Blume 1

Abigail Blume

Prof. Porter

Eng 1202

March 18, 2022

How does our diety truly affect our body and mental health?

How does our diet truly affect our Body and mental health? That is a question that I have been

curious about for a long time. Through this research product there are a multitude of different questions I

would like to ask that center around this specific question. For instance I would like to see how fad diets

most specifically affect our mental health as well as how it affects our bodies. Wherher or not certain

diets have more benefits or more risks on how our bodies work. Finding some answers to these questions,

or maybe not necessarily answers, but some more understandings would be good to understand.

Dieting overtime has had a rollercoaster of different avenues to explore. With science constantly

changing the new food diets that come out, or what’s best for people has changed over time. From diets

that were propmoted by celebrities, to diets that are backed by science and evidence from todays day and

age diets have changed drastically over time. (Nguyen).

One of the questions I wanted to ask is how strict or outrageous diets could affect your mental

health. There is an effect that was studied in an experiment done on a group of particpants who were and

weren’t on a diet, and how much food they ate. It was said that those on a diet if told they ate food that

was more then they normall would eat, they said “What the Heck?” and ended up having more to eat then

those who weren’t on a diet. This was surprising to the researchers and that’s why the term is called the

“What the Hell?” affect in dieters. (Parker-Pope)

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Food can be used to help those who have undergone a tragic accident. From some accidents

metabolic and phsiological alterations can affect the body a lot. Due to this sometimes it is better to give a

patient more food, and other times its better to not give a patient any food. (Kurtx, Rocha)

Due to the increasing amount of information we have learned about nutrition that has changed

how we give those advice. A popular job that has come about is dietician or nutritionist. They are those

that help patients better their eating habits, or help those come back from an eating disorder. (KU Medical

Center).

Every country has a different diet that can either help the healht of the population, or harm them.

For instance, a french diet is that they eat a lot of high quality food but stress portion control. As well as

having other diets like in South Africa where they eat small amounts of meat, and eat low fat high fiber

foods. Through these different diets we can learn from them and see which ones have the best affects on

the human body. (DiNuzzo)

This topic of dieting is going to be different from person to person. Some people have a good

relationship with food, whereas others may not. This could be due to a number of different factors that

have played a role in their life. So it is important to take that into consideration when writing the paper.

The answer that I found may not necessarily be the answer for everyone else.

To answer my question I would have to say that every diet is different and we have to look into

our own bodies and how they react and interact with differnet foods to know the true diet that would be

best for us. Some diets can slow someone down, others can speed someone up. Some can make you gain

weight quickly, or lose weight quickly. Mentally it also depends on the person and the type of experiences

that they have endured. Diets can help your mental health, or they can damage it.
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DiNuzzo, Emily, “10 healthy eating havits from around the world that Americans could

learn from”, Insider, https://www.insider.com/how-do-people-diet-in-other-countries-2017-

9#brazilians-focus-on-whole-traditional-foods-and-eat-together-1, Accessed 5 March 2022

KU Medical Center, The University of Kansas, “What is a Dietitian?”,

https://www.kumc.edu/school-of-health-professions/academics/departments/dietetics-and-

nutrition/career-paths/what-is-a-dietitian.html, Accessed 5 March 2022

Kurtz, Pedro, Rocha E.M., Eduardo, “Nutrition Therapy, Glucose Control, and Brain

Metabolism in Traumatic Brain Injury: A multimodal Monitoring Approach”, DOAJ,

https://doaj.org/article/dc815832f2ca4d33a58779c71ffbfd1e, Accessed 5 March 2022

Nguyen, Stephanie, “Tapeworms, Liquid Fasts, and Breatharians- Here are 25 Fad diets THat Did

Not Stand the Test of Time”, Parade, https://parade.com/1255467/steph-nguyen/fad-diets/,

Accessed 19 March 2022

Pope, Tyra, “Try Intuitive Eating to Break the Diet Cycle” The New York Times,

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/17/well/eat/intuitive-eating-diet-cycle.html, Accessed 5 March

2022