Constitutional Typing for Better Health
Different Approaches to Fulfilling Individual Nutritional Needs
Oct 19, 2009
Individual dietary needs are as varied as humankind. For thousands of years, medical practitioners have recognized that optimal health for a given person is the result of several factors, and proper nutrition is a critical and dynamic facet of one’s wellbeing.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Pyramid may not be as useful to as many Americans as was originally hoped. Obesity, cancer, and chronic degenerative diseases – all of which have their roots in poor nutrition – are still on the upswing.
Alas, American advertising isn't generally intended to educate citizens about good dietary choices. People who wish to improve their nutrition – and, hence, their health – must be willing to eschew marketing strategies that are designed to increase profits for food industries; quite simply, they must look elsewhere for dietary advice.
Eating for Your Dosha – The Ayurvedic Approach
Ayurveda (Sanskrit for “science of life”) is a system of traditional medicine whose roots in India go back at least 5,000 years. Ayurvedic philosophy revolves around the central concept that all things in the universe are guided and controlled by a dynamic interaction between three forces, or doshas: vata (wind), pitta (fire), and kapha (water and earth).
Each individual’s constitution is dominated by one of the three doshas, with lesser contributions from the other two. On any given day, a person’s overall balance is determined by the relative influences of all three doshas.
Although one’s dominant dosha may be the primary force that affects his or her nutritional requirements, whenever conditions warrant – that is, when “unbalance” occurs – dietary needs may change. Foods exhibit predominant doshas just like people do; varying one’s diet to maintain balance is one of ayurveda’s primary tenets.
Traditional Chinese Medicine – Yin, Yang, and the Five Elements
The principles of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) may be more to some peoples’ liking than those of ayurvedism. In TCM, two diametrically-opposed and constantly shifting energies – yin and yang – are the pervading forces that guide the universe.
While one person may be more yin or more yang than another person, the balance between the forces can shift fairly dramatically within the individual, and one’s basic constitution is less fixed than is generally believed by practitioners of ayurvedism.
In general, people who are more yin should strive to eat balancing yang foods, and those who are more yang should eat yin foods.
The precepts of TCM are much more complex than merely finding a balance between yin and yang, however. The yin-yang characteristics of individual foods can be quite subtle: long-grained brown rice, for example, is warming and yang, while short-grained brown rice is cooling and yin.
Furthermore, TCM’s adherents embrace the idea that five elements – metal, wood, water, fire, and earth – influence the day-to-day function of human organ systems and spirituality. These elements, or phases, play a role in optimizing the health of a given organ and of the body as a whole.
Eating Right for One’s Type – the Blood-Diet Connection
Another popular nutritional system involves the construction of a healthy diet around a person’s blood type. This approach assumes that optimal health springs from individuals eating the same diet that their ancestors ate before migration and intermarriage scattered and amalgamated the human race.
Each human being is endowed with one of four basic blood types – A, B, O, or AB – that reflects a genetic lineage which can ostensibly be traced to geographic regions and lifestyles that were associated with specific dietary patterns.
For example, Peter D’Adamo, the author of Eat Right for Your Type (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1996), contends that type O is the oldest blood type, evolutionarily speaking, and individuals possessing this blood type can eat more meats, saturated fats, and cholesterol than other people, because type O originated when humans were primarily hunters.
Likewise, other blood types are represented by their own lists of recommended foods.
Other methods of constitutional typing have come and gone over the years. One current ideology revolves around attaining internal acid-alkaline balance through proper nutrition, but this philosophy is not new; indeed, practitioners of TCM are quite familiar with this concept.
Whether or not constitutional typing is of use to, say, the USDA or the Food and Nutrition Board is less important than whether or not such approaches can be used by individuals to maximize their health. Improving one’s quality of life may mandate less reliance on mass marketing campaigns and more reliance on oneself.
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