Effects of Eating Habits
CHAPTER 1
The problem and its BACKGROUND
Introduction
“Lifestyles have changed considerably over the years. With the hurried lifestyles of today’s families, quick and nutritional meals have become typical, and adolescents are adopting these unhealthy eating habits. Consequently, these adolescents pose greater risk to all aspects of development, including cognitive development." Due to the demands of the rush-day-to-day living of individuals, it is now but natural for them to prefer foods offered by fast-food chains or favor instant meals than home-made foods because it takes lesser time to prepare instant meals. Nonetheless, they likely sacrifice the important nutrients they should have obtained from healthier foods. According to the Nutrition Cognition Initiative, “continuous low nutritional intake affects factors such as motivation and attentiveness, which can have a negative effect on developmental process such as learning. Chronically undernourished children and adolescents are more prone to irritability and lack of concentration. Consequently, they attain lower scores on standardized achievement tests. Furthermore, when children are undernourished, they have more difficulty resisting infection. Thus, they are more likely to get sick, miss school and fall behind in class. Because of their lack of inadequate nutrients, they are low in energy, which can limit their physical activity, and this, in turn, affects cognitive functioning.”
Eating habits as defined, refers to “what food we eat, how we eat it and why we eat it. These change over one’s lifespan and across generations.” Our food preferences differ from what we want before at a younger age to what we want now as we enter adolescence. And as we grow-up, we tend to be more concerned of our health, however, we become repulsive in changing our eating habits unless health problems makes us to do so. As said by Nancy Clarke, editor of medical books, positive effects are for everyone who practices
The problem and its BACKGROUND
Introduction
“Lifestyles have changed considerably over the years. With the hurried lifestyles of today’s families, quick and nutritional meals have become typical, and adolescents are adopting these unhealthy eating habits. Consequently, these adolescents pose greater risk to all aspects of development, including cognitive development." Due to the demands of the rush-day-to-day living of individuals, it is now but natural for them to prefer foods offered by fast-food chains or favor instant meals than home-made foods because it takes lesser time to prepare instant meals. Nonetheless, they likely sacrifice the important nutrients they should have obtained from healthier foods. According to the Nutrition Cognition Initiative, “continuous low nutritional intake affects factors such as motivation and attentiveness, which can have a negative effect on developmental process such as learning. Chronically undernourished children and adolescents are more prone to irritability and lack of concentration. Consequently, they attain lower scores on standardized achievement tests. Furthermore, when children are undernourished, they have more difficulty resisting infection. Thus, they are more likely to get sick, miss school and fall behind in class. Because of their lack of inadequate nutrients, they are low in energy, which can limit their physical activity, and this, in turn, affects cognitive functioning.”
Eating habits as defined, refers to “what food we eat, how we eat it and why we eat it. These change over one’s lifespan and across generations.” Our food preferences differ from what we want before at a younger age to what we want now as we enter adolescence. And as we grow-up, we tend to be more concerned of our health, however, we become repulsive in changing our eating habits unless health problems makes us to do so. As said by Nancy Clarke, editor of medical books, positive effects are for everyone who practices