The Enigma of “Healthy” EatingWritten and presented by Stephanie Allen

Food and Development

• Food is important for physical development and growth throughout your entire life• It’s no secret that you can’t go long without it. It’s an absolute necessity

• But when you eat, are you eating solely for the nourishing qualities that your food source provides? Or are you eating to be happy, console yourself, or because you may have a sort of “connection” to the food? (Point about sugary and high-fat foods attributed to Freeman 2225)

• Your adolescent brain has everything to do with what foods you do and don’t like, even as you have become a (young) adult.• Elaborated information originally documented by Fernando Gomez and chocolate

point by David Benton and Rachel T Donohoe

Healthy Eating

• The USDA and Department of Health and Human Services have done a lot of research in order to create “dietary guidelines” that they deem fit for the American population• They have created a basic chart for age, gender, and activity rate

to predict how many calories you should be having a day– 2,000 for me

Marketing Tactics To Fool You

• Marketers are trained to know how people unconsciously process stimuli• Colors; red and yellow combos, and cool blue hues (Magoulas 11,12)

• 90 second decisions– more people eat more of these high-in-trans-fat foods (Freeman 2225)

• There was even a study done by the Department of Marketing and International Management in Austria about word choices and their effects on consumerism (340).• Word choice can be misleading- Wendy’s “Natural cut fries”

Our Children and Their Food Habits

• Since your brain creates those reward pathways, it’s important to feed your kids good delicious food that is also healthy for them. The fast food market has boomed and more and more people are making fast food a daily choice, and they will pass those choices on to their kids

• I’ve already mentioned that your eating habits will stick around, so not only are kids being exposed to poor eating choices now that their parents find it quick and easy to get fast food rather than cook at home, a study by Fernando Gomez also found that your eating habits can be passed down for generations (Diet and Epigenetics, Gomez)

• Gomez also cites research that showed positive cognitive, behavioral, and motor skill development when children were supplemented nutrients daily- girls affected more (Effects of Nutrients on Cognition)

Fast Food and Nutrition

• Fast food products are food products that are cooked, preserved, frozen, shipped, thawed, and then cooked again and eaten by a customer. The second “cooking” process is done much faster– usually in under two minutes, to allow speed of service for a company• On a large scale; already expensive so cut down on the expense by preserving

and chemical creation

• Fast food companies will do anything to make you think you’re eating healthier products because it has a logical appeal- eating healthier so you can eat more of it.• DD has “DD SmartChoice” combos- explain

Fast Food and Nutrition, continued

• Freeman notes that a lot of “healthier/natural” ingredients in fast food preserved items are actually worse for you (2225-2226)

• These products affect your brain and your body independently (Nutrient Effects, Gomez)

• Fast foods are high in carbohydrates, trans-fats, saturated fats, sugars, and salts. They generally lack important vitamins such as the A, B, C, D, E, and K vitamins that have been found in multiple experiments to be important for healthy neural and physical development (Gomez)

Complications

• Some studies show conflicting results, especially when it comes to the mental implications of certain nutrients.• Mentally depressed people are more or less effected by certain

nutrients

• USDA and HHS can’t even decide on the proper intake of some chemicals and nutrients• Refer to bottle and the cross on nutrition label

So What’s the Point?

Fast food companies are concerned with the health of their consumers. They train their marketers to know how to make a consumer do what their name entitles- consume. The use every possible tactic (colors, word choice, placement, etc) to make someone make that choice to buy their product

Because your brain reacts to the comfort foods or unhealthy foods in a way that makes you “happy” and/or releases dopamine or serotonin, you like the food and you want to eat more of it to feel the “high” that you get when you eat that food

If people would eat more nutritious foods instead of unhealthy fast foods that they are compelled to eat, they would be happier, healthier,

smarter, and would have a better quality of life.

Works Cited

• Davidson, Karen M and Bonnie J Kaplan. “Nutrient Intakes Are Correlated With Overall Psychiatric Functioning in Adults With Mood Disorders.” Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 57.2 (2012): 85-92. Web. 15 Mar. 2015.

• Freeman, Andrea. “Fast Food: Oppression through Poor Nutrition.” California Law Review 95.6 (2007): 2220-2260. Web. 19 Mar 2015.

• Gómez-Pinilla, Fernando. “Brain Foods: The Effects of Nutrients on Brain Function.” Nature reviews. Neuroscience 9.7 (2008): 568-578. PMC. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.

• Kaplan, Bonnie et. al. “The Emerging Field of Nutritional Mental Health: Inflammation, The Microbiome, Oxidative Stress, and Mitochondrial Function.” Clinical Psychological Science. 2 Feb. 2015: 1-17. SAGE. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.

• Magoulas, Costa. How color affects food choices. Diss. University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2009. Web. 22 Mar. 2015. PDF.