The Food/Activity Journal was really
beneficial for me to take an analytical look at what I was eating,
drinking, and how much exercise I was getting. I think one of the
most important things I did in my Food/Activity Journal was to look
at how much sleep I was getting each night. Not enough! I noticed
that my eating habits were sporadic. If I would have put a time next
to each time I eat, it would have shown that I go long periods
without eating anything. And usually during those times, when I do
eat something, it isn't a well planned, nutritious snack or meal. My
work schedule during the weekend has a lot to do with that- I'm a
barista and usually work long shifts without a break.
My job also helps contribute to what
I'm now referring to as my coffee addiction, which is one of the
things I wanted to change as my goal for the last week of my journal.
The other thing I noticed was that I have terrible sleeping habits.
Almost every night, I would fall asleep on my couch instead of my
bed. I usually wake up about half way through the night and then
sleep a few more hours in my bed. The poor sleep quality and far less
than eight hours per night of sleep were a bad combination, and
something that I wanted to change as part of my goal.
I feel like I've made baby steps
towards my goal. The easiest goal for me to change was to alter my
sleeping patterns. I've actually fallen asleep in my own bed for the
last week, and slept at least (and sometimes longer than!) eight
hours a night, with a few exceptions. At work, I've learned to drink
water instead of making myself coffee drinks (with the exception of
my cup of drip coffee when I get there, which is completely necessary
for me in order to wake up and actually be nice to customers, I've
found). I have another goal for myself, and that is to do more
planning for what I'm going to consume during the day. If I stock up
my apartment with healthy snacks and meals for the upcoming day, I
will be less likely to eat what is around and available, and not
necessarily nutritious.
This activity helps reinforce that
what we put in our bodies have a paramount effect on us. It goes back
to that old saying- you are what you eat. On the last day of class,
the point was brought up that there are certain, crucial nutrients
that our bodies need that we can only get from certain foods.
Antioxidants found in lots of fruits and vegetables play a vital role
in keeping our whole bodies healthy. In a class, we could investigate
the effects of antioxidants on different systems in the body.
Something I was thinking about doing with a project like the
Food/Activity Journal is to have students look at what kinds of foods
they are eating, and then further delve into where those foods come
from, how they're processed (if they are), and look at what affect
that food might have on the human body. For a math project, students
could calculate the distance and gas mileage that was required to
transport the food (i.e. an eggo waffle would probably start in a
corn/wheat field somewhere, be transported to a processing plant, to
another factory, to stores, and so on). If we had time for a project,
they could even visually represent their work via a map. This was
just one broad idea, and I think that there are just so many
applications that a food journal could have. It makes it personal to
the student, and brings up bigger ideas about where food comes from,
what is done to processed food before we consume it, and what effects
that may have on them.
