Annotated Bibliography
Lobb, Annelena. "Eating Habits -- A Look At the Average U.S. Diet." The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, 17 Sept. 2005. Web. 27 Feb. 2017. This wall Street Journal article shows what the average US diet looks like in the 21st century, and how this average diet has changed compared to pas decades. The article shows that children are eating more junk food, such as fried food, most proven processed food, and sugary snacks. In fact the only thing children are eating less of compared to 1977 is vegetables. The article also shows that Americans consume well over 100 pound of flour, and 30 pounds of confectionery items per year, which constitutes a shocking amount of refined carbohydrate intake. This article shows how drastically the western diet has changed in a relatively short amount of time, compared to dietary changed among other cultures over time. This data is perfect for our case as it show the existence of a real problem which must be addressed.
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Nelson, Melissa C., Mary Story, Nicole I. Larson, Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, and Leslie A. Lytle. "Emerging Adulthood and College-aged Youth: An Overlooked Age for Weight-related Behavior Change." Obesity 16.10 (2008): 2205-211. Web. This article discusses the modern phenomena of a new life stage, termed "emerging adulthood. The article defines this life stage as the time between roughly 18-25 years old, wherein an individual develops their autonomy, forges their long term identity, pursues financial independence, and develops lifelong habits. The article shows that this critical part of development and maturation is often overlooked, especially as it pertains to the development of life habits regarding diet and health. Many people do not realize that the habits one forms during this time are difficult to break, and so more people should focus on implementing habits which will serve them well later in life, such as exercising and eating healthy food. This article is perfect support for our message that diet is extremely important in college. We can use this article to argue that college students are clearly in this formative time period, and so dietary habits forged during this time are very important.
Pratt LA, Brody DJ. Depression and obesity in the U.S. adult household population, 2005–2010. This article published by the National Institute of Health show a strong correlation between obesity and depression. The article posits and discusses a great deal of research regarding depression and obesity among several demographics. This article explored the possibility of a metabolic cause of the recent depression increase, rather than a neuro-chemical cause, since 55% of obese people taking antidepressants still reported moderate to severe bouts of depression. This research is key for our case, because it totally debunks the notion that obese people are jolly and carefree. Obviously no one wants to be depressed, and if we can show a clear link between unhealthy diet and poor mental health in the short term, we can give our audience all the more reason to change their lifestyle, since poor eating is correlated with immediate and severe negative effects, rather than some vague, distant risk of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes
Reeves, Mathew J. "Healthy Lifestyle Characteristics Among Adults in the United States, 2000." Archives of Internal Medicine. American Medical Association, 25 Apr. 2005. Web. 27 Feb. 2017. This article reflected on research conducted via phone interview to analyze how many Americans had several predetermined healthy lifestyle characteristics (HLCs). The four HLCs used in the study were 1. non-smoking 2. healthy weight 3. 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day, and 4. physical activity of one hour per day. out of 153,000 people analyzed, only 3% displayed all four HLCs. This research shows that very few people are truly healthy in the US, and the rest are neglecting their health in one or more major ways. Once again this study is useful for our case, since it shows the true extent and severity of the problem. Despite the criteria for a healthy lifestyle being fairly lax, only a few people met the conditions. Additionally, one could potentially meet all 4 HLCs and still be unhealthy, so the true percentage of healthy people is even smaller). This article shows that the unhealthy western lifestyle has reached epidemic proportions.
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Sathyanarayana Rao, T. Asha, M., Ramesh, B.Jagannatha Rao, K. "Understanding nutrition, depression and mental illnesses" Indian Journal of Psychiatry. US National Library of Medicine National Institute of Health, Apr-Jun 2008. Web. 24 Feb. 2017.
This article completely elucidates the link between depression and poor diet. This article shows that depression leads to poor appetite as well as cravings for unhealthy foods. In turn, poor appetite leads to worsening depression. Whether one becomes depressed because of their poor diet, or if their poor diet leads them to depression and thus more poor dietary habits. Additionally this article suggests a link between reduced consumption of omega 3 and other such healthy fats and the modern depression epidemic. This article is useful for making our case for many of the same reasons as other the other articles along these same lines presented herein, however this article is not redundant because it provides a much more in-depth explanation of the physiology behind the connection between diet and mental health.
Racette, Susan B., Susan S. Deusinger, Michael J. Strube, Gabrielle R. Highstein, and Robert H. Deusinger. "Weight Changes, Exercise, and Dietary Patterns During Freshman and Sophomore Years of College." Journal of American College Health 53.6 (2005): 245-51. Web. This article shows how the majority of students gain weight in the first two years of college, and how this weight gain is correlated with poor diet. 70% of freshmen do not each 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day, 30% ate at least three meals of high fat fast food in the previous week, and 29% did not exercise. The authors argue that this shocking trend of unhealthy diet among college students is partially responsible for the obesity epidemic and obesity late in life. This article is perfect for our case, as it gives the necessary statistics to show that there really is a dietary problem among college students, and these poor diet habits can have major consequences in both the short and long term.
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