Reflection: Weeks 9-12

Now starts the reflection of weeks 9-12. We have learned everything from advocacy to junking to making a lifestyle change and adding blog hops to our blogs. Below is my summary for all that we have done.

In week 9, we were introduced to Advocacy in Health Education. Our first project was to find out who our political representatives were. This was done by visiting the THOMAS Website and doing research to gather their contact information. We also learned how to write SMART goals and started our first week of our Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change. Mine was to eat 1 serving (3oz) of unprocessed meat a day. In addition to our Eco-Chic posts, we also learned how to join Linky Parties on Dr.V’s blog.

Week 10 started off with our Healthy People/THOMAS project. Here we have to chose 1 HealthyPeople 2010 goal that we were interested in. I chose to do mine on promoting health and reducing chronic disease associated with diet and weight. We had to list 1 objective and just give a short synopsis on the progress of that goal. We also had to include the disparities, opportunities & challenges and emerging issues from this goal. Finally we had to use the THOMAS website to find a bill related to our HealthyPeople 2010 goal. The one I found was H.R. 3468, which can be found on the THOMAS website. In class this week we also watched a documentary called Unnatural Causes. This was startling because it explored the racial and socioeconomic inequalities in health in our country.

In week 11 we watched “The Story of Stuff” which is a short film about how we use and use and use and how that affects our environment. We also did an in class activity where we were given a piece of “junk”. We then had to come up with ideas on how it would be used. Each item was different and everyone came up with some great ideas on how to use the junk pieces. This was a fun activity because it sparked a great classroom discussion on all the different opinions and ideas that we could use those hidden treasures for. That time was also spent with Dr.V to dicuss how our Eco-Chic Lifestyle Goal was going. It was nice to chat about our successes and challenges while being held accountable for our overall goals.

Week 12 was fun because we had the chance to view everyone’s photo essays. The photo essay assignment was to choose a topic and tell a story about it with pictures. I chose to do an organic thanksgiving, where I challenged my family to buy organic items (which never happen) for our Thanksgiving dinner. It was a challenge but I was able to use my excellent persuasive skills to convince my dad to agree to it. It was cool to see everyone’s story and how they expressed it through pictures. We also learned how to add Blog Hops to our photo essay assignment so that we could easily browse through everyone’s posts. Week 12 was also the 4th week of our Eco-Chic goal, which I didn’t stay completing true to over Thanksgiving break. I had a couple slip ups but I wasn’t discouraged about it.

Well, that is weeks 9-12 in a nutshell! We don’t have many weeks left in the semester so I am excited to take in whatever information Dr.V has left to share with us before it’s all over! I am also excited to change blog groups to get different views and opinions on my blog posts. Should be an interesting countdown to the end of the semester!

Eco Chic Lifestyle Change Week 4:Weekly Update

My SMART goal is: I will eat 1.5 servings (4.5oz) of unprocessed meat a day.

I actually did better than I thought I would over Thanksgiving Break. First and foremost, I succeeded in persuading my Dad to purchase an organic turkey for our Thanksgiving dinner. The picture above shows the one we bought from Larry Schultz Farms. This farm is located out of Owatonna, Minnesota and has been certified organic since 1997. This was my greatest success throughout break. I kept my SMART goal for most of the days but I did slip up too. On Thanksgiving day I had about 2 servings of turkey (which is .5 over my goal). I didn't overeat at the dinner but I did have an extra turkey sandwich that night. Also, on Sunday we always have Thanksgiving at our Grandma Gruber's house. Here, I had well over my SMART goal and had her homemade turkey, ham and her secret recipe stuffing (which I know contains meat). Even though I went over my goal on these days, I didn't feel too discouraged. I only get her one-of-a-kind meal once a year and decided that it was well worth it. Those days were the only challenges I encountered throughout the week, which is good. I was very keen on keeping track and meeting my goal on the other days which made me proud. I feel like I am doing a good job in meeting my SMART goal every week, even though I did slip up once or twice over break.

For next week I am going to reduce my SMART goal again to eating only 1 serving (3oz) of unprocessed meat a day. I am going to try new recipes this week in hopes of adding some variety to my weekly meals. I am excited to give the vegetarian dishes a shot! Wish me luck =)

Blogged for the Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 4 hosted by Amy@Amy in the Rain

Eye Opener: Photo Essay

For this Thanksgiving this year, I decided to put my family to the challenge. I challenged them to make this Thanksgiving an organic one by purchasing local and organic food at the grocery store. Above is a collage I made that shows all of the pictures I took while completing our list. The pictures are listed at random, but as you can see it was my dad and I that were the shoppers. We first hit up the produce section and bought our greens and spinach for the salad; tomatoes, celery, carrots and mushrooms for the appetizer plate; yams for the sweet potato casserole; green beans for the green bean casserole (classic dish!); and apples and bananas for the pies. Next was the turkey. We found a great one from the Larry Schultz organic farms. This turkey was cage free, never contained to cages and also hormone and pesticide free. The cost was a little more than we would have liked but my dad agreed to it. We also purchased Amy's organic cream of mushroom soup for the green bean casserole. Our final addition to the table was Fetzer Riesling. Fetzer's philosophy is to "strive everyday to ensure that the wines you enjoy are of exceptional quality and value, while managing our impact on the environment. Working in harmony with nature and with the utmost respect for human spirit, we are committed to the continous growth and development of our people, the quality of our wines, and the care of our planet." In addition to their earth friendly ways, the wine tasted amazing! According to my dad, it was the "best wine he's had in a long time" and that says a lot. All in all, this truly was a great experience. Not only did I have the chance to challenge my family to become eco-friendly for a day, but I also showed them that it is easy and affordable to incorporate it into their daily lives.

Share & Voice: Green Holiday Parties

We all know that Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the Holiday Season. Here we embark on numerous parties and get-togethers with our family and friends. I recently found Earth Share's article: Green Your Holiday Gatherings. EarthShare was "founded by its member charities in 1988. It is an opportunity for caring employees and workplaces to support hundreds of environmental charities through workplace giving campaigns. This is an annual, employer-sponsored program that lets employees contribute a few dollars per paycheck as their charitable donation." Below are steps you can take before, during and after your holiday party to keep it an eco-friendly affair.

Before the event:

• Use safe cleaning products
• Follow this Guide to Non-Toxic Cleaning
• Ventilate your house by the use of fans and opening your windows
• Plan your meal according to local food available and buy foods that are in their peak season
• Check out more Holiday Food Tips
• Reuse your old decorations
• Keep in mind that pumpkins, squash and corn make the best decorations and can be used later in your favorite side dishes

During the event:

• Use your own dishes, not paper plates and plastic silverware
• Try replacing your lights with LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes)
• Designate your waste bins (trash, paper, plastic, etc)

After the event:

• Consider starting a food compost by combining all of your "veggie scraps, produce peels, coffee grounds, teabags and more with some of your autumn leaves you've raked up and you'll have an excellent foundation of nutrient-rich soil"
• Use your dishwasher (YES this is more environmentally-friendly!)
• Relax

Want more tips on How to Green Your Holidays? Check out their website. They offer great tips on how to Travel Green, Eat Green, Give Green and Party Green! I hope you find something that you can use in your holiday planning!

Eco Chic Lifestyle Change Week 3:Weekly Update

My SMART goal is: I will eat 1 serving (3oz) of unprocessed meat a day.

I did fairly well again this week. Every morning I ate either a bowl of oatmeal with bananas or an egg omelet. Then for my afternoon lunch, I packed either a cold chicken sandwich or a tuna sandwich. Then my suppers usually consisted of meatless pasta, fish or a salad. Some disadvantages that I came across was boredom. I tend to use the same things everyday (tuna, chicken, eggs, etc.) Most of the time the stuff that I prepared was easy and not really that time consuming. For instance, all I had to do was open the can of tuna and wah-la there was my sandwich. I think a little more research and planning is needed to add a little more variety to my diet. Something that I was proud of this week happened on my birthday, Saturday the 20th. We planned to go out to eat at Pizza Luche because I absolutely love their Hawaiian (Canadian bacon and pineapple) pizza . However, once we arrived there I knew that I had already had my one serving of meat that day at lunchtime. So instead of my FAVORITE pizza, I ordered their veggie pizza instead, which was delicious too! So in addition to staying true to my goal, I might have also added another favorite pizza to my list=)

I experienced a couple different feelings this week. One was boredom with my choices like I mentioned above. I plan to fix this by taking more time to brainstorm other creative options to include in my daily diet. Another feeling I had was accomplishment. I did indeed meet my goal once again this week. Although I had to bypass some of my favorite things (Hawaiian pizza) I felt proud of myself for staying true to my goal.

This week I learned that anything can get boring if you have it too much. I learned that there are plenty of meatless options out there and a little research for recipes can go a long way. I also learned that going out of your comfort zone to try something new is both scary and exhilarating at the same time, and totally worth it in the end.

My goal for Turkey Break (aka week 4) is to eat only 1.5 servings (4.5oz) of unprocessed meat a day. I decided to up my servings by a half serving because I want to make it a little more realistic for Thanksgiving reasons. I think this is going to be my toughest week yet because I LOVE turkey and I know there are going to be a ton of leftovers. We all know leftovers means turkey sandwiches, turkey chili, turkey salads and whatever else you can make with turkey! I know that this is attainable and I hope I come bearing good news next week.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! =)

Blogged for Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 3 hosted by Amy@Amy in the Rain

Advocacy Project: Issue Overview

Goal: Promote health and reduce chronic disease associated with diet and weight.

What is the issue?
This issue addresses the increase of overweight Americans due to an increase of caloric intake and a lack of physical activity. Healthy People 2010 has been moving away from this target by 83% from 1988-1994, and from 1999-2002.

Listed below is a piece of legislation proposed to address the issue:
H.R.3468: Promoting Health and Preventing Chronic Disease through Prevention and Wellness Programs for Employees, Communities and Individuals Act of 2009.

Who is affected by the issue?
Minorities, children and low-income families are the ones that are most affected by this issue. Although all Americans in this country are affected by this rising trend, disparities within race and ethnicity and income are prevalent. Healthy People displayed data that shows that the highest increase in adult obesity was the highest in the black non-Hispanic population with a 30-39% increase and in the white non-Hispanic population with a 22-30% increase. Also, the percentage among Mexican Americans and black non-Hispanic Americans ages 6-19years was 50% higher than the white non-Hispanic population. I believe that we as a country are losing because of the increase of chronic health problems related to obesity. These would include diabetes, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, stroke and other conditions. This is also causing a huge financial strain on our country due to the estimated cost of obesity being about $117 billion. The only people that I can think of that would gain from this issue would be the pharmaceutical and medical industries who are designed to “fix” this problem by offering surgeries, medications and other services to reduce the weight in Americans.

What are the consequences?
Consequences in not addressing this issue would be a decrease in years of life due to the increase of chronic health problems related to obesity. “Dietary factors are associated with 4 of the 10 leading causes of death-coronary heart disease, some types of cancer, stroke and type 2 diabetes. They are also linked to high blood pressure, osteoporosis, iron deficiency anemia and other conditions”. In addition to a decrease of overall wellness, we would also suffer a loss productivity in our society. This is because the unhealthier an individual is, the more sick days they will need to take, ending in a loss of productive workers in our country.

What is the economic/social impact of the issue?
As I mentioned before, “the estimated cost of obesity to the United States was $117 billion in 2000”. According to Wikipedia, “obesity exceeds health-care costs associated with smoking and problem drinking and accounts for 6-12% of national health care expenditures in the United States. In addition, annual hospital costs for treating obesity-related diseases in children rose to $127 million.” Obesity is linked to loss of productivity and working days due to their health problems associated with weight. Benefits to the increase of obese people would be the medical and insurance companies. They would increase their revenue because of the marketing of weight loss and supplements as well as the push to undergo surgery such as bypass, bariatric surgery, etc.

What are the barriers? How can they be overcome?
Like I stated above the main barrier to resolving this issue is increase of “newly developed pharmaceuticals and increased use of bariatric surgery to be used as treatment options”. There is no sufficient evidence that these options are healthy for overall weight management. They may be a one time fix but patients are more likely to gain their weight and more back after using these services. By promoting prevention is the key in overcoming this issue. By offering health promotion and awareness services we can educate our society about the problems associated with obesity.

What are the resources?
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) offers great resources on the prevention of obesity and promotion of healthy living. You can check out Obesity Prevention and Control to view interventions in both education and community settings. They also offer a Tools and Resources page that show a database of resources, Obesity Prevention Guidebook and some Statistical Information on the obesity rates.

What is the history of this issue?

This has been a huge issue for our society for many years. Obesity has been on the rise since the 1980s and each year it gets worse and worse. According to the CDC, obesity has risen 60% in the past 20 years and the rates have tripled children in the past 30 years. Below is a map of the obesity rates from 1985 and another in 2009. If we take a look at Minnesota alone (one of the healthier states) it went from having <10%>30% of their population being obese.

With the rise of fast food chains and the hustle and bustle of our everyday American lives, our society has moved from family dinners at home to grabbing take-out from the local McDonalds. Sure these places are convenient and cheap but they do no justice on our nutritional needs, and by the looks of it we are suffering dearly. With the rise of the obesity problem, also comes a growing interest from health educators and health professionals. There are plenty of programs out there that target the obesity rates in both children and adults. If you want to check out the Policy Resources you can view the Overweight and Obesity Policy Resources.

Allies and Opponents

Allies of this issue would be the health professionals, health organizations and others who are concerned with the growing rates of obesity. I think another allie would include company owners that are currently suffering from loss productivity of their employees due to conditions related to obesity. All in all, I think that whoever wants to be healthy and promote a healthy lifestyle would be in favor of this bill because they value that important factor of their life. On the other hand, there would also be some opponents. These would include the insurance companies, hospitals, pharmaceutical reps, and others who are in the health "treatment" industry. With the lowering of obesity, the need for weight-loss supplements and surgeries would decrease. This would also lead to a decrease in jobs in that field. Also, insurance companies would not have to cover these surgeries or treatment options, potentially putting their jobs at risk.

In order to please Allies and Opponents of this issue, it would be necessary to show how both can benefit. It is best to look at the long run and how these companies can benefit by increasing the productivity of our society. Sure, we would hope that it would decrease the need of health care in regards to weight related diseases but that doesn't mean that we wouldn't need their services in other areas. We could increase the use of health promotion programs that these companies can implement into their facilities and this would make up for the lost jobs.

My Recommendation:

Vote YES to the promotion of health and the reduction of chronic disease associated with diet and weight.

Share & Voice: The Daily Green

While searching on the internet, I stumbled across this really cool blog: The Daily Green. This is an eco-friendly blog that is designed to offer daily tips, news and other topics of interest that relate to going green in our community. Their mission is to "broaden the audience for earth-friendly living by showing how going green is relevant to everyone." Below is an article that I found to be not only interesting, but suitable to all you followers.

11 Ways to Go Green on a College Budget:

1. Be a re-user
   You can re-use other's textbooks and let them use yours for free on sites such as Chegg, PaperBackSwap and Bookins. All you have to pay is shipping fees.
2. Turn Off the Water
   Leaving the faucet running can waste up to 1.3-gallons of water! Instead of leaving the water run while brushing your teeth, just turn the water off.
   
3. Reuse Paper
   Don't throw away paper that can possible be made for scrap paper. Use this as your post-it notes to save on extra costs. Or just use it to take lecture notes during class.
4. Download a free energy-saving application for your computer
   To reduce the amount of energy your computer uses when you’re not on it, download an energy-saving application like Local Cooling or CO2 Saver. Or just simply turn it off.
5. Be Thrifty
   Shop at a thrift store. Thrift store shopping is another way to of recycle and regulate CO2 emissions.
6. Spend Less Time in the Shower
   Reducing your shower time by just 2 minutes, can save 1,000 pounds of CO2 emissions into the air. This will use less electricity to heat the water and conserve water.
7. Go Paperless
   Instead of wasting paper on bank statements, go online and switch to paperless. This can save a lot of trees!
8. Try Reusable Shopping Bags
   Ditch those plastic bags and purchase a couple reusable shopping bags instead. You can use them for groceries, clothes and to carry your books and laptop.
9. Recycle Your Old Cell Phone
   Recycle your old cell phones. You can find a cell phone recycling center either near your school or at a local cell phone distributor store.
10. Consolidate Your Hair Care Products
    Buy 2-in-1 shampoo plus conditioner and then throw away just one container. If you don't like that idea, then buy hair products that come in a recycled container.
11. Wash Clothes in Cold Water
    This causes less heat damage to your clothing (like fading and shrinking), uses less electricity and produces less CO2.

Well there you have it. A quick list you can follow to go green, while living on a tight college budget. Most of these are completely free or relatively cheap to incorporate into your daily life.
I hope that most of you can find a few on this list to fit your environmentally friendly lifestyle!

Read more: http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/community-news/college-green-55100102#ixzz15VhqTIG6