The Skinny on Obesity (Ep. 6): A Fast -Paced Fast Food Life

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0WdRhau_No>

This YouTube video was about how stress effects eating behaviours of many people. When people feel stress for example like the anxiety of losing a job or having medical care bills to pay for, people tend to run for food to get rid of their stress. Stress has similar functions as pheromone, and it stimulates eating habits. Having stress, we crave for dense calorites and we eat food as a reward. The more stress, the more rewarding the food gets. A community called Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction helps people who have trouble with food change their mental filter and help recognize how to control their appetite. This community's purpose is not to help people loose weight but to promote a better relationship with food.

I think that stress is something that everyone has but eating too much is unhealthy. When I feel irritated, I tend to eat something sweet, but I always try to get a balance of snacks and meals. I think that people in the U.S. are more obese than people in Japan are. I think this is because of the differences in food culture. The food in the States are in large proportions and because that is natural for Americans, they consume it with no doubt. I think that making smaller sizes of food is one way from getting people overweight.

Food aphorisms

There are two food aphorisms that I would like to share.

"Some people who are obsessed with food become gourmet chefs. Others become eating disorders."
- Marya Hornbacher, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

I thought this quote has a very straight forward meaning saying that too much is never good if it tilts to the bad way. Eating is suppose to be an enjoyable thing, but if that eating is doing harm to one's body, than there is no fun to it.

"Anything is good if it's made of chocolate"
- Jo Brand

I simple thought this was very charming! Everyone loves chocolate and I think that nobody would get upset by recieving some.

A field trip to Yoyogi Park

This will be my first blog post!

On the second week of the food seminar, our class held a picnic at the Yoyogi Park. The park is about a 15 minute walk away from our university. I was nervous at first to have a picnic with new classmates and since it was my first time to have a class together with sophomores. But I was glad that all of my classmates were friendly and it was a little funny to find out that everyone was just as nervous as I was! Each of us brought a dish to the picnic to share. I tried everything and everything was so delicious! We also got to learn different kinds of prayers people say around the world before they start their meals. There were various kinds, from short ones to long ones, ones that rhyme and ones that were a little difficult to understand. But I think the best one is the simple "itadakimasu".  Our teacher performed some juggling toward the class and he even taught us how to juggle. I was only watching my friends trying, but it seemed quiet difficult. Although we got a few showers, the picnic was lots of fun and I think it was a great start off for our seminar.