Nutrition Analysis

Friday, September 18th, 2015

Tuesday, September 18th, 2015

Wednesday, September 16th, 2015

          In Anatomy, we learned about nutrition and the different ways that it can affect your health. One of the ways that we learned about it was by tracking our own diets and comparing them to what they should be at. Above is the data that I collected for my diet in three days. This data was tracked using SuperTracker, which is sponsored by the USDA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  My data fluctuated a bit because of the events of that day. I was under my projected caloric need, which was 1800 calories, for all 3 days I monitored my diet. On Tuesday, I ended up skipping breakfast and lunch since I was running late to school in the morning, and helping a friend on her project during lunch. For a snack once I got home, I had a piece of toast, which is why my refined grains for that day exceeds the amount recommended, as did my sodium. On Wednesday, I tried to cut back on the amount of sodium I was eating, and made it under the recommended 2300mg limit, instead getting 1800mg. However, I then exceeded the empty calorie limit by eating 341 empty calories instead of 161 empty calories.  On Friday, I did not actively monitor my sodium levels, and I exceeded them. I also ended up exceeding the empty calorie limit once again. 

In order to improve my diet, I believe that I should cut back on empty calories and sodium, and focus more on fruits and vegetables. I also believe that I should eat more protein to bring it to at least the level that it was on Wednesday. I think that Wednesday was my most balanced day, since I kept under the sodium limit, although I exceeded the empty calorie one. If I added more vegetables and dairy to my diet, I believe that it would become more balanced without causing a deficiency in any of the groups. 

In class, we also completed an activity called Falcon Market, where we explored the different foods available to us. It was surprising how many brands and types of food evaded listing trans fat explicitly on their ingredient list. If a food has less than 1 gram of trans fat, they do not have to list it in the nutrition box. However, it still must be on the ingredient list, but companies avidly try to hide this by using synonyms for trans fat, such as : "partially hydrogenated, "hydrogenated" and "leavening" . It was also surprising to learn how much healthier I could be eating when eating at fast-food restaurants. For example, at McDonald's I usually order a McChicken, but after comparing nutrition facts, I realized that a healthier option to order would be a regular hamburger. The same went for my drinks at Starbucks. My two favorite drinks: the Mocha Frappuccino and Pumpkin Spice Latter were overloaded with sugar, which I had previously been aware of, but I never thought that it would have as much added sugar as it did have. 

If I had the opportunity and coach someone on proper health and nutrition, I would start by making sure that they were getting adequate nutrients from each of the food groups, since a deficiency or excess in one may lead to future health problems. I would encourage them to also get exercise throughout the week, and to cut back or actively monitor their empty calories and sodium intake, since foods all around us today are packed with them, and those levels can quickly get out of hand. 

The Pillars of Health

Health to me means being able to be happy and fit in both mental and physical aspects. A good way to do a quick check to see if you are healthy is to compare your daily lifestyle to the standars of the five pillars of health. The five pillars are: exercise, sleep, social, nutrition, and stress. Making sure that you have an adequate amount (and not too much) of each of these pillars can ensure a healthy lifestyle. Personally, I believe I am strongest in the pillars of social, nutrition, and exercise. The pillars that I need to most improve on are the areas of stress/ stress management and sleep. In terms of health, I'm most interested in learning on how our body changes and adapts when one of these pillars is disrupted, and what a body in total sync with the pillars looks like as well.  I am also interested in learning about diseases and other repercussions that can occur when one of the pillars is not met (e.g not meeting the standards for health can result in Type 2 Diabetes). 

Unit 1 Reflection

Unit One Reflection:

This unit in Anatomy and Physiology was focused about macromolecules, and types of tissues. The main theme of this unit is histology and how structure fits function. In the class, we learned about the different types of tissues, their structure, and their function. The different tissues we learned about were epithelial, connective, muscular, and nervous. Another theme was homeostasis and hierarchy. Homeostasis is the maintaining a stable internal environment. An example of homeostasis is the hypothalamus above the roof of your moth that senses your temperature and reacts in a negative feedback loop to it. Hierarchy is also an umbrella theme in Anatomy. The main configuration of hierarchy goes from atom , molecules, macromolecules, organelles, cells, tissues, organs, organ systems, organisms, populations, communities, ecosystems, biomes, and biospheres. Anatomy generally focuses on the layers of organelles to organisms.
   


I think that I didn't really understand how all the tissues came together in the end, and how they work together to ensure homeostasis in the body. I know what they all do individually, and what their structure and functions are, but it not how they all come together in the end. In this unit, we completed the dissection of Hana the Banana, the sugar lab, and tissue lab. From Hana the Banana we learned about the anatomical positions, such as superior/inferior, and anterior/posterior. From the sugar lab, we learned about the structure of polysaccharides such as cellulose and starch, and how they do not taste sweet in comparison to disaccharides and monosaccharides such as sucrose and glucose.

This unit helped us understand histology more, and in turn that helped us understand what a histologist does. A histologist "examines and analyzes cells and body fluids". They must also be able to match blood types for blood transfusions, and test blood levels in the blood.

All About Tissues!

For this lab, we learned and observed the different types of tissues in a microscope. One of my favorite tissues was the bone, which is a specialized connective tissue with a black center and a speckled gray pattern around it (shown in center). The dark center is the area that blood would flow through (where the vessel would go) and the rings around it represent the bone that surrounds it.

In the tissues, we can really see the theme of form fitting function taking place. Epithelial tissue for example, changes depending on where it is located in the body. If it is lining a gland, such as the thyroid, it can be seen in simple columnar form. However, if it on the skin, it is usually stratified, differing between squamous, cuboidal and columnar. It has a basement layer, called a basal lamina that latches it to the connective tissue underneath.  Nervous tissue on the other hand, is full of neurons and the supporting neurological cells. It can be seen as more "stringy", with clumps representing the center of the cell and dendrites pushing out of the top, sending electrical impulses. The pulses also travel down the axon to the other set of dendrites at the end, connecting each the neurons together. Even in the same tissue we can see differences. Skeletal muscle for example, has striations and is multi-nucleate. Smooth muscle on the other hand, has no striations and is spindle shaped. The third type, cardiac muscle, is branched with striations, but is uni-nucleate. It is through the different anatomy of the tissues and their subparts that we can see the theme of form fits function even more clearly.