Constipation comes in degrees and it's not surprising that most people experience at least a degree of constipation and don't even realize it, considering that few people get more than a third of the dietary fiber that even our nutritionally conservative government dietary guidelines recommend. Likewise, even fewer people eat a diet high in raw fruits and vegetables, nature's primary way of preventing constipation and the other problems it precipitates.
Constipation can continue to have some negative effect on health and vitality even after people have made some diet and lifestyle improvements. While any improvement in one's diet will have some positive effect, previous years and even decades of poor food choices generally cause chain reactions of negative effects in the body, which don't all disappear quickly just because one's diet improves. For example, stored toxins can interfere, directly and indirectly, with our optimal absorption of new nutrients, including those which the body would use to help rebuild and revitalize the eliminative process, thus making it even harder for the body to eliminate all waste. Even modest dietary improvements alone generally bring some significant constipation relief, and can keep the problem from getting worse, but they often don't completely undo all the effects of thousands of poor food choices.
