Nutrition in modern socio-economic conditions of Ukraine as a health-forming factor (literature review)

Abstract

A retrospective analysis of modern scientific literature was carried out. An analysis of modern features and trends in the state of the population's health and the influence of a complex of environmental factors on it, including nutrition, was carried out. The data on morbidity of the population of Ukraine according to the statistical collections for 2019–2022 were analyzed, and the health indicators of children of Ukraine were analyzed for the period (2019–2022). Nutrition is one of the environmental factors that directly affects the health of a person of any age. Rational and safe nutrition contributes to the normal growth and development of children, the prevention of diseases, the prolongation of people's lives, the increase in working capacity and provides conditions for their adaptation to the environment. Food is a multicomponent environmental factor containing more than 600 substances necessary for the normal functioning of the human body. Each of these substances occupies a certain place in the complex harmonious mechanism of biochemical processes and contributes to the proper physical development of a person. Unsatisfactory indicators of children's health are an urgent problem today. The steady decline in the number of practically healthy children, the ever-increasing flow of children suffering from chronic pathology and the disabled, is considered by many researchers today as a national tragedy. Analyzing the reasons for unsatisfactory indicators of the health of the population, it is possible to distinguish the influence of the following groups of factors: socio-economic (50%), environmental (20%), genetic (20%), state of medical care (10%). In the last decade, pediatricians, hygienists, and anthropologists have noted with great concern a particularly sharp deterioration in physical development and other criteria of health and motor fitness. Therefore, in our opinion, it is relevant to assess the health indicators of the child population as a prospect for the development of the future of the modern state. This study becomes especially relevant against the background of the incidence and prevalence of childhood diseases in recent years. Keywords: healthy lifestyle, hygienic assessment, diet, quality of life, morbidity, children.