The importance of having a skincare routine cannot be overstated, but we should also consider our diet as part of a healthy regimen. What goes inside your body is just as important as what you put on your skin. Certain foods can cause breakouts, dull and lifeless skin, and premature aging, meaning your skin ages at a rapid rate. Your diet influences how your skin looks and behaves.
Consuming too much fast food, chocolate, smoking, alcohol, sugars, dairy and not drinking enough water can contribute to premature ageing, acne, rosacea, dryness, and affect the general look and texture of the skin.
Including protein, healthy fats, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidant rich foods such as fruit and vegetables in your diet can help reduce oxidative damage. Oxidative damage is damage caused by free radicals. Our cells, including healthy skin cells, can be destroyed by free radicals, causing premature aging. Your diet can help fight oxidative damage and can even help work against certain skin cancers. The benefits of these foods include slowing down the aging process and promoting vibrant, healthy skin. For example, berries (blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries), leafy green vegetables (spinach, kale, broccoli) nuts, green tea, fruits like pomegranate, apples, and plums.
Other benefits included with including healthy foods into your diet is they can help with the production of collagen, balance out the skins oil production, keep your skin hydrated and moisturized, leaving you with soft, supple, radiant skin. In addition to maintaining proper hydration and decent sleep, it is essential that you eat a healthy, nutrient-rich diet that is tailored to your specific health needs and physiology in order to maintain healthy skin.
Before I give you a list of foods and how they can affect the skin, I just want to make one thing clear; that I am not saying that you should NEVER eat these foods because let us be real, that would take the fun out of life. That advice would also be ridiculous coming from somebody who can inhale a pint of Ben & Jerry’s in one sitting. You need to indulge in moderation. Just balance it out.
Sugar
Even though I am pained to write this, we cannot escape the fact that consuming too much sugar (guilty) can wreak havoc on the skin through a process called glycation, causing collagen to harden, and become damaged. Collagen is a protein that is responsible for maintaining the elasticity and strength of our skin, and when it becomes damaged, it accelerates the aging process, causing wrinkles, dryness, and sagging of the skin.
Alcohol
Frequent consumption of alcohol is one of those things that we all know isn't healthy for our liver, so it comes as no surprise that it's also problematic for our skin. Alcohol is considered a diuretic, which means it pulls fluid from your body. This dehydrates you, leaving you with dark circles around your eyes, a loss of moisture and elasticity in your skin, which causes wrinkles to appear sooner. Inflammation is also caused by alcohol. Dehydration and inflammation are the leading causes of premature aging, as we know.
Salty Food & Processed Meats
There is a connection between eating foods high in sodium and having our bodies hold on to excess water (water retention), which can leave you with puffiness on your face, particularly around that area of the eyes. In addition, high sodium diets can also cause inflammation of the skin, which accelerates aging of the skin.
Spicy Food
A diet high in spicy foods may aggravate the symptoms of rosacea in those who suffer from the condition and can also cause puffiness in the face.
Milk
As a pro-inflammatory food, milk has the potential to aggravate certain skin conditions like eczema, increase oil production in the skin, and if you are prone to acne, it can cause breakouts if you consume too much dairy products.
Fried Foods
Typically, the inflammatory fats found in fried foods damage the skin causing inflammation, causing the skin to produce more oil, which in turn causes oily skin, and can even lead to flare-ups of acne as a result of the inflammation. It is also undeniable that eating fried foods on a regular basis can increase your chances of developing heart disease and harm our organs.
If you find that you always break out after eating certain foods, or you experience dry, lifeless skin, try cleaning up your diet, drinking fewer soft drinks and alcohol, and staying hydrated for at least six weeks to see if any positive changes occur in your skin. Do not hesitate to make an appointment with a dermatologist if you have any concerns with your skin that don’t seem to clear up with simple changes.
And remember: Indulge in Moderation.
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