The importance of diet in giving good health can't be gainsaid. Food is the most basic requirement of any live body. "Just as overeating makes the body fat and heavy, under eating makes it weak and illness prone". The proper balance must therefore, be found between the needs of the body and the quantity and quality of food eaten.

For the prevention of disease and for a happy life the diet that is taken in should:

 

	Give sufficient energy to carry out the activities of life.
	Enable the body to grow according to its age.
	Have the power to renew the dead tissues and cells.
	Furnish all necessary ingredients for the various glands and organs to function properly and to produce harmonious secretions.
	Give enough power inherent to set right the defects that may ensue in life.