Reading Notes: The Do-It-Yourself Approach to Food

The author of this text is Will Allen, which is the CEO of Growing Power, a non-profit that aims to provide equal access to healthy food. His audience is anyone that is passionate or cares about healthy eating on a public health scale. His purpose is to inform and to persuade his audience about his views, and he is writing because the question “Do we need more advice about eating well?” was asked.

The basic argument is that there is always a need to educate america on healthy eating, but we should instead focus on educating the people on how to grow their own healthy foods. Instead of leaving it there, he then gave clear advice on how the argument could be supported by the community through many examples.

Furthering the conversation (2/22)

In class on 2/22 we discussed the skills of using text to think about and using a text to think with. When using to think about, you illustrate using examples and contextualize using historical/statistical information. When using research to think with, you can authorize, borrow, and extend information.

In looking at applying this to my unit 3 project, I would say the most useful tool here would be extending. Extending your research and putting your own spin on it seems like the best way to create your own effective research piece. While I also borrowed and authorized from other authors, I believe extending my academic source was most effective in creating my own piece.

Furthering the Conversation 4/4

In class on 4/4 we discussed writing as a conversation. Instead of simply regurgitation of information we need to look at academic writing as a conversation and the writer as a player in this conversation. We converse because we think what we have to say is important and our effectiveness relies upon how we work with other’s conversational contributions. Key moves include:

  • explaining your reason relative to others
  • explaining your reason
  • offering something new to conversation.

What i want to add to this list is countering. This could obviously fall under the categories of explaining your relative reason or offering something new to conversation. However, from what we have learned in class recently, it seems to me like countering is an important enough move to earn it’s own spot on this list.

Reading Notes for “Health Research and Policymaking in the Social Media Sphere”

This piece is a research brief produced by Brian G. Smith and Staci B. Smith. Brian is a professor of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation, & Pediatrics, & Nursing at Yale university, while Staci is a graduate student at Purdue University. Brian G. Smith clearly must know what he’s talking about, right?

The authors of this text are looking at how social media can be used as a tool to increase public health awareness in society. However, they explore how this can be limited because people who are of low-income do not necessarily have as much access to wifi, computers, phones – all of which are main drivers of social media.

Additionally, the authors bring up the idea of social media engagement and how it is effective through absorption, self-expression and representation, empowerment and interactivity.

All in all, I think that this text is very thorough. After all, it is 17 pages long, and of those 17, four are just references. However, I think that since the test is so long, it is geared toward a more academic and scholarly audience.

Furthering the Conversation “Improving End-Of-Life Care: A Public Health Call to Action”

During this class discussion we talked a lot about the beginning of this piece. From the first word she is using many different techniques to get the readers attention. For example by using the word “we” as her first word she has already included the reader in what she is about to talk about. Her writing is very straightforward and she makes it easy for the reader to understand what she is trying to say.

Another thing I noticed from her piece was the personal anecdotes that she places throughout. With them she tells the story of her own father and his end-of-life care. Spacing them out the way she did helps get the interest of the reader and keep it throughout the piece. They become immersed in her story and want to find out what happened. This is a good technique as it also helps split up the academic information and charts she has included. Even though academics will be reading it I think her use of a personal story helps keep their interest.

Overall I think she does a good job of balancing the academic information with more easy to read stuff. She is also successful in writing something that truly is a call to action. The way she talks about how everyone will die one day is her way of uniting anyone who reads what she has written. Because this is something that will affect every person it is something that deserves peoples immediate attention. This especially means people in the public health field because she believes these issues directly correlate to that field.

DRAFT–

I couldn’t figure out how to link it here, so here is the full draft. :/

 

 

Food has gotten a bad rep when it comes to the experience of grief, but there are ways that we can use food to positively effect our lives and the grieving process when dealing with grief.

Food, or the lack of it, is used as a way to deal with grief all of the time, but we may be doing some things with food that could turn out to be negative in our lives—so how can we use food as a positive way to deal with grief?

 

EAT FOOD TOGETHER

As we all know, being alone during hard times can be quite challenging to the spirit. One of the things that you can do to mix food with positivity for your process of grieving is to surround yourself with good people and eat together.

Janine Utell explored the ways an author named Virginia Woolf used food in moments of the mourning process in a scholarly article. The characters in the book annually came together to have meals while they were all grieving a loved one who passed away.

Through a ritual gathering with meals, they all highly benefited from gathering as much as possible to eat. And although it was a reminder of the loss, when it was with those dealing with it too, it positively furthered their individual grieving processes.

There is even an organization called The Dinner Party that meet all over the world, specifically the USA, that have potlucks surrounded by the idea of life after loss, and having open discussions about grieving while eating.

Food is a great way to bring people together while grieving.

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EAT FOOD TO REMEMBER

Whether alone or with other people, eating your loved one’s favorite foods can be a great way to remember them in a positive way.

“It may lead to sad or bitter reaction earlier in the bereavement process,” says Clinical Psychologist Dr. Claudia Herbert. “But later on a reminder may connect them to the loving memories they shared. It can give them a sense of comfort and eating the food may bring them back to the good times they enjoyed.”

My father lost his dad when he was in his mid 20’s. “He loved stakes,” my father said when I asked him if he ever used food as a positive aspect in his grieving process. “After he went missing, your Mom and I would fix them just how he liked it, slow cooked in the oven, as a way to enjoy him in memory through his favorite food.” Slow cooked stakes on Sunday nights is a staple with my family.

Eating your loved ones’ favorite foods after they pass can have positive effects if you use it as a time to remember them in a positive way.

But food, as we all know, can have negative effects on us in our grieving process.

 

REPLACE BAD HABITS WITH GOOD ONES

We can sometimes use food to deal with grief by binge eating, or not eating at all. It can be be the start of any eating disorder.

In an article written by Mary Anne Cohen, the Director of the New York Center for Eating Disorders, a bulimic patient describes her body fat as “frozen grief” as she finally begins to deal with the loss of her father, who died when she was only 4 years old. Instead of speaking about it, she would ‘eat’ about it.

To prevent eating disorders, once you begin to see new negative eating habits being formed after the loss of a loved one, acknowledge it and try to replace it with a new healthy habit.

For example, every time you may crave sweet or salty foods, challenge yourself to open a journal and write what you actually may be feeling. If you still have a deep craving, then get a serving of that food! But do it after you have taken a moment to understand why you may want the food in the first place.

 

IS FOOD THE SOLUTION?

Grief, like a lot of things in life, is a process. And one thing that you can’t do is rush it. Food can’t speed it up or slow it down, but it can be a positive addition to it.

If you use food in the positive ways I have stated above, you could use it as a way to help you on your personal road in life. Food isn’t always so negative in the grieving process when you make a choice to look at it through a positive lens.

So eat with people, alone, or even with a journal by your side. But in the end, eat knowing that it is only a part in the grieving process—not the solution.

Reading Notes –Chapter 1: Rewriting

This chapter was a brief introduction to very useful tools we would utilize in this writing class such as coming to terms, forwarding, countering, taking an approach, and revising. It gave a sneak peak of what each tool was and how the writer can use these tools when writing a text. Each of these tools has a unique role and are used differently for different purposes. The audience is intended for anyone who wants to learn about certain writing techniques that they can incorporate in their own writing. They accomplished their purpose in which we know that they were able to teach the readers about these techniques. These techniques have definitely helped me formulate my ideas clearly and using other sources in a way where I am incorporating them and adding value to my projects this semester.

Reading Notes– Improving End-of-Life Care: A Public Health Call to Action

Hess’s article was one of the first readings we closely analyzed at the beginning of the semester. This reading gave me a good glimpse of what was going to be expected while doing research in this class when annotating the text. Hess argued the importance of end of life care is and how crucial it is for people to start paying more attention to it. In class, we figured out why the author was writing this text and what her exigence was. The author was writing this paper as a dissertation to her capstone so she has a reason to argue about end of life care. Her audience in mainly intended for policy makers, end of life patients/families, and anyone who is interested in knowing about topics like this. She uses a unique way of capturing the reader’s attention by incorporating a loved one in her dissertation.

Reading Notes for “Education: A Missed Opportunity for Public Health Intervention”

This piece is a research brief by authors Alison Klebanoff Cohen, and S. Leonard Syme. Cohen is a research assistant at UC Berkley, while Syme is a professor of epidemiology and community health. In this text, the authors are exploring the ways in which education and health come together. They do this by looking at different levels of education, such as elementary, middle school, high school, and even college.

Through their review of various texts, the authors found that elementary school is extremely important to a person’s development, both in the classroom and out. They also found that being in school programs such as Head Start can result in crucial improvement of a person’s literacy. Additionally, they found that smaller class sizes positively improve students’ learning – which I could have told you myself! I find it interesting how they also found that having a bachelor’s degree is associated with better health outcomes. It’s interesting because I’ve never thought about it that way even though I know it’s true. Having a bachelor’s degree means better job prospects and more money, which means a person is more likely to have good health care services and not live in an urban area which often results in less sanitary living conditions.

Overall, this research brief was interesting and well done. I think that the format of it is very good, but I wish that they would have looked at poor students who do not have access to programs such as Head Start, and how not having that impacts their health.

Reading Notes for “We Need Better Information About Nutrition”

This article was written in the opinion section of the NY Times as part of a debate series on whether we need more advice as a country on how to eat well. It was written by Marion Nestle who works in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University. She has also written a book and has a blog about food politics. She wrote this piece so people would be motivated to try and do something about what foods are available. When it comes down to it these are things that policymakers and government officials need to start looking at and doing something about.

She believes that Americans definitely need more information about eating well and that our obesity problem is proof of that. Often times people get conflicting advice because everyone wants their product to sell so they say it is the best. Food companies want to sell as much food as possible so they can make the largest profit possible. It is hard for people to resist food when it is sold everywhere they go. The basic principles for healthy eating are easily said, but hard to actually follow.

She believes we need to change the environment that food is available in so people can make healthier decisions. One of the problems is that fresh produce is so expensive making it hard for people to afford to eat healthy. She emphasizes that the farm bill needs to be fixed so these things can happen.