Influences of Life Styles in Nutrition: A Dietician’s ...



Influences of Life Styles in Nutrition: A Dietician’s Point of View

In my personal experience essay, I introduced the topic of life styles and their influence in nutritional habits. I mentioned that I specifically wanted to focus on how the high - paced life of developed countries like the U.S contributes to unhealthy eating habits, as can be seen in the case of international students who first come to this country and experience nutritional problems. I used my own experience as an example to illustrate how hard it is for most international students to eat enough food and maintain a balanced diet at the same time.

As a starting point for my research, I formulated many interesting questions which I wanted to investigate in depth, some of which were: How healthy or unhealthy is the diet of the average American citizen? Does leaving for college primarily affect the eating habits of international students, or of all students in equal proportion? Why is fast food popular in the U.S? How has the life style of ancient Latin American cultures affected their diet? Does the modern life style of developed countries contribute to unhealthy nutritional practices? If so, in what ways? I needed answers to these questions in order to find the reasons why the modern American culture has a negative influence on eating habits.

The purpose of conducting this interview was precisely that: to find a person with enough expertise in the field of nutrition to provide me with enough insight on all of my questions. Finding the adequate person in the Foods and Nutrition Department at Purdue was not an easy task. Searching the department’s web page, I found a great number of professors who specialized in dietetics, but I wasn’t sure who would be more familiar with my topic. I decided to e-mail one of my former teachers to ask her for advice and she directed me to my interviewee, whom I contacted immediately through e-mail.

The person I interviewed was Donna Zoss, an associate professor of Food Safety at Purdue University. She is a Registered Dietician, which means she is a member of the American Dieticians Association. She also has a Master’s degree in nutrition from the University of Iowa and she currently works as a clinical dietician in St Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Lafayette. In this hospital she is in charge of cardiac rehabilitation, where she has to assist and encourage the patients to change their life style, especially their eating habits, in order to improve their heart condition. Mrs. Zoss replied my e-mail immediately, saying that she was more than willing to help me with my assignment. We set up an appointment for February 11th at 4pm at her office in Stone Hall. I decided to send her the questions beforehand so that she could be better prepared for the interview.

On the day of the interview, I went through my questions again and made a mental revision of all the additional things I wanted to ask her. I knew we wouldn’t have much time and I wanted to be make good use of it. I was extremely nervous when I knocked on her door, but as soon as she invited me to sit down and offered me a cookie, I felt the tension disappearing. She was young and she seemed very nice, which made her an easy person to talk to. We agreed to go over my questions and then talk about anything in particular that might be of interest to me.

In order to make a judgment on the quality of the average American diet, the first thing I needed to know was the exact definition of a balanced diet. According to Mrs. Zoss, a balanced diet was a diet that followed the food pyramid guide lines. The food pyramid, she explained, emphasizes on foods from the five major food groups. It consists of approximately 6-11 servings of breads, cereals, pasta and grains, 3-5 servings of vegetables, 2-4 servings of fruit, 2-3 servings of cheese, yogurt or milk and 2-3 servings of meat, poultry, fish, eggs or beans, depending on the person’s age, sex, size and level of activity. A balanced diet also had to have less than 30% in fat of the total calories consumed.

Now that I was more familiar with the definition of a balanced diet, I was ready to ask her why the average American diet is considered unhealthy. She replied that the American diet was very high in fat (the average fat calorie intake is more than 35%) and also very high in sodium, which is very harmful for heart disease conditions.

I was also interested in knowing when exactly had the American diet become unhealthy according to the national standards used to determine nutritional information. Her answer was that this problem had been going on for a long time, but that based on the incidence of obesity, we could say that it had become an issue of concern about 10 years ago. “The situation is becoming worse,” she explained with a look of concern on her face, “We are getting 2 or more people over 300 pounds every month at the hospital, which was really rare before. We are also getting a lot more kids who are severely overweight, which is an indicator of how this is a problem that has surfaced over the past few years.”

The next step was to establish the relationship between eating habits and life styles. I asked her how a person’s life style could directly affect their eating habits. She made clear to me that eating habits themselves were a component of life style and that there were many factors that determined whether they were healthy or unhealthy. “Some habits that have a negative influence in health are eating out too often (especially fast food), not spending enough time on meals, not eating meals on a regular basis, snacking too many times during the day, eating TV dinners and leading a sedentary life,” she mentioned.

In order to start narrowing down my topic, I asked her to give me her opinion on whether leaving for college primarily affected the eating habits of international students or all students in general. Her answer was close to what I had expected. She replied that she thought it probably affected international students in a higher proportion, because they weren’t used to American food and they didn’t know which food choices to make. However, she was of the opinion that most students were affected, because they got more freedom to eat what they wanted, they had more opportunities to eat between meals and they weren’t adequately informed on healthy food options. “You get to eat “special foods” all the time!” she remarked with a laugh.

Hearing her mention the words “special foods”, reminded me of my next question. “Why do you think fast food is so popular in the U.S?” I inquired. She raised her head towards the ceiling as if searching for an answer. She said there were many different reasons: the taste is appealing to consumers, it is easy to eat, it is very cheap and you can just eat it on the go. Her advice was that students who don’t have a lot of money and who cannot cook or don’t have time to do so, should become more aware of other healthy choices that can replace fast food. A good example she gave me was preparing oatmeal, an excellent source of fiber, protein, minerals and vitamins, which can be done in a few minutes in the microwave and definitely satisfies your hunger.

Now, I wanted her to make a comparison between the eating habits of people from less developed countries, like Latin American or Asian countries, and those of people from the United States. She explained that their culture was based more on grains, fruit and vegetables and not as much meat, so it was definitely lower in fat. Also, foods high in fat aren’t that readily available in undeveloped countries, so people have to rely more on agricultural products instead of the more expensive meat products. “You really don’t need as much meat as we like to think!” she exclaimed disapprovingly. According to her knowledge, the average American eats approximately 10 ounces of meat every day, when the recommended amount is only 6 ounces at the most.

Another aspect is that food is also a lot more expensive in undeveloped countries in comparison to income per capita, so people eat what they produce the most, that is what is most available and they also don’t eat out as much. In America, food is very inexpensive, restaurants give you huge serving sizes because they want you to come back and food is actually less expensive to them than labor costs.

Her previous remark about meat had brought to my mind yet another inquiry. “So you approve of vegetarian diets?” I asked. She replied that vegetarian diets had to be done correctly, that is, you had to replace the meat with other sources of protein and good fats, for example eggs, cheese, milk, tofu, soybeans, peas and rice. The problem with many people who become “vegetarians” is that they omit the meat from their diets but still eat the french fries, the pizzas, the biscuits, and other fatty foods, sometimes in even higher quantities.

At this point of our conversation, I felt I had obtained enough information from Mrs. Zoss. I thanked her effusively for her time, we shook hands, and she kindly led me to the door. Mrs Zoss’s remarks not only satisfied my inquiries, but also enforced my points of view on the subject. We both agree that there are many specific aspects of the American life style that are contributing to the development of unhealthy eating habits in many people and that this situation has to change. Her opinions will definitely prove valuable for my two subsequent papers, especially the argumentative assignment.

Smoking in Boarding Schools

The main focus of this essay is on whether the government is responsible for the teenagers’ smoking habit. In my personal experience essay, I talked about teenagers who studying in boarding school were more likely to smoke cigarettes than the daily school students. But after I have my interview with several of my friends, the result was rather different. In this essay too, I will try to find the main reasons why teenagers smoke cigarettes in their early ages. Also, in this essay I will introduce my interviewees and briefly summarize the interview that I conducted last week. From there I will conclude my findings and then I will state my opinion about the topic and decide whether to go on with this topic or to change the focus to something else.

Before conducting an interview, I contacted several of my friends, Shahrimi Salamat and Mohd Irwan Rasip where both of them are studying at local universities in Malaysia through emails. I also conducted an interview with my friend Yusri Hamzah who right now staying in Seoul, North Korea. The reason I have chosen them was because we came from the same education system, the boarding school, and we smoked cigarettes together back in high school. Moreover, it was easier to conduct an interview with a friend rather than a professor, as the professor would not know which kind of boarding school that I’m going to talk about in this interview. 

The first question in my interview was how long they have been involved in smoking cigarettes. Irwan and Shahrimi said they have been involved since the freshmen year in high school, which make it about 7 years of smoking. They also asserted that, they were influenced by the environment that we had in our early freshmen years, such as influences from the seniors which we saw hanging around the dormitory with cigarettes in their hands. And they also explained that some of us who smoked cigarettes were just to show off to other students and just to get some attentions from seniors. And that’s explained why some students thought that smoking cigarettes going to look matured and stylish. My friend, Irwan and Shahrimi nevertheless agreed with me that smoking cigarettes sometimes could eased the burden of so much homework and assignments at school. Besides that, smoking also helped to calm ourselves down when we have an examination and we did not well prepared for it and they (the cigarettes) became a friend that helped to get over our daily problems in school especially with teachers. 

In the next question, I asked them don’t they feel it is a waste of money when they spent their money just to buy and smoked a cigarettes. They laughed at me and they said, for self pleasure, every penny is worthy. Form there I can concluded they don’t really care about the money. And that’s what happening in the outside world. Smokers willing to do anything to get a pack of cigarettes and smoked whenever and wherever they can. To get into the focus of the essay, I asked them whether they think the advertisements from TVs and radios about selling and promoting cigarettes might be one of the main reason or factor that attracted them to smoke cigarettes in the first place. The answer was disappointing. They told me, advertisements were not the main reason they smoked cigarettes. They learned to smoke from seniors and their big brothers and they emphasized that surrounding environment was the key factor of one began learned to smoke cigarettes and sometimes did bad things.  

As we went on with the interview, I asked for their opinions whether smoking can be harmful not to the smoker himself but to others who are around them everyday such as their parents, sisters and brothers, and their love ones. Don’t they afraid the cigarettes can affected their families’ lives? And all my friends agreed with me. The smoke from cigarettes very harmful to others health indirectly and might cause lung cancers and bronchitis to the smoker directly.

The last question was, are they going to stop smoking? And this question I asked to my dear friend, Yusri. He said, a true cigarettes smoker will never stop himself from smoking. He also said that nothing can make he stop and he will smoke cigarettes as much as he wants. The other two of friend also said that their will not stop smoking, and never thought of it before. 

I don’t know whether the interview was successful or not. But from the information that I have gathered through the interview, seems like I have to change my focus. The advertisement were not the main reason influenced boarding school’s students to smoke cigarettes, the surrounding environment such as influences from senior was the main factor behind it. In the future I have to make some more research due to change of focus in this essay and I decided that environments that really influenced the students to smoke cigarettes.

Sample Review Questions

Focus (What is the focus of the essay? Do all sections of the text fit the focus?)

Development for Readers (Does the text supply enough or too much, or too little detail for the reader position? Does the author present the interviewee's opinions or positions in an accurate way?)  

Organization and Coherence (What organization do you see? What parts fit and which don't? Comment on coherence—how helpful or not helpful the transitions are between sections. Does the author use a variety of methods to report the interview, such as describing the interview settings, direct quotes and summary of the interview?)

Comments on “Influences of Life Styles in Nutrition”

1. The author formulated some specific and well designed questions before her interview.

2. The author contacted an expert in the field that she did not know in person, and thus distanced herself from the knowledge she was eliciting and allowing her to examine the information from a more detached/objective way.

3. The author used multiple ways to report the interview. She mentioned how she contacted and met with the interviewee, their conversation, the interviewee's facial expressions, gestures, and body language. These multiple ways offered the readers a "real-time" understanding of the interview.

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