Health Promotion Board is urging all Singaporeans to observe good hygiene. Good hygiene is imperative to maintain your health and overall well-being. Preventing disease is easier if all Singaporeans practice good hygiene.

The most basic thing that you can do is to wash your hands thoroughly and regularly. So, how often should you wash your hands? Your hands should be washed before handling food, after blowing your nose, after using the toilet, before meals, after meals and after touching public spaces like handrails, doorknobs and the like.

Now that you know the frequency of hand washing, the next thing that you have to be familiar about is the correct steps to wash your hands. Here are the steps to wash hands effectively:

1. Use soap
2. Wash palm to palm
3. Wash between the fingers
4. Wash the back of the hands
5. Wash the base of the thumbs
6. Wash the back of the fingers
7. Swab the fingernails
8. Wash the wrists of both hands
9. Rinse with water and wipe it dry with a clean towel.

Hand washing is simple but its importance cannot be ignored. You should be responsible of your health and this is the effective way to keep illness at bay. If you do not want to harm the people around you, you have to be thorough and share the right steps to your friends and loved ones.

Health Promotion Board launched an initiative that reminds us to be healthy and avoid being unwell. The Board calls it F.I.G.H.T (frequent hand washing, immunization, go to the doctor, home rest and tissues).

Many Singaporeans now want to look good and feel good. You try to be healthy. There are people who are successful while there are others who fail. Being healthy is not only a state without illness and disease. Being healthy is a state where you take good care of your body through paying attention to the food you eat at the same allotting time to exercise regularly.

To put it simply, your goal should be to make sure that your calorie intake is equal to (or at least less than) your calorie output. You have to know that a calorie is a component of energy. If you want to live healthy, you have to achieve the recommended caloric balance.

If you maintain your current weight, the calorie that you have to consume should be equal to (or at least less than) your calorie output. If you consume calories more than our calorie output and without considering of burning it, you will surely gain weight. You all know where weight gain will lead – myriad of health issues from diabetes to heart disease and high cholesterol.

It will be for your benefit to know how much calorie is too much. According to experts, the recommended caloric intake for men is 2,200 kcal and 1,800 for females. This seems hard because here in Singapore, it is hard to watch out for the food you eat because of thousand delicacies. Indeed it sounds hard but it is not impossible.

With the help of Healthier Dining Programme, Singaporeans now are well informed when it comes to healthy eating. The recommended caloric intake will depend on the height, gender, activity level and weight. It is best that you consult your doctor for more advise on caloric balance.

4 Foods to Remove from Your Diet to Promote Healthy Eating

Eating healthy is not an easy deed to accomplish. There are hard days when we just want to give in to temptation and indulge in our favorite treat.

Some of our guilty pleasures are worth the binge. For example, enjoying several pieces of dark chocolate give healthy dose of antioxidants to the body and may improve blood circulation.  Unfortunately, there are several food choices we have that are slowly causing harm to our body in many different ways.

Try to avoid these foods when eating to promote good health.

Soda

Time and time again, we are warned by nutritionists of the bad effects of sodas to our health. However, these drinks packed in sugar are hard to resist.

Be warned that people who regularly consume soft drinks have a 26 percent increased risk of developing diabetes. For women who drink an average of a can of soda a day, there is a 75 percent risk of them developing gout. This is greater compared to those women who hardly drink these sugary drinks.

No matter what form the soda is in, diet or regular, it’s still not ideal for the body. Diet sodas may be a lot better compared to regular sodas but these drinks are often much sweeter than the average soda, raising a person’s sweetness tolerance and making it hard for them to enjoy the natural sweetness of other foods.

Regular soft drink consumption is also linked to health disorders like kidney damage, obesity, and the development of certain types of cancers.

Processed meat

Margarine

Fats have been highly misunderstood in the past. For example, margarine was once hailed to be healthier than butter because it does not contain animal fat which is associated with harmful cholesterol. Now, however, margarine is considered as one of the unhealthiest forms of fat.

A lot of margarine products contain trans fat, the worst kind of fat. Trans fat can increase blood cholesterol levels in the body and increase risk of heart disease. Trans fat lowers the levels of good cholesterols in the body, making the risks of heart-related illnesses greater.

White bread

White bread, made from refined grains has been stripped off of most of its nutritional contents. Added to this is the fact that it’s high in sugar, white bread brings nothing good to the body but increase the level of sugar. It’s low in zinc, magnesium, vitamin E and lacks essential minerals.

A white bread-rich diet can lead to type 2 diabetes, heart disease and obesity. As a healthier alternative, opt for the wheat bread alternative which is rich in bran and fiber, ingredients that help steady the blood sugar level in the body.