Growing up, the fridge and cupboards in my household were different from those of my friend's. Prohibited items included: soda, anything fried, artificial sugar, baked goods from a box, deli sliced American cheese, sugary cereal... you get the point.
So, time away from home meant time with junk food. When I went to my friend Kacie's house we ate cheese curls and drank red Kool-Aid. At Karin's we had Coke floats and ate salt and vinegar chips. In junior high school, I ordered crinkle cut french fries and a Hostess cupcake for lunch almost every day.
I was never overweight or unhealthy despite my junk food escapades because my eating habits had enough balance; my mother was a health nut and I regularly consumed whole grains, fresh vegetables and fruit juices.
However, according to a new study - my eating habits outside of the home were the equivalent of a developing drug addiction.
Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute recently discovered a relationship between junk food habits and dopamine receptors in the brain. In other words, the more junk food one eats, the better one feels - and the more food it takes to reach that "happy" feeling as time goes on. Very literally, it becomes a junk food addiction.
How does this happen? Well, much like a drug's effect on the brain, high fat/high sugar foods overstimulate the receptors that create reward patterns in the brain. Simply, you feel good - and fast. In order to regulate the spike, the body adapts by reducing the reward receptors sensitivity, making that "feel good" moment harder to obtain. As a result you then eat more of the stimulating food item, just like an addict would seek more of the drug - to feel "normal" again.
Lucky for me, between the ages of ten and seventeen, I wasn't "using" enough to develop a dependency; I regulated any over-stimulation. But the same can't be said for everyone. In 2003, the childhood obesity rate in Massachusetts was at 13.5% according to the NCSL and in 2005 it more than doubled, hitting 28.9%.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Warming Up To the Idea
If someone hacked my email, they'd probably find that I address my mother as "Mumma," that I bought The Ramones "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)" from iTunes recently, and that I send myself all my short fiction ideas and save them in an email folder called "Storybored."
They wouldn't find anything incriminating.
Unless you object to a Ramones Christmas carol. Which, I'll concede, is slightly objectionable from a punk rock perspective.
Regardless, my hackers wouldn't walk away quite as satisfied as those who acquired incriminating emails from Britain's Climate Research Unit (CRU) just in time for the international climate talks in Copenhagen, which are happening this week.
So what's the controversy all about, anyway? All this global warming hype - is it real or isn't it? (Not the hype, the actual climate stuff, I mean.)
My instinctive answer is "yes," because in any battle between Fox News and Al Gore, I can be found on the Gore cheering squad, dressed head-to-toe in the team colors. (Blue and green, of course.) This puts me in the loyalist category.
Others I know alter their opinion on global warming from day-to-day. For example, the same person might make both these comments: "It's 32 degrees in December? Global warming is such a scam! It should be cold in December." Or, "It was 60 on December fourth! Well, of course, it's that devil global warming! December should be freezing!" These people are in the fair-weather fan (no pun intended) category.
So, is brand loyalty or the weather report enough to justify a stance on the global warming debate?
Probably not. Let's try science.
First we need to know - what does "global warming" entail?
Well, let's compare the earth, and it's atmosphere, to our human body - they're both highly functioning systems, and both exist because of a fine chemical balance.
Take Carbon Dioxide, for example. Both the earth and our bodies need it.
Our body uses a bit of Carbon Dioxide every time we breathe, taking it in with Oxygen, and releasing it when we exhale. Also, Carbon Dioxide is what makes the bubbles in our soda and beer, and it's how yeast makes bread rise. It's not a bad guy, that CO2.
In fact, CO2 is workin' pretty hard to make sure my Sam Adams Light and my sandwich have all the right stuff going on. I mean, what would my lunch be without CO2? Well, it would be a flat beer and turkey on flat bread.
The earth is pretty much the same; it has a little bit of CO2 that helps to keep it happy... just like me with my beer and bread.
The earth's bit of CO2 helps our plants stay lush and green, and most importantly, it hangs out with some other gases in the atmosphere and acts like an insulator, holding heat from the sun and warming the planet - kind of like a giant electric blanket. CO2 and it's buddies (the other "greenhouse gases") hold the heat and make sure none of it escapes to the less-worthy outer space area, keeping our planet warm in the process.
But, remember the beer example - we learned that there is a "right" amount, and a "wrong" amount of CO2. The right amount gives us beer, but too little results in flat beer, and too much - well, too much CO2 makes for an explosion. Not good.
So, then what happens when the earth has too much CO2? No, it won't explode. But, it does make the CO2 perform it's task more intensely. Which, in the case of the earth, means that the more CO2 there is, the more heat it holds.
Let's unpack what we've got so far. More CO2 means more heat; more heat means warmer weather; warmer weather means things start melting faster; more melting results in more water; more water means less land; and less land means fewer places to live.
Okay, so we're getting somewhere. But, the question remains: Where is the excess CO2 coming from? How can we be sure that we're the ones who are adding it?
Again, let's think about the human body and the earth as similar beings.
Have you ever considered taking less CO2 in when you breathe? No, of course not. You don't regulate that - your body does. It knows how to handle it's CO2 intake, and it's got it all goin' on without your help. What if you decided to add some CO2 to your body? Say, by breathing in some exhaust. Well, clearly, that would result in some problems.
The earth is the same way - it exists because of a delicate, predetermined setting of gases and chemicals and once we start adding, we can't be sure of the outcome, but the logic is that if we add something that's not supposed to be there, it's not going to go so well.
So, Scientista readers, there you have it; some science to help you rule on the global warming debate. Consider yourself armed and ready to make a decision.
They wouldn't find anything incriminating.
Unless you object to a Ramones Christmas carol. Which, I'll concede, is slightly objectionable from a punk rock perspective.
Regardless, my hackers wouldn't walk away quite as satisfied as those who acquired incriminating emails from Britain's Climate Research Unit (CRU) just in time for the international climate talks in Copenhagen, which are happening this week.
So what's the controversy all about, anyway? All this global warming hype - is it real or isn't it? (Not the hype, the actual climate stuff, I mean.)
My instinctive answer is "yes," because in any battle between Fox News and Al Gore, I can be found on the Gore cheering squad, dressed head-to-toe in the team colors. (Blue and green, of course.) This puts me in the loyalist category.
Others I know alter their opinion on global warming from day-to-day. For example, the same person might make both these comments: "It's 32 degrees in December? Global warming is such a scam! It should be cold in December." Or, "It was 60 on December fourth! Well, of course, it's that devil global warming! December should be freezing!" These people are in the fair-weather fan (no pun intended) category.
So, is brand loyalty or the weather report enough to justify a stance on the global warming debate?
Probably not. Let's try science.
First we need to know - what does "global warming" entail?
Well, let's compare the earth, and it's atmosphere, to our human body - they're both highly functioning systems, and both exist because of a fine chemical balance.
Take Carbon Dioxide, for example. Both the earth and our bodies need it.
Our body uses a bit of Carbon Dioxide every time we breathe, taking it in with Oxygen, and releasing it when we exhale. Also, Carbon Dioxide is what makes the bubbles in our soda and beer, and it's how yeast makes bread rise. It's not a bad guy, that CO2.
In fact, CO2 is workin' pretty hard to make sure my Sam Adams Light and my sandwich have all the right stuff going on. I mean, what would my lunch be without CO2? Well, it would be a flat beer and turkey on flat bread.
The earth is pretty much the same; it has a little bit of CO2 that helps to keep it happy... just like me with my beer and bread.
The earth's bit of CO2 helps our plants stay lush and green, and most importantly, it hangs out with some other gases in the atmosphere and acts like an insulator, holding heat from the sun and warming the planet - kind of like a giant electric blanket. CO2 and it's buddies (the other "greenhouse gases") hold the heat and make sure none of it escapes to the less-worthy outer space area, keeping our planet warm in the process.
But, remember the beer example - we learned that there is a "right" amount, and a "wrong" amount of CO2. The right amount gives us beer, but too little results in flat beer, and too much - well, too much CO2 makes for an explosion. Not good.
So, then what happens when the earth has too much CO2? No, it won't explode. But, it does make the CO2 perform it's task more intensely. Which, in the case of the earth, means that the more CO2 there is, the more heat it holds.
Let's unpack what we've got so far. More CO2 means more heat; more heat means warmer weather; warmer weather means things start melting faster; more melting results in more water; more water means less land; and less land means fewer places to live.
Okay, so we're getting somewhere. But, the question remains: Where is the excess CO2 coming from? How can we be sure that we're the ones who are adding it?
Again, let's think about the human body and the earth as similar beings.
Have you ever considered taking less CO2 in when you breathe? No, of course not. You don't regulate that - your body does. It knows how to handle it's CO2 intake, and it's got it all goin' on without your help. What if you decided to add some CO2 to your body? Say, by breathing in some exhaust. Well, clearly, that would result in some problems.
The earth is the same way - it exists because of a delicate, predetermined setting of gases and chemicals and once we start adding, we can't be sure of the outcome, but the logic is that if we add something that's not supposed to be there, it's not going to go so well.
So, Scientista readers, there you have it; some science to help you rule on the global warming debate. Consider yourself armed and ready to make a decision.
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