- I took a Creative Writing course while at UAB, and I chose to create a poem about anorexia:
Growling Out - One
I haven’t encountered any of those delicious fixations;
My cravings for any number of calories are raging.
For the aroma is enough as a temptation.
Your neglecting behavior leaves me paying
Days are becoming longer and harder.
I’m growling out – am I being a bother?
I’m in the process of achieving weakness,
As I’m sure that was not the goal?
The lack of energy makes you lifeless.
I hardly remember what it’s like to feel full.
Ulcers are my most common visitor;
These acids are painful teasers.
Visions of yourself turn out to be distorted,
Yet your image has been maintained in that of others.
The small intake leaves me feeling shorted.
Your attention always directed to another.
Our muscles have all together vanished.
So, I’m growling out – should I be louder?
- Paper from EN102 on Childhood Obesity:
Haley Daniel
William
EN 102
23 February 2010
Childhood Obesity
Childhood obesity is on the rise. “The number of adolescents who are overweight has tripled since 1980 and the prevalence among younger children has more than doubled,” (aspe). Being overweight at an early age increases the risks of developing health problems such as high cholesterol, hypertension, respiratory ailments, orthopedic problems, depression and type two diabetes (aspe). Children should be outside riding bikes, playing in the dirt, chasing friends, etc; they should not have to worry about these health problems. When a child becomes obese, their parents have to pay big amounts of money in order to cover the hospital bills. In order to get the number of obese children down, people have to look at the causes of this health problem. People tend to think obesity is caused by poor living conditions, health problems, and emotional eating. Although these are factors leading to obesity, others think the excessive use of television and video games has led to the increase in childhood obesity.
Looking further into causes, people connect obesity to poor living conditions which can ultimately link to poor eating habits. Poor people have limited money therefore they buy the cheapest foods at the grocery store. The cheapest foods at the grocery store are often the processed foods, the boxed foods, and the canned foods. “The food they can afford is often cheap, industrialized, mass produced, and inexpensive,” (global). All of these foods are low in nutrition value and high in calories. Poor people cannot afford the fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats which contains some of the highest nutrition benefit. These people are also often exposed to more sicknesses and diseases; their immune systems are usually bad at fight back due to under-nutrition. Blair Golson in America’s Eating Disorder, states that “Because we subsidize those calories, we end up with a supermarket in which the least healthy calories are the cheapest. And the most healthy calories are the most expensive. That, in the simplest terms, is the root of the obesity epidemic for the poor—because the obesity epidemic is really a class-based problem. It’s not an epidemic, really. The biggest prediction of obesity is income,” (global).
Secondly, obesity has shown links between health problems and between emotional eating. Obesity can be triggered by many different ways, but in some ways, the person can have no control over the weight gain. There are relations between a hyperthyroidism and weight gain. Since the BMR in the patient with hypothyroidism is decreased, an underactive thyroid is generally associated with some weight gain. The weight gain is often greater in those individuals with more severe hypothyroidism,” (thyroid). These people gain weight without any action being taken by them personally. Tragedies a person takes on can also lead to excessive weight gain from the emotional eating. Emotional eating is when I person eats to comfort themselves and make themselves feel better. Instead of taking out stress with physical activity, taking out pain with a bubble bath, or taking out confusion with communication, people tend to eat fattening or “feel good” foods that often release the chemical serotonin which is the chemical that signals reward.
On the other side, children who play video games and watch television for more than two hours per day are increasing their chances at being obese. The two hours or more spent with technology are two less hours of physical activity a child can be getting. Before the big mass production of video games and releases of reality television, most children played outside from after school till the sun went down. The children who do not get out and play are not burning any calories. The only exercise children get from playing games or watching television is working out the forearm, wrist, and fingers.
- From Intro to Nutrition: We had to create a diet design for either losing weight, maintaining, or gaining weight. I chose losing weight, and my results are as follows:
Step #1: What are your calorie needs?
Your daily calorie needs are a combination of three factors: Basal Metabolic Rate, Physical Activity, & the Specific Dynamic Action of Food (a fancy way to say the number of calories you use up to digest & metabolize your food). The three steps below will help you estimate each of these. The fourth step is to add them all up for your total.
1. Basal Metabolism (BMR): BMR is the energy expended by your body to perform the necessary functions of life. BMR is determined by weight and gender.
(a) First determine your weight in kilograms:
130 lbs ÷ | 2.2 lb/kg = | 59.10 kg |
(b) Next find out how many calories you burn per hour:
Women - 0.9 kcal x kg body weight = calories burned per hour
Men - 1.0 kcal x kg body weight = calories burned per hour
0.9 kcal/kg/hr x | 59.10 kg = | 53.19 kcal/hr |
