The Myth of the Perfect body
As many other girls, I’m one who wants to be pretty too. So I think my opinion can somehow indicates today’s societies views of the ‘perfect body’. Barbie doll, comic, cartoon, actress and singers from tv, they seem to have the perfect body that every girls wants. For my opinion, an ideal pretty girl (only from looking) is someone who is thin (attention, I use thin but not skinny), tall, long legs, big chest, little waist, small face, shinny hair, big eyes, good skin…etc. we compare ourselves to our imaginary body and we are willing to do anything to get ourselves close to the ‘perfect body’. It’s very certain that people today, usually girls, are very obsessed with their bodies. They force themselves to go on a diet, even to starve themselves. They force their body to do excessive exercise that may help them lose weight. And tremendous amount of people will spend huge amount of money to ‘fix’ their body, this could include the use of medicines and surgeries. I’ve watched a show on tv that was talking about why people taking drugs. One of the reasons, which mostly happened in girls, is that they heard taking drugs would make them thin. There was one girl, she admitted that she was just trying to make herself pretty; she felt unconfident and depressing because she was fat. So some drug-dealer told her that taking drug will help her achieve her goal, and when she’s skinny enough, she could just stop. She listened and she took the drug, but that just end her life. She’s gone too far that she could no longer control herself. In the show, she said she regret, but it’s too late. As we can see, a lot people today are not ‘perfecting’ their body but ruining it. After watching the video “Becoming Barbie”, I learned that what we call ‘perfect body’ is not a possible body. If we force ourselves to be like that, we’re just making something possible to be impossible, and that’ll take some risk. For now, I think a ‘perfect body’ is one that functions the best, is one that makes ourselves most comfortable, is one that’s able to doing things we want to do.
Food and your Mood
This article shows us how food can affect our mood. It states that carbohydrates can have a calming effect, as they cause the amino acid tryptophan to enter the brain in greater amounts, which is then converted into a neurotransmitter (serotonin), that has soothing effects. Eating foods rich in protein also helps produce dopamine and norepinephrine, which can help boost our energy, keep us focused and relieve stress. High-protein breakfast is a smart choice which help us stay more alert. In addition, chocolate and other sugary foods can raise our blood sugar level, which will create brain chemical changes that help to make us more calm, that is why we are told to eat a chocolate bar before tests! Food with caffeine can boost our alertness and improve our clarity, however, taking too much will have an adverse reaction. The minerals in food can also help us. Such as magnesium is considered to be an antistress mineral, copper can assists iron absorption, which helps red blood cells deliver oxygen to all parts of body. For a healthy person, lunch should be high in protein and low in fat, but dinner should be high carbohydrate and low-protein. In conclusion, foods such as apples, bananas, fish and milk can also help us to improve our mood one way or another.
The Hunger that Kills
Lynn’s daughter Sheena died of starvation. By the time she died, her body wasted away to a mere 50 pounds. Although she had some therapies and she gained some weight along the therapies, however it is the mental illness that caused her death. She had an unhappy childhood; she was sexually abused for several times. This all caused mental damage to her. She thinks that the food she intakes will make her dirty. She doesn’t feel eating and thus keeping starve herself. On the other hand, her mom did not recognize her eating disorder for almost 4 years, which shows that Lynn has not paid enough attention to her daugher. Although Lynn tried to help and save Sheena but it was too late. And the lack of understanding in relationship got into the way. From this fact, we could recognize how a person’s life or healthiness can be influenced by the environment, experience and parentage. A mutual relationship with parents and a happy life all have great impact on one’s mental and physical healthiness.
Dieting
In most of the times, people will think dieting is only about losing weight, changing body shape. However it is not healthy to just starve yourself. Food is the source that body intake nutrients which can be converted into energies for our daily activities. We will lose weight when our body uses more energy than it gets. However it does not mean not eat or eat little, because if our body constantly loses supply of nutrients, our organs will be damaged. For example, if we reduce the amount of energy we take in but do not exercise, our body will lose muscle tissue as well as fat. A good way to making ourselves fit is to combine a good eating strategy with physical exercise. A good eating strategy will prevent our body from harm and physical exercise will help us to burn the fat as muscles use more energy. in today’s world, we have a lot of business company who sue dieting as a way of getting money. We shouldn’t trust these stuff because most of them are not efficient, and some of them will even harm our body.
