Monday Wellness Reflection

For our Monday Wellness Topic- we chose to study the benefits and harms that snacking has on the body and how to avoid unhealthy snacking. Snacking is often overlooked in favor of education of the larger meals of the day - breakfast, lunch, and dinner - but in the end what you do between those meals also greatly affects your health and metabolism. One of the most interesting things that I learned through this presentation was how other countries also viewed American snacking. We featured a video about "Italians tasting American Snacks" by Buzzfeed, and seeing their reaction to American food and how they urged Americans that "There are better things to eat" really showed how unhealthy snacking is something that's ingrained into American society. Without healthy snacking, it does not matter how healthy you eat overall, because all positive effects are reversed when you increase your LDL levels or sodium levels when you snack. Overall, I would grade ourselves a 9.5 because we did go over time slightly, despite our best intentions, and there were some parts of the presentation that did not flow as smoothly as other parts.
When we were researching, it was interesting to see how many aspects of health in general were affected by unhealthy snacking and how many scholarly reports were published on it as well. I thought that it was great that so many people were looking into the repercussions that snacking was causing on the American diet, but surprised that despite that, American's are still known for eating unhealthy foods and drinks on a daily basis. I think that if these articles and reports were taken more seriously and not just as a suggestion, the overall American diet could become much healthier. The effects really are not something to be taken lightly either. By increasing your LDL rate and lowering/not changing your HDL, you can cause atherosclerosis, which is the build up of fatty material deposits in the blood vessels, making it harder for blood to flow in them and causing a clot to form, which can then lead to an aneurysm and high blood pressure. Insulin and leptin resistance can also occur, along with the formation of type 2 diabetes, which needs constant monitoring for the rest of the individuals life. As we showed in our Monday Wellness, eating a healthy snacks is not that hard to do, and it can be a fun activity too. I thought that everyone really enjoyed making the apple monsters, but I was worried that some may not repeat the process at home because all in all, grabbing a bag of Hot Cheetos is easier than preparing a healthy homemade snack. I think that's also a part of American society that has to change, because people need to be willing to make the effort to eat healthier if they want to be healthier. Without that change, the whole purpose of all the reports and articles written become essentially useless, because if people are not going to change their lifestyles to eat healthier, it won't matter if they were aware of the repercussions and consequences of their actions since those negative health effects would happen anyways.