Research Paper Example on Healthy Eating Patterns

📌Category: Food, Health
📌Words: 1029
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 21 June 2022

Across the world, a large portion of the population struggles with embracing a healthy diet. Poor diets are a substantial problem, which have tremendous repercussions. As obesity rates and diabetes have been on the rise for the past few decades, healthy eating has become a crucial issue. It is important that there is a change to improve so many of the lives that struggle with maintaining healthy diets. This can happen by making nutritional health a priority for all ages, most importantly the young. Recognizing the significance of a poor diet on overall health is crucial. However, addressing what causes people to have a poor diet must be examined before a solution can be found. 

What do people eat, how much do they eat, and what can happen if someone isn't eating well are important questions to consider. These questions will help discover if healthy eating truly is a problem. An anonymous 100 people around the age of high school were questioned in a study. According to the study only 16% of the thirteen through eighteen-year-olds reported to have a full lunch daily. When it comes to breakfast, 63% of the students said they don't eat breakfast at all (Andonova, 166). The Journal of Sciences experiment showed how so many individuals have unhealthy diets are and how little they know about healthy eating. The lack of nutritious foods is an important problem to address because it can lead to many health problems. Psycho-Oncology published the article, “Attributions of Cause and Recurrence in Long-Term Breast Cancer Survivors” that asked a group of breast cancer survivors what factors played a role in the cancer not returning. Although there is no scientific evidence on why cancer occurs, Stewart went to a primary source in his article to get their first-hand opinions. Breast cancer survivors took a survey, asking what they believe caused the breast cancer to recur, around 50% of the survivors said that it was their diet (Stewart, 181). Cancer is a word with a lot of weight, and a poor diet may increase the possibility of cancer, making the issue very serious. 

Oftentimes, the environment and events outside of a person’s control are blamed for unhealthy eating. Although, it turns out that the problem is internal. A study tested if people’s major positive or negative turning points in life caused them to have unhealthy and healthy eating habits. Approximately 1,186,400 Dutch adults had diabetes in 2018. In Polhuis’ article, the experiment was done in the Netherlands because it was found interesting how some Dutch natives suffer from type 1 diabetes, while others did not, even though Dutch typically eat the same foods. In the study, Dutch people were interviewed to understand what their turning points were and what its effects were. Participants’ reported turning points that included; death of a spouse, hitting rock bottom with depression, getting married, having children, and moving out of a parent’s house. “The findings imply that individual differences in coping strategies for healthy eating are not the result of specific experiences or personal factors, but of a reflective, positive attitude towards life, and the presence of psychosocial (general and specific) resources'' (Polhuis, 17). The study showed that even though people experience turning points, their diet is primarily affected by mental status. The research uncovered that people use food as a coping mechanism because they aren’t in a routine while eating. Routines become daily patterns. Without scheduling what is being eaten and when, it allows for other influences to impact nutrition.

The solution is to educate kids while they are young. Proactive health education will train children to have good eating habits into adulthood. In the article “Why Do We Eat?” schools and parents are recommended to educate young minds on dietary health. It also explains what kids don't understand and what they need to know and do for a healthier future. “Children learn facts about biological processes, such as that dirty food or water makes you sick... this is a monumental achievement and is impressive for young children. They lack the ability to connect these facts to create a coherent, unified, conceptual structure that is what is needed to argue that young children have a framework theory of biology” (Raman, 401-402). Children need to understand that they don't just eat different meals because it’s a different time of day, but they get different nutrients in each meal. If they understand why people need to eat, they will begin to understand the theory of biology. With this knowledge, the children are more likely to choose foods that benefit their bodies and eating will become a healthy routine. Educating young minds about proper nutrition and health will prevent poor dietary habits from even being started, and our world will become a place with an increased population of healthy eating habits.

People’s eating habits are problematic to their health. Even the survey taken by breast cancer survivors suggested that diet can have an effect on breast cancer returning. Unhealthy habits are not caused by events that are uncontrollable, healthy eating is manageable and controllable. It is turning points in life where their mental health is altered, which causes them to not have a routine for their eating which consequently creates unhealthy dietary choices. The solution to unhealthy diets comes down simply to educating our younger generation to prevent bad habits from starting. Children can learn how to have a healthy routine with their eating choices and patterns. Although this may seem like an uncomplicated plan to a very complicated issue, it will solve the root of the problem. Having a stable eating routine will help people not to lean on dietary vices as a coping mechanism. If schools and parents used tips and recommendations from the article “Why Do We Eat?” the amount of undernourished and overindulging people could be reduced globally. 

Works Cited 

Andonova, A. “Diet and Awareness of Students about Healthy Eating.” Trakia Journal of Sciences, vol. 18, Nov. 2020, pp. 163–167. EBSCOhost, doi:10.15547/tjs.2020.s.01.030.

Raman, Lakshmi. “Why Do We Eat? Children’s and Adults’ Understanding of Why We Eat Different Meals.” Journal of Genetic Psychology, vol. 172, no. 4, Oct. 2011, pp. 401–413. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/00221325.2010.550526.

Polhuis, C. M. M., et al. “Salutogenic Model of Health to Identify Turning Points and Coping Styles for Eating Practices in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.” International Journal for Equity in Health, vol. 19, no. 1, June 2020, pp. 1–20. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1186/s12939-020-01194-4.

Mikkelsen, Bent Egberg. “Declining Role of Governments in Promoting Healthy Eating: Time to Rethink the Role of the Food Industry?” Scandinavian Journal of Nutrition, vol. 49, no. 3, Sept. 2005, pp. 127–130. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/11026480500237640.

Stewart, D. E., et al. “Attributions of Cause and Recurrence in Long-Term Breast Cancer Survivors.” Psycho-Oncology, vol. 10, no. 2, Mar. 2001, pp. 179–183. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1002/pon.497.

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