benefit, and when we eat them, we expel them from the body through the skin, which is thus more aged. They are the culprits, for example, that we get pimples.
4. We go overboard with the salt
You have to use salt, yes, but in moderation. The excess salt causes dehydration of the body, excessive consumption, and favors the appearance of kidney problems, blood pressure shoots us or prevents the proper development of the bone structure. It has also been shown that diets high in salt negatively affect the cognitive health of adults, and that excess sodium can cause edema in the legs – cellulite – or in the eyes, although we do not always see them with the naked eye.
5. And with the sugar
Just as we should not go overboard with salt, we must also control sugar. It may not sound like anything to you, but glycation is the process in which leftover sugar molecules adhere to collagen fibers: the result, wrinkles, fine lines, or sagging skin. The sugar is present in much more food than we think, so avoid bad habits like eating something sweet every day or drink sugary sodas instead of water to hydrate.
6. Coffee addicts
Again, moderation is the key when drinking coffee. Beyond the sugar that you can add to sweeten it, coffee dehydrates your body, and consequently, the skin. Making a coffee a day does not have many risks, but if we drink several coffees daily, the sagging process of the skin accelerates, especially on the face.
7. Alcohol and tobacco
Although they are not strictly eating habits, we can include them here because they are often associated with food: the beer for the aperitif, the wine for lunch, the “digestive” shot or glass, the coffee cigarette after eating. Alcoholism and smoking have many harmful effects on our health, and one of them is that they take several years.