Final Post

One of the most interesting things that I have learned in this class is the way that I eat as a person. I was able to see the foods that I eat in a different light by researching they health implications of those foods. This helps me to better control my diet by focusing on healthier foods. This will help me in the future by making me conscious of my eating decisions and will allow me to investigate my foods thoroughly. Another interesting thing that I learned was how my food decisions are linked to the people. I could see that what the people around me are doing or saying has a large impact on me. This helps me in the future by letting me see the way my relationships with other people are even more important than I thought.

EE2 Draft

The Late Night Diet of the College Student

It’s the middle of the night. I’m finally deciding to the homework that I successfully put off until midnight the night before it was due. There’s something on my mind, but it’s not my work; it’s food! The urge to demolish an entire large pizza from Papa Johns has come barreling into my mind, and I feel that the only way that I’m ever going to be able to focus on my homework is if I satisfy this wild craving. Next thing I know there is an empty pizza box in the middle of my floor, and I’m ready to dive into the homework that had been deferred for the entirety of the day. Now you may think that this isn’t the worst thing that could happen; which would be true if this weren’t a nightly occurrence. The sad thing about my late night eating problem is that I am not alone. It is rare that I order food in the middle of the night and do not see another student also accepting a pizza or sub delivery. While it is very important that I finish my school work I find that it is also very important that I watch the way that I eat so that I do not become unhealthy at such a young age. This is what set me off on my journey to find out the health implications of eating at night and its connection to the overall health of college students

It is not uncommon for my mid-night meal to be the largest that I have in the day. I am usually exhausted from a long day of school and just need to unwind. This means that the nutritional value of the food that I eat is not exactly the first thing on my mind. All I want at this point is someone to bring me food so that I don’t have to be the one to make it. The big problem with this is that the foods that are available at this time aren’t exactly the foods that your doctor would recommend. Our late night choices are often limited to pizza that is dripping with grease or subs that are topped with cold, processed meats. According to Pizza Hut’s report of their nutritional information, one slice of their traditional pan cheese pizza contains 350 calories. (Pizza Hut) This is quite a bit when you consider that the recommended daily caloric allowance for teenagers aged 14-18 is approximately 2000 calories. (MyPlate) This means that when a college student is eating pizza for their late night meal they are consuming a large amount of their daily calories outside of the typical meal structure.

Coming into college I had no experience with weight gain at all. I have always been active in athletics which meant that I was always getting much more exercise than was need. All of this exercise for a growing kid caused me to eat ridiculous amounts of food on a daily basis, a lot of which wasn’t very healthy food. This meant that because I wasn’t participating in athletics at the college level I would have to find my exercise from a different source. This proved to be something I would have to learn the hard way. Only a couple of months into college I was able to notice that there was a small increase in fat on my body and a decrease in my muscle mass. I had been eating whatever I wanted because I had no one regulating my foods, and this was coming back to bite me in the butt. I had always had my parents around to tell me which foods I could and couldn’t have. They also were very stingy about how late I could stay up. This means that late night eating was something brand new for me and was probably one of the biggest causes of my fat gain.

I thought that the freshman fifteen was just a thing of myth, but it soon became apparent that it would not be very hard to achieve with the diet I had and my lack of exercise. Almost immediately after noticing this gain of fat, I decided that in order to keep my same lifestyle I would have to drastically increase the amount of exercise I was doing, which at this point was almost none. I began swimming or lifting weights three to four times a week and I began to see results very soon. If I began to busy in school, however, I would not be able to work out as often which would cause my weight to slip once again. This meant that the rise in my consumption of junk food, and my decrease in physical activity were combining to make me less fit.

During my research I was able to see that I was not at all alone when it comes to weight worries as a college freshman. According to a study done by Nicole L. Mihalopoulos of the University of Utah School of Medicine, “Freshman weight gain was 5.5 times greater than that experienced by the general population.” (Mihalopoulos) This is consistent with the findings of Brad Cardinal of Oregon State University who found in his study on the eating habits of college students that “Both males and females were consuming more than 30 percent of their calories from fat, which exceeds the American Dietic Association’s recommendation of no more than 30 percent a week.” (Yeager and Cardinal) While both of these studies show that first year college students are less healthy and gain more weight than the average person, it is still rare to see a student gain as much weight as the infamous freshman fifteen. For Dr. Mihalopoulos’ study the average student only gained 2.7 lbs., and for a similar study that was conducted at Auburn the mean average for the students tested was only 2.6 lbs. (Gropper, 226)

After reading this research I began to think, “Is there a connection between these general unhealthy eating habits and the weight gain associated with them and eating substantial amounts late at night?” To answer this question I looked into a study by Ruth H. Striegel-Moore, a professor of psychology at Wesleyan University, and her associates. They set out to determine the health implications of night eating. They interviewed a total of 8,250 participants about the foods they had eaten the 24 hours before. From the data that they collected they were able to separate the participants into two groups: night eaters, and non-night eaters. They classified a night eater as anyone that ate 50% of their daily calories after 7 pm or ate anything after 11 pm. I would definitely find myself as a part of this group. They found that approximately 25% of participants were able to be classified as night eaters. When the night eaters were compared to the non-night eaters they were able to see that night eaters did not eat as healthy as non-night eaters. Night eaters consumed, on average, 300 more calories, 300 mg of sodium more, and slightly less protein than their non-night eating counterparts. Despite this clear difference between the diets of night eaters and non-night eaters, they were unable to find a difference in the occurrence of obesity between the two groups. This means that although eating late at night tends to be unhealthier than traditional eating, it doesn’t have a direct connection to weight gain. (Striegel-Moore)

The high amount of calories consumed late at night is not the only negative effect of eating before going to sleep. Another major effect of late night eating is the way that it affects sleep. Whenever I eat large amounts of food before bed the pressure of the food within my stomach often makes it too uncomfortable to sleep immediately. This causes me to often wait to go to bed until after my meal has settled which results in me losing out on precious sleep. “Insomnia or the inability to fall or stay asleep is the most common sleep complaint among Americans, according the National Sleep Foundation.” (McLaughlin, Insomnia) Eating or drinking too much right before sleeping can contribute to this. (McLaughlin, Insomnia)

Sleep deprivation is no slight matter. According to the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, the short term effects of sleep deprivation can include: anxiety, drowsiness, forgetfulness, decreased performance and alertness, memory and cognitive impairment, and more. (PAMF) If this sleep deprivation continues for a long period of time the effects can be much more severe. The long-term impacts can include high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, obesity, and psychiatric problems. The most noticeable effect from sleep deprivation that I experience is drowsiness. This causes me to not be able to pay attention in class and occasionally I will even doze off. This drowsiness then causes me to choose to take naps instead of doing homework. This means that once I am done sleeping it is fairly late, and my homework won’t be started until late at night. This chain reaction causes me to eat a late night meal all over again. This is a vicious cycle that will often continue throughout my week.

While I am aware that my diet has never been exceedingly healthy, I never really thought about the way that my dietary changes at college especially the habit of night eating had affected my health. My life has become one that is filled with unhealthy choices, and there is definitely a connection between my health and my choice to eat late at night. Eating at night is just one of many factors that contribute to the general unhealthiness of college students. It is apparent that my dietary habits, along with those of many other college students, must be changed in the future in order to prevent lifelong health problems.

Works Cited

Gropper, Sareen S., Karla P. Simmons, Alisha Gaines, Kelly Drawdy, Desiree Saunders, Pamela Ulrich, and Lenda J. Connell. "Freshman 15-A Closer Look." Journal of American College Health 58.3 (2009): 223-31.Unc.edu. Web. 22 May 2013.

"How Many Can I Have?" ChooseMyPlate.gov. United States Department of Agriculture, n.d. Web. 22 May 2013.

Mihalopoulos, Nicole L,M.D., M.P.H., Auinger, P., & Klein, Jonathan D,M.D., M.P.H. (2008). The freshman 15: Is it real? Journal of American College Health, 56(5), 531-3. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/213088707?accountid=14608

McLaughlin, August. "The Negative Effects of Eating Before Bed." Healthy Eating. SFGATE, n.d. Web. 22 May 2013.

"NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION." Pizza Nutrition, Calories in Pizza. Pizza Hut, n.d. Web. 22 May 2013.

"Short- and Long-Term Effects of Sleep Deprivation." Sleep Disorder Center. Palo Alto Medical Foundation, n.d. Web. 22 May 2013.

Yeager, Angela, and Brad Cardinal. "Study: College Students Not Eating Enough Fruits and Vegetables." Oregonstate.edu. Oregon State University, 17 Aug. 2011. Web. 22 May 2013

A Fad Driven Society

As very cognitively driven creatures we are able to use large amounts of logic and reason in every part of our lives. This is no different when it comes to the foods that we eat. Our society compiles as much past information as possible to create a perfect diet. Different people always are saying that they know the new secret to a perfect diet. All of these new secrets have one thing in common; they never last.

If you look back through our past you will see the ways that what they thought they should eat are different than they are today. Melanie Dupuis does just this in her essay “Angels and Vegetables”. She spends most of the essay talking about food history in early America, mostly in the 19^th century. Pollan on the other hand talks about the ways that we have changed from “deciding what to eat without expert help” to using these experts’ scientific evidence to dictate everything that we eat. These essays combine to form a comprehensive history of recent dietary changes.

As our world has invented new ways to spread information we have become increasingly controlled by fads. These fads never last as a whole, but there are parts of them that hang around. In both of these essays it is evident that what we eat is controlled, and most of what we eat runs in fads. While things like the importance of certain vitamins and minerals come and go, we still retain that they are good for our health even if we don’t view them as essential as before. 

Food Values

The foods that I decide to eat are influenced by many things. The biggest of these was probably the way that I was raised. My parents always tried their best to feed me and my brother healthy foods. This made me put healthiness as an important factor in my food. They did, however, on occasion take us to a fast food restaurant which made me love the times that I get to eat out. Another thing that helps me decide what to eat is time. If I have plenty of time to eat I will usually take my time in deciding what food to make or buy. If I do not have very much time to eat, however, I will eat whatever satisfies me that fits into the time that I have. This often means I will eat whatever is put in front of me.

A big value that I would like to have is nutrition. I would like the live my life without many setbacks and nutritious food would help my body do this. Another big value of mine is eating socially. I like to use food to connect to the people in my life because I feel that our relationships with other people are what defines us and food makes these connections even stronger.

SE5

Burning the Midnight Oil: Bad for Our Health?

This past weekend I recorded every food that I ate. When I looked back on the foods that I ate, I noticed a recurring pattern in my eating habits; a large portion of the food that I ate was consumed late at night, and very little of it was eaten in the morning. During my examination of many other classmates’ food logs I was able to see that this was not an isolated phenomenon. Several of my classmates ate substantial amounts of food much later than the average person. While this may seem odd for the average person this is actually what I had expected the results to be. I spend most of my weekend nights roaming the streets in search of places that seem to be a good time and while I’m out I see large numbers of other college students. However, I couldn’t help but wonder: if so many young people are eating food at night does this affect their health in any way?

                Ruth H. Striegel-Moore, a professor of psychology at Wesleyan University, and her associates set to determine many of aspects of the way that night eating affects health. Their study included interviewing 8,250 participants between the ages of 15 and 39 about the foods that they had eaten in the previous 24 hours as well as some of their background health and behavioral information, and then using this information to draw conclusions about the effects of night eating on things such as obesity, poor nutrition, and depression. They used the information gathered to place the participants into two groups: night eaters and non-night eaters. They defined a night eater as one who ate more than 50% of their calories after 7 pm or ate anything after 11 pm. They were able to divide the night eaters into four subgroups: nondepressed late night eaters, nondepressed evening eaters, depressed late night eaters, and depressed evening eaters.

                In their study there was a reasonably large amount of people that were classified as night eaters, approximately 25% of all participants. Striegel-Moore and her associates were able to make distinct connections from the differences between night eaters and non-night eaters. For example, night eaters are more likely to be non-Hispanic black men than non-night eaters and are on average younger as well. According to their data night eaters are more likely to use marijuana or crack/cocaine than non-night eaters. However, they found that this connection to drugs is more related to depression than night eating. The most significant evidence to show that night eating is less healthy is in the nutritional differences between night eaters and non-night eaters. Night eaters, on average, consume 300 more calories than non-night eaters. The diets of night eaters also included 300 mg more sodium and slightly less protein than non-night eaters. The late night eaters had even higher amounts of calories and sodium and less protein than evening night eaters. Although night eaters on average have less nutritious diets than non-night eaters; they do not, according to the data, have a higher occurrence of obesity. It was also found that sleep disturbance was more closely related to depression rather than night eating.

                As a traditional American college student, I love the lifestyle of staying up late and sleeping in. This sleeping pattern of staying up late causes me to eat a large amount of my daily calories late at night. It is not unusual to find me and many other college students enjoying delicious Middle Eastern food at Jerusalems at times as late 3 a.m. The problem with me and many of my college peers is that we often do not think about the health consequences of eating late at night. In their article in the International Journal of Eating Disorders Dr. Ruth Striegel-Moore and her associates compare the health habits of young adults who eat at night and those who do not through the interviewing of thousands of subjects. They were able to determine that there truly are some nutritional concerns associated with night eating. This means that this trend of night eating could be detrimental to our health if we continue on our present course.

Works Cited

Striegel-Moore, R. H., Franko, D. L., Thompson, D., Affenito, S., May, A. and Kraemer, H. C. (2008), Exploring the typology of night eating syndrome. Int. J. Eat. Disord., 41: 411–418. doi: 10.1002/eat.20514

SE5 source

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3137820/

This article is about a study that looked into the unhealthy nature of late night eating in adolescents.

Observation from food logs

The number of meals and the types of foods eaten were often consistent with when the person wakes up. The people that wake up earlier often eat healthier foods and eat three square meals. The late risers on the other hand eat more 'junk' food and typically only eat lunch and dinner and maybe a late night snack.