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February 28, 2024

Isabell Hope Garcia

California Polytechnic State University
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407

Dear Professor Garcia:

My name is Emily Moreno Rodriguez and I have written a persuasive essay for your English 134
class. It has been interesting and very informational writing about the effects of unhealthy diets.
After reading my essay you will understand the importance of eating healthy foods to prevent
damage to your body

I begin my essay with a series of facts to give my audience an idea about how much of our nation
is impacted by unhealthy diets. Throughout my essay I provide shocking statistics regarding
diseases caused by these unhealthy diets. We need start paying more attention to our overall
health to prevent irreversible damage to our bodies. While many may not agree with me, I have
provided solutions to certain arguments people may have towards healthy diets.

I utilized logos in my essay by explaining how much money our nation would save with less
people getting sick due to health problems. By utilizing first-hand experience and credible
websites, ethos is built in the essay. Pathos is seen towards the beginning of the essay when the
affect that mental health has with unhealthy foods is discussed. Kairos is being used as well by
placing my rebuttal after I explain the importance of incorporating fruits and vegetables into your
diet.

Great health and nutrition are something I am very passionate about, and I hope after reading my
essay you learn something new.

Sincerely,

Emily Moreno
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Emily Moreno

Professor Hope

ENGL 134

25 February 2024

The Importance of Healthy Eating

678,000 deaths each year in just the U.S. occur due to unhealthy diets. Obesity, heart

disease, cancer, and type 2 diabetes have been some of the factors for this. (Why Good Nutrition

is Important 2018). We often get consumed with all the things we have to get done within our

day that when it comes to nutrition most people don’t prioritize it. Not only that but it is hard to

find time within our days as college students to cook something for ourselves. I personally don’t

prioritize my nutrition because I tend to get busy and eat anything easily accessible to me. But

seeing my energy rapidly decrease throughout my day has made me realize, what you eat makes

a big difference in your performance throughout our day.

A large number of problems sprout from diet within the U.S. According to The Center for

Science in the Public Interest website there are about more than 174,100,000 people in the

United States right now living with a sickness or disability related to poor diet. 78,100,000 of

them are living with obesity. (Why Good Nutrient is important 8 Science in the public Interest).

These sicknesses have increased our mortality rate in the U.S. As the years go by the number of

people getting sick because of poor health have been doubling. Not just physical health gets

provoked but mental health as well. The Departments of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences states

that diet may influence psychiatric disorders that aims towards mood (Diet, Stress and Mental

Health 3). The main reason for this is people not caring or prioritizing their diet. Some prioritize
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it so late, that the damage to their body is almost irreversible. The same website reported the

estimated cost for a person per year of health care cost $8,900. A one percent reduction in dietary

health risk were to save each person $83 to $103 per year. Our country would save $158 billion

in the next 10 years. (Why Good Nutrient is Important 11 Science in the public Interest). Lots of

money goes into our health care and the main thing its getting used on is health research. With

the money that we would save, it could be imputed into other research or be put in improving our

country.

Watching what you eat and making sure it is an equal balance of nutrition is important

because it could affect your state of performance. One of these ways is following a diet plan that

works for you. According to a study done by MESA sleep ancillary study, one of the better diets

is the Mediterranean diet. It is rich in unsaturated fats and tends to be associated with long life

spans and low rates of cardiovascular disease (Diet, Stress and Mental Health 8). The diet

doesn’t necessarily mean to restrict yourself from eating certain things, it just means to mainly

incorporate fruits and vegetables. Having a larger portion of foods that contain nutrition in your

body will make a complete difference by producing more serotonin and amino acids, which will

improve your mood and overall mental health. A study shows just by eating fruits and vegetables

helps your metal health by reducing the likelihood of getting depression or committing suicide

(How diet can affect mental health: The likely link between food and the brain 2). So, by eating

healthy food we can improve our health. Healthy food alone is one of the biggest fixes you can

do to prevent certain disease, but it is not the entire fix. However, diet can reduce those diseases.
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Link between the benefits of Mediterranean diet nutrition and a healthy brain.

Some may argue that it is time consuming trying to find something to eat that is healthy.

Not only that but some people have limited eating schedules and can’t always cook. Others are

not in control of what they eat. The most common issue is people think it’s too expensive, but

there are multiple resources that can help. Meal prepping is one of the most common strategies

used to help eat better that only takes a couple hours to do for the whole week. Healthy foods

may be a problem as well, but food banks are always a great resource to use. If money and time

is an issue still, there are also many government programs available like Cal Fresh that give you

a monthly balance of money to buy groceries. For college students you can make prepacked

snacks to take between classes so you have something to eat rather than choose not so healthy

snacks. Your future health is what is most affect by your diet. Having good health will help you

avoid dieses that can be harming to you. Focusing on your diet will allow you to have good

strength and healthy bones and teeth. Your mood levels with be much higher and you'll have
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higher energy throughout the day (Diet, Stress and Mental Health 27). This also means your

brain health will be better and you'll have better memory.

Prioritizing your diet is essential to a healthy lifestyle. Bad health will expose you to

multiple problems. When we often eat pure junk foods or high processed foods, that tend to

contain a high amount of carbohydrates which our body stores. With these high amounts it

causes a high metabolic load on the body, and we become more tired and unmotivated to do

anything. This does help bring energy, but it is only temporally. Not only that but when we are

eating purely sugary foods and highly processed foods will cause weight gain and possibly lead

to obesity. Having these conditions can put you higher at risk of 13 types of cancer. (Poor

Nutrition 8 CDC). Being aware of these energy levels is important because you can easily

confuse what is good for you and what is not. Not only will unhealthy diets expose you to

diseases, but it will lead to causing disabilities. Before you know it, it may be too late to reverse

the damage.

To recap unhealthy diets have been very damaging to several people across the country,

but there are many different solutions in order to solve it. By slowly incorporating these solutions

into your diet your health will be great and you’ll have much less problems. One of the first

things you can start to do is slowly pay attention to what you are ingesting. Making sure you are

eating things that help give you energy, or even making small adjustments like buying a drink

with less sugar than you typically buy. These small changes can slowly help boost your

immunity. Doing these things now can prevent that damage that is to come for your body. You

can slowly decrease the rate at which these risks start to form. For example, by eating healthier

your body is less likely to get diseases at a young age because you're taking precaution now by

giving yourself the right nutrition. Good health will also allow you to be mentally healthy
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meaning you can help those around you when you can. The time is now to build these healthy

eating habits.
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Works Cited

Ashton, J. (2018). How diet can affect mental health: The likely link between food and the brain

ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Wellness/diet-affect-mental-health-link-food-

brain/story?id=53387207

Bremner, J., Moazzami, K., Wittbrodt, M., Nye, J., Lima, B., Gillespie, C., Rapaport, M.,

et al. (2020). Diet, Stress and Mental Health. Nutrients, 12(8), 2428. MDPI AG.

Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu12082428

Link between Mediterranean diet nutrition and healthy brain. 2013.Nutritional modulation of

cognitive function and mental health, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnutbio.2013.01.002

Parletta, N., Milte, C. M., & Meyer, B. J. (2013). Nutritional modulation of cognitive

function and mental health. Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, 24(5), 725–743.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnutbio.2013.01.002

Why good nutrition is important. Center for Science in the Public Interest. (2018,

May 17). https://www.cspinet.org/eating-healthy/why-good-nutrition-important

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Essay Reflection

1. Describe one of your process artifacts and explain how it shows evidence of your

progress towards one of the following course learning outcomes:

o EO1 Explain how audience and rhetorical situation influence topic, genre,

content, and style in composing effective written communications.

When I was deciding what to write about, I thought about the things that relate to my

peers and I that would be easy to write about. Food is a big topic among us because we

constantly complain about the dining hall food, and about freshman fifteen, where you either

gain or lose fifteen pounds your first year. Knowing that my audience would mainly be my peers,

college students, I knew I had to talk about solutions that would apply to us. For example, on my

rebuttal I explained that most people don’t have money to buy healthy foods, but I mentioned

applying for food stamps or utilizing food banks. For time being a problem, I offered the solution

to meal prep on weekends. Knowing my audience made it easier for me to know what

information would be most effective in my essay.

2. You wrote a persuasive essay, a type (or genre) of essay that many writers have written

before you. Describe the writing techniques and rhetorical strategies of this genre as you

understand them. What are some of the typical moves that writers make when working in

this genre? How did these genre moves support your discussion of an issue that is

important to you and your community?

When writing a persuasive essay an outline makes it easier to collect all your thoughts

and know what you are going to talk about. For me it also helps me see the areas within my

essay that are weak and need more work. One rhetorical strategy often used in a persuasive essay

is cause and effect. Using this rhetorical strategy helps present what will happen if the audience
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doesn’t agree with the writer. One of the common things done in a persuasive essay is using the

most obvious rebuttal, because doing so helps build your argument. I did this in my essay when I

mentioned resources you can use. A known fact is healthy food tends to cost a lot, so I made sure

to shut that idea down by mentioning the many resources you have to access healthy foods. I

used cause and affect a lot in my essay by mentioning the many diseases you can get by not

eating healthy which helped me persuade my audience to eat healthy.

3. What is the strongest part of your final draft? Explain why. What is the weakest part? If

you could revise this essay again, what would you like to change? Explain why.

The strongest part of my essay would be my introduction. There is a lot of shocking

statistics about unhealthy diets that most people don’t know about which catches the

audience’s attention right away. My weakest paragraph would be my third one because it

contains a lot of evidence, but not that much explanation. I didn’t back up my evidence as

much as I wanted to so it’s not as effective as I wanted it to be. If I could revise again I

would add more explanation to my evidence throughout the essay to emphasize the points I

wanted to get across by using them.