Response to May Day

May day is an interesting holiday for Americans to study, we don't really know it exists, we don't celebrate it and we don't know what its about.  learning about history, either yours or anyone else's, can make your life more meaningful because you understand the world.

Knowing your history just as a form of knowledge helps you improve.  The reason why we study history is mainly to study the mistakes we made in the past, May Day is a holiday that commemorates the struggle for workers to have appropriate working conditions, and it remembers the deaths of those who fought for their rights.  By remembering the mistakes that led up to those riots i.e. the abuse of workers, the governments lack of intervention  and the violence of policemen towards the protesters, we can learn from them and live better lives by not repeating those mistakes.

Knowing history also improves relations with people and helps us to understand people.  Many argue that the reason why the world hates, some say hated, America is because we intervene in problems that we don't fully understand.  America is currently involved in the middle east, which has many different cultures within it that have fought for hundreds of years, not understanding who fought for what and against who etc. leads to unseen conflicts based on historical backgrounds.  The same is true for small scale conflicts, not knowing the relationships people have with each other can lead to problems.  Most conflicts are caused by people offending other people because they don't know what offends them, learning who gets offended by what will make it easier to avoid conflicts. 

Overall any information we can learn from will make our lives better, learning other peoples histories will allow us to interact with them without the risk of offending them, and learning our own past mistakes will help us to avoid repeating them.      

Food Journal

4/28/09

Dinner: 2 steaks and rice

-I enjoyed my meal and I ate it while I was on my computer, at the time I was busy working on homework.  I ate at a reasonable pace to enjoy my meal and also multi-task at the same time

4/29/09

Breakfast: "Cheerios" and milk

-I ate it quickly so I would get to school on time and I liked the taste but didn't have the time to enjoy it.

Lunch: meatballs, Pb and J sandwich, snapple

-this meal was mainly to fill my stomach, because I eat in the cafeteria I'm used to the food and I can tolerate/somewhat enjoy it.  However eating with my friends distracts me from the sub-par food making my lunches more enjoyable

Snacks: Orange Juice, Coke, Fritos

-I like to drink juice when I'm sick because it hydrates my body and quenches my thirst, orange juice in particular tastes good and makes me feel healthy.

-I drank warm coke which doesn't make me feel particularly good, mainly because its warm and I was already hot, had the coke been more refreshing I would have felt better

-Fritos are incredibly salty and make me thirsty, although I was thirsty anyways so the fritos didn't really change anything, I ate them while watching tv 

Dinner: Chicken soup

-My mom made chicken soup because I'd been feeling sick, this brings back childhood memories and is one of the more nostalgic meals I've had, it made me think of snow days and winter nights when my mom would make soup when I came home from school.  While the soup is oily it does contain chicken, sausage and potatoes which are fairly healthy although I don't usually worry about oil since I'm not worried about gaining weight.      

Food Ways

Food is a large part of our culture and how we eat it depends on who we are, where we are and who we're with.  We're also taught to eat in certain ways to celebrate holidays or mimic other cultures.  We're taught through media and school to eat the "white" way.  On top of that we have our own ethnic or cultural ways of eating and our own personal beliefs.

My family tends to be fairly lenient with our meals, we're usually busy doing certain things, for me and my siblings it might be homework and things of that nature.  Because of this we prepare our food and eat it whenever we're hungry and have time, for larger feasts or vacation time where we aren't busy we tend to eat together.  My mom usually cooks because my dad can be busy and comes home late, but they both cook well and for big feasts I help cook.

The "white" way of eating is to eat at the table waiting to watch tv, or eating in front of the tv.  While food can be good on holidays its merely for nutrition on normal days, good food comes from large chains like Mac-Donald's or any other fast food chain.  White families even use these chains as rewards, "if you're good we'll go to Burger King" because apparently their food is better than anything any American can make at home.  Much like the rest of our lifestyle, eating is dominated by corporations and brands and our culture makes us favor those over home style foods.

My own personal way of eating is based on what I have and what I can make with it.  While I don't know how to cook too many things now, I'd like to prioritize home cooking and resort to ordering or fast food when I don't have time to cook, for lunch or if I have to go somewhere and I want a quick snack, or if I'm tired or don't have any ingredients in my house to make a good meal.  The key word of that sentence was "resort" while fast food may taste good and be cheap, home cooking is much more fun, rewarding and healthy than eating fast food.  When I have to choose a restaurant, for lunch I can't cook obviously, I choose places that are cheap and that I personally have a good experience with, if I know that a certain type of food is bad for me I won't eat it.  This way of eating will make breakfast and dinner more meaningful and lunch shared with friends will be meaningful as well, although the food may not be as prevalent in the meaning of the meal.                   

Why are Americans so fat?

Americans, mostly the south and midwest, are overweight on average making us a "fat" nation.  The obvious question is "why?".  There are a few reasons, the southern and midwestern states are spread out which influence people to drive everywhere taking away the need for walking limiting their exercise.  Our largest food chains are based around greasy and fatty recipes and our lives revolve around computers.  Overall we basically eat too much and exercise too little.

http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20040317/impatience-makes-americans-fat

According to "Web M.D." impatience has greatly affected obesity in America.  Due to delivery, drive through's, and car-hops we can sit back and grow fat while we eat, eliminating exercise and adding to the desire for fatty foods.  Some restaurants even have online ordering, a few years ago we'd actually have to get up to order on the phone but apparently standing is too much work for your food.  

What's in my refrigerator

In my refrigerator I have...

-1 jar of peanut butter -1 tub of cookie dough -12 eggs -lettuce -smoked sausage -rice -beer 

-mango nectar -3 cartons of milk -cranberry juice -tomato sauce -butter -mayonnaise -cream

-cans of soda (mostly coke)

Most of the things in my fridge are healthy, while it may look like a fatty diet these food items were bought in bulk and usually last a much longer time.  I think that in terms of the food in the refrigerator my diet is fairly healthy  and while some of the food may have pesticides in them, which are virtually unavoidable, they're still fairly natural.  My own personal belief is that a healthy diet is based on having a balance of different foods and personalizing it for your body type which comes from an understanding of your body  

Health Unit Final thoughts

Throughout this unit I've thought about what it means to be "healthy" in a variety of areas and how that effects your life.  The obvious conclusion is that if you're healthy you'll live a better life, you'll be able to do more, feel better etc. but what does being healthy actually mean? and how can we become healthy?

To be physically healthy means that you exercise and eat right, specifically eating what works for you, if you're over weight eat less, if under eat more etc. there is no universal diet.  Just as there is no universal diet there is no universal exercise plan, everything is based on the person and what makes them feel better.  Being physically healthy will increase your lifespan, make you happier and able to the things you love, an obvious requirement to a good life.

My own definition of mental health, ignoring the "averages" system that ask people to fit a certain criteria, is reacting correctly to a situation, most people say that if you're depressed all the time "you have problems" but if there is something in you're life to make you depressed then why not be depressed, it's an appropriate reaction to the situation.  Being happy all the time like we try to be isn't healthy either unless you live a pampered life where people go out of their ways to make you happy.  The only way to be emotionally unhealthy by my definition is to have a condition or disorder that prevents you from reacting correctly to situations, or not expressing those reactions appropriately, hiding sadness or anger is unhealthy since you aren't reacting to the situation, you're feeling an emotion and hiding it, reaction involves expression of an emotion.

Moral health can be trickier since not everyone has the same moral code.  My criteria for moral health is to have a moral code, and understanding it.  While someone can easily say things like I'll never lie, I'll never cheat, I'll never steal, they might have to do those things to survive, and thats the problem.  What if you had to choose between death and disobeying your moral code? I can't answer this question for anyone other than myself, this is a question for the individual, but knowing the answer to this question and knowing your moral code leads to moral health.  Being morally unhealthy is not being able to justify your actions and not having a moral code, having a code means you will be able to justify anything you do because you chose that action.  Not knowing what you're willing to do is unhealthy because you can't live your life if you don't know how you're going to live it.

The idea of life to attain the highest levels of all of these kinds of health.  Knowing who you are, in your mind, body and morals will help you learn about yourself.  Self understanding will help you know how to improve yourself and how to become a better person and each culture places these health standards on its people to shape them into better people.  My own personal belief is that a good life is one you enjoy, and a meaningful life is one that leaves behind a legacy and one where you live as the best person you can be.        

My Emotional Health

My own personal definition of emotional health is being able to react appropriately to situations.  Our main assumption of an emotionally unhealthy person is someone who is constantly depressed or angry, which are fine emotions and can't be escaped.  Someone who experiences these emotions at the wrong times is emotionally unhealthy, someone who is constantly depressed without a good reason is emotionally unhealthy.  Someone who expresses an inappropriate degree of an emotion is also unhealthy.  Extreme anger or extreme sadness in situations that aren't extreme are unhealthy reactions.  Likewise people who bottle up emotions and don't express them are also unhealthy.  These people aren't reacting at all, non-reaction can be an inappropriate reaction to a situation, emotions are meant to be felt and not feeling them or expressing them is unhealthy.

I'm emotionally healthy when I'm doing things I like which usually make me calm or happy, this would imply that I'm enjoying myself and something good is happening to trigger the happy response.  Note that I'm also healthy when I'm feeling sad or angry in a sad or angry situation, respectively, but I don't feel healthy because I'm in a negative mood.  These activities include hanging out with friends, playing video games, practicing martial arts, virtually anything that can put me in a good mood.  Things that put me in a good mood are usually social, creative and mentally or physically stimulating activities, as science would likely point to, being that the emotion happiness connects to activities that improve survival and encourage the animal to repeat these (humans included).

I don't feel emotionally unhealthy because if I'm depressed or angry its usually because I should feel depressed or angry in that situation.  Feeling bad isn't unhealthy, its just a reaction to a situation, therefore no activity can make someone emotionally unhealthy by my definition, the person must have a pre-existing condition or manifest their own emotional problems to react inappropriately to a situation.  For me I only feel especially emotionally healthy or neutrally healthy, just as someone may feel especially physically healthy when they're at the gym and not feel anything when they're going about their business.