Health Power Hour Reading

• Name of Book: Food Fight
• Name of Chapter: Portions the Size of Cleveland
• Summary: This chapter is about how much portion sizes have increased dramatically since around the 1950s. Portions that used to be large, are now smalls and the major cause of increase in calorie intake is the increased portion sizes. It is considered nowadays that bigger is better, and many companies brag about how large they can make their portions. Many restaurants offer competitions for 'how much can you eat' and encourage overeating. Foods in other countries offer much smaller portions, and have generally smaller serving sizes. Even when people are offered larger portions, they eat more, and people do not compensate for the extra calorie intake. The huge American portions do not help anyone except for the companies themselves. Many people assume that the portion they are served is the correct amount - which shows just how difficult it is for a person to judge what is a correct serving. Companies do this because it is a question of value, not health. People want more for their money, and that is exactly what the companies give them. Humans are creatures of habit, and this will not be easily corrected. But people can be educated, companies can relabel their foods, repackage their foods with correct serving sizes, people can be encouraged to make better choices, have reasonable portions in ads, food labeling can be required in restaurants, and being active in society about eating healthily can make the difference. 
•  If I could ask the authors two questions, they would be:

1. Do you feel that people have adapted to the increased portions?
2. Who is more responsible: the customer or the supplier? 

Nutrition Analysis

While tracking my diet, it was helpful to see what I was really lacking and what I was overdoing. While doing the Falcon Market, it was helpful to see what foods that we see on a daily basis in the supermarket are healthy/ unhealthy. I also learnt about which snacks should be avoided, what constitutes a balanced meal, and why in season, local foods are the better choice. According to my food tracker, I went over my Saturated Fat limit by 1%. I think this happened because I ate fast food, which while is not normal for me, I still did.

 I definitely need to keep my vegetables and fruits intake consistent and increased, and I need to watch my saturated fats. In general, I am not eating enough of any category according to the Food Tracker, so I should eat more overall.

If I had the opportunity to help someone improve their diet, I would tell them to base their diet primarily on good proteins - grass-fed, pastured meat, wild-caught fish, and organic free-range eggs. They should then add vegetables, and then fruit. It should be organic, in-season and local. The further a plant has to travel, the more nutrients it loses. I would then add on whole grains and milk, yogurt, and cheese. A balanced diet is vital for healthy, happy living and it influences the rest of one's life.

9/15/15

9/16/15

9/17/15

What is Health? Collage

Unit 1 Reflection

This unit taught us the basics of human anatomy and physiology, and about tissues. We learnt about cell biology, macromolecules, anatomical terms, and histology. The anatomical terms taught me a lot about describing where something is on the body. The four macromolecules were cool because they all had such a vital role in the function of the body. The tissue section was very interesting and it helped a lot to see the different tissue cells through the microscope. I think cell biology goes a lot deeper than we learnt, so it would be interesting to learn more about it. Next unit, I want to continue to improve my relate and reviews, because I firmly believe that these will help me understand the material better and help me do better in temp checks and tests.

Pathologists look through microscopes at tissues to help diagnose a patient for illness. When we looked through the microscope, we were doing the same thing that pathologists do on a daily basis. This is such an important job because by diagnosing disease, it helps the doctor bring a patient back to health. 

Left: Human nerve cells, nervous tissue

Middle:  Sweetness Lab

RIght: Ground bone cells, connective tissue

Tissue Lab

Today in our tissue lab we looked at all four tissue types: epithelial, connective, muscle, and nervous. Through a microscope, we looked at several different cells for the tissues. After looking through the microscope and sketching the cells, I could classify what type of tissue the cells were from what we had learnt in class. 

Epithelial tissue cover a body surface or line a body cavity. The are made up of closely packed cells in at least one layer. Connective tissue is made up of many diverse cell types, and they provide the body with a structural framework. Connective tissue has two main parts - cells, and extracellular matrix.

Muscular tissue has three parts: skeletal, cardiac, and smooth muscle. It is made up of actin and myosin fibers. Nervous tissue transmit electrical signals from sensory receptors to effectors. There are two types of nervous tissue cells: neurons (excitatory cells) and supporting cells(neuroglial cells).

The cells that were in the same tissue categories had many similarities for the most part. Blood and heart cells looked quite similar, and muscle cells all looked quite similar through the microscope. The anatomy of the cells from what we saw through the microscope and what we learnt in class correlated very closely and I could tell what tissue type the cell was. Skeletal muscle cells are striated, which could be seen through the microscope, and human epithelium cells were stratified columnar, and through the micrscope the layers were visible.

Left: human nerve cells
Right: ground bone cells