Author: Reuel

By: Reuel

The U.S. is overdue to establish an institute devoted to research on the top cause of poor health. By Joon Yun, David A. Kessler and Dan Glickman

This article talks about how America needs a research facility for nutrition. The authors give facts such as poor eating causes about 1,000 deaths in America and that obesity is the leading disqualify for Americans joining the military. They then say that we need an institution that specifies on nutrition and the affects it has on the human body such as the effect that foods have on a person’s mental health. They say that this would be different than the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) because they do not specifically focus on healthy food but on safe drugs that can be used on foods.

Early in the article the authors talked about how other departments for health such as Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense have about $1.5 billion annually, but the national spending on candy is about $40 billion. From that point I do agree with this article and that we need a specific facility for nutrition. We need something in the government that is able to conduct research on nutritional foods and diets that can help people and America as a whole.

This article relates to class because it talks about government facilities such as the FDA and the department of Defense. The FDA is apart of the executive branch which I believe this new facility would also be apart of. We’ve talked about the different branches of the government and what each of them do, that is how this article relates to class.

By: Reuel

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/18/health/diet-mental-health-partner/index.html

A study conducted in Australia and in the UK have found that after you eat more fruits and vegetables would increase your physical and mental well being. The study says that changing one portion of your diet per day could help your mental self as well as going for a walk for about a week. The study says that even though they have not counted for other foods that people have eaten, studies have further lead to people’s mental health , with their motivation and their vitality is improved. However this study has not shown any improvements for depression.

Even though I mostly focus on obesity in these blogs, this study could also help with dealing with that. It is important to have a good mental and physical body to the best of your abilities. It is always good to see how doing one thing can have multiple benefits. Eating healthy and exercising will lead to more improvements then just your body, but also how you feel.

By: Reuel

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/04/health/obesity-cancer-increase-millennials-study/index.html

A new study has found an association between obesity and cancer within the people aged 24 to 49. Different types of cancer has been typically found in the elderly, but is now being found at a much younger age which are concerning doctors and scientist. Even though cancer incidences have been decreasing within males and staying steady in females cancer is rising within these adults who have obesity. Scientist believe that the cause of this could be from fatty acids which causes changes in people’s metabolism can also be a factor of cancer.

I don’t believe that obesity can be the causation of cancer, but there could definitely be an association between the two. I wouldn’t fully disregard this article for this reason because they never said it was a causation but an association however the title makes it seem like there is. Research is still being done to figure out how obesity can be an affect that causes cancer so it would be better to try to reduce the likeliness that we can get cancer by trying to keep our bodies healthy.

By: Reuel

New ‘planetary health diet’ can save lives and the planet, major review suggests by Nina Avramova January 21,2019

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/16/health/new-diet-to-save-lives-and-planet-health-study-intl/index.html

A new diet has been found that could help save lives and help out the planet. The diet is known as, “the planetary health diet” and is a daily meal plan to help cut down on the intake of red meat and starchy vegetables. Scientist believe that if the diet was used globally then health issues and premature deaths would decrease. The main purpose of the diet is to create a more ideal intake of all kinds of food and increase the intake on vegetables, fruits and nuts. The following image was provided in the article on how much you should eat of each kind of food.

I believe that this diet would help reduce a lot of obesity issues that currently take place in America today. However I believe that it is almost impossible to get this diet to go globally. As much as scientist would like this to go global, it is very difficult to change how the world eats. As stated in the article, ” some countries are not able to grow enough food”. I do think that maybe schools and other facilities should use this diet for ideas for lunch and meals. This way scientist could test how this diet works on a smaller scale and try to reproduce this for the masses.

In class we talked about how public policies are made and the process that they go through to make them. I believe that if this diet is implemented into small groups such as schools and other places then the diet can be tested and the results about how people’s health are being affected can be found. For example the possibility of obesity can be reduced, possibly due to this healthy eating habit. If this is found to be true, then possibly this diet can reach a broader audience of people.