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1. Everybody in the group will paste a website/video link that is part of your research.

2. In a few sentences, explain the gist of the article/ video.

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2. In about 80 -100 words, come with a body paragraph that supports your thesis statements.
Remember to write in PEEL.

3. Find a picture that best explains your point too.

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article: https://brainworldmagazine.com/are-we-what-we-eat/

Our physical and mental well-being is directly linked to what we eat and drink. We also eat while on the phone, with the TV on, and at our desk. There is reason to believe that eating while we’re emotional, confused, or simply distracted may slow down or stop digestion. there are plenty of food in the world but people pick and watch what they are eating.

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The world is full of different cuisines and thousands of different meals. Yet when we reduce them to their essence, there are just a handful of ingredients that our bodies absolutely need to survive. These basic molecules come in a series of groups we're all familiar with - carbohydrates, fat, protein - each class of molecule is very important for the way our bodies work. So, what to choose?

Our physical and mental well-being is directly linked to what we eat and drink. The nutritional content of what we eat determines the composition of our cell membranes, bone marrow, blood, hormones, tissue, organs, skin, and hair. Our bodies are replacing billions of cells every day - and using the foods we consume as the source.

Researchers at the University of Oxford have demonstrated that the diets of organisms can even affect the composition of their genes. Since organisms construct their DNA using building blocks they get from food, Dr. Steven Kelly, of Oxford's Department of Plant Sciences, and his colleagues hypothesized that the composition of food could alter an organism's DNA. The results revealed a previously hidden relationship between cellular metabolism and evolution, and provided new insights into how DNA sequences can be influenced by adaptation to different diets. The team also found it is possible to predict the diets of related organisms by analyzing the DNA sequence of their genes.

A well-balanced diet not only results in better health and overall body composition, but because of the "brain-gut connection" - can also make us feel great. Eating well is part of the strategy that can reduce our risk of any chronic disease and even improve the condition of our very genes. There is not "one rule fits all" when it comes to eating well. Applying the commonly accepted recommendations such as low sugar, low salt, and a good variety of nutrients might be the most advisable for all of us.

Paying attention to how much we are eating is another very important aspect of healthy nutrition - that naturally concerns us all. What we eat and how much we eat is critical, but how we process it is perhaps even more important. Through thousands of little sensors, the gut has the immense task of managing all the information contained in the food we intake. Food alone will not promise a thriving gut.

If you are eating a nutritious and delicious meal with a friend, but all of a sudden you start to fight with each other - your stomach is going to shut off, and you'll probably experience indigestion, pain, or nausea. Even when eating by ourselves, most of us have an ongoing internal dialogue going on in our brains. We are filled with countless thoughts and emotions that distract all our attention from the food in front of us. We also eat while on the phone, with the TV on, and at our desk. There is reason to believe that eating while we're emotional, confused, or simply distracted may slow down or stop digestion.

When we feel an emotion intensely, such as stress or anxiety, our regular, mechanical, digestive process in the gut - which mostly works independently - will be influenced and altered. Stress hormones, such as adrenaline, norepinephrine, and cortisol, will interact with the cells in our gut, making us alert and ready for fight or flight. By paying attention to our mental state when eating, we can improve our food processing. All of our body parts are connected to our emotions, but the gut sends the strongest signaling to our brain's emotional centers.

It can be as simple as becoming more aware of the act of eating itself - including seeing, smelling, chewing, and swallowing. We can also extend our attentiveness to the influence the food has on our bodies and mood. Going even further, we can be considerate of the earth, which provides us with this driving force we call food. In fact, researchers have found that teaching such "mindful eating" skills can change bad eating patterns. Trials using the mindful eating approach have shown that participants significantly reduced compulsive eating habits, improved self-control, diminished depressive symptoms, lost weight, and maintained their weight loss for long periods of time.

By paying attention to all the details and layers of information involved in our eating, we can also awaken our gut senses - in turn helping us make better choices of the things we eat, and the amounts we eat in the future.
This article was first published in Brain World Magazine's Winter 2018 issue.
More From Brain World

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The world is full of different cuisines and thousands of different meals. Yet when we reduce them to their essence, there are just a handful of ingredients that our bodies absolutely need to survive. These basic molecules come in a series of groups we're all familiar with - carbohydrates, fat, protein - each class of molecule is very important for the way our bodies work.

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https://hbr.org/2021/08/weirdly-true-we-are-what-we-eat

Our physical and mental health is actually based on what we eat

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Food is fuel for our bodies. But it doesn't just give us energy, it can also impact our moods. Knowing this, how can we make better food choices?

Our gut or gastrointestinal tract is home to billions of bacteria. The food we eat directly affects our gut health (or the balance of good and bad bacteria) and influences the production of neurotransmitters (our body's chemical messengers that are constantly carrying messages from the gut to the brain).

Because different foods trigger different moods, we can strategically choose foods that evoke desirable mood-states. For keeping our moods even and balanced, especially in the work environment, we can consume foods that promote good bacteria in our guts.

We should also consider the physiological reactions various foods trigger. For example, it might make sense to serve and consume a mild or sweet fare during a get-together with friends and family, and, maybe consume spicy food ahead of a confrontational meeting in which we don't want to be run over.

Where your work meets your life. See more from Ascend here.

What do you turn to when you're feeling low?

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Food is fuel for our bodies. But it doesn't just give us energy, it can also impact our moods. Knowing this, how can we make better food choices? Our gut or gastrointestinal tract is home to billions of bacteria.

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https://brainfitresorts.com/we-are-what-we-eat/

The food we eat literally becomes who we are, and influences our physical, mental and even emotional well-being.
A poor diet has been proven as a cause of conditions such as hypertension, heart and blood vessels, obesity and diabetes.

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The food we eat literally becomes who we are, and influences our physical, mental and even emotional well-being.

A poor diet has been proven as a cause of conditions such as hypertension, heart and blood vessels diseases, obesity, and diabetes.

Nutritious food choices not only contribute to optimal brain health but can actually be a tool for supporting and even improving cognition.

Food for Brain and Thought

Unhealthy diets can ultimately increase your risk of psychiatric and neurologic conditions, such as depression and dementia, whereas healthy diets can be otherwise protected against such conditions.

Some evidence suggests that poor dietary and nutritional patterns may have contributed to the widespread rise of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias over the last three decades, especially in developed countries, such as USA, UK, Australia, and Canada.

At BrainFit Resorts, we make "Brain Food and Supplements" an essential component of our ProtectMyBrain program. We will not only provide an optimal diet but also help you understand the principles of brain-healthy nutrition.

To support the process, we will also offer you a meal plan, supplements and helpful eating habits that you will be able to incorporate when you return home after the program.
Click HERE to find out more about the ProtectMyBrain Dementia Prevention Program
For now, here are some top nutritional tips to promote your brain health:

1. Lower your carbs intake and avoid (refined) sugars.
Natural carbohydrate sources with higher fiber content are better choices, but again, in limited quantities.

2. Avoid the "Bad" fats (trans fats, found extensively in processed foods) and limit your saturated fats intake (usually found in beef and pork).

3. Fatty fish contain high levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids, namely omega-3 fatty acids, which are beneficial for brain health. Polyunsaturated fatty acids (found in nuts, seeds, fish, and leafy green vegetables) and the monounsaturated fatty acids (found in olive oil, avocados, and nuts) decrease the risk for dementia over time.

4. Vegetables and fruits which are not sweet are excellent sources for natural antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents, which can protect your brain. These may include green and red vegetables, berries, grapefruits and many more.

5. Diets that have been suggested to promote brain health include The Mediterranean, The MIND and APT diets.

We hope these tips provide you with some insights and assistance to living your most brain healthy life.

If you enjoyed reading this blog, and want to see more of our articles relating to nutrition and brain healthy foods, check out the links to some of our other articles below:

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Until next time... Live Strong. Live Well. Live BrainFit.

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The food we eat literally becomes who we are, and influences our physical, mental and even emotional well-being. A poor diet has been proven as a cause of conditions such as hypertension, heart and blood vessels diseases, obesity, and diabetes.

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Food is fuel for our bodies. But it doesn’t just give us energy, it can also impact our moods. Knowing this, how can we make better food choices?

Our gut or gastrointestinal tract is home to billions of bacteria. The food we eat directly affects our gut health (or the balance of good and bad bacteria) and influences the production of neurotransmitters (our body’s chemical messengers that are constantly carrying messages from the gut to the brain).

What do you turn to when you’re feeling low.

We eat it, and almost instantly, we feel better. These good feelings arise partly because pleasure hormones (like dopamine) are released in our brains when we consume food high in caloric value.

It’s not just sweet things that have an impact on our mood either. Findings show that organic food makes us happy and hopeful, while consuming food high in protein improves motivation and concentration.
But food doesn’t always improve our moods. Sometimes it can evoke negativity.

A few years ago I read an article about how Malaysian prisons don’t provide carbonated drinks to inmates who have a history of violence because if they’re consumed when someone is agitated, that person is more likely to have an outburst.

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https://www.leidenpsychologyblog.nl/articles/are-we-what-we-eat

this article is about explaining what is inside the common food we eat and whether it is harmful

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'Der Mensch ist, was er iβt' (you are what you eat) is a famous quotation from the German philosopher Feuerbach, suggesting that the food one eats has a bearing on one's state of mind. Can food function as cognitive enhancer?

In his seminal essay 'Concerning Spiritualism and Materialism' (1863), one of the most famous statements of the German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach is Der Mensch ist, was er iβt (you are what you eat). Feuerbach, well-known for his materialist approach, was the first intellectual to promote the thought that the food one eats has a bearing on one's state of mind. This thought became later the motto of the hippie culture based on eating organic and healthy food.

Since then, the idea that the food we intake modulates the way we think and perceive the world has been very suggestive in popular culture. Indeed, the idea that food may function as cognitive enhancer is very intriguing, especially for students who are always searching for new ways to improve their academic performance.

What is the biological mechanism underlying the idea that we are what we eat?

One of the most frequently investigated amino acids (building blocks of proteins) is tyrosine, which is contained in food such as fish, soy, eggs, milk and bananas. In healthy population the average daily intake of tyrosine is 7mg/kg, one half of the WHO's upper requirement of 14mg/kg. Tyrosine is the precursor (the chemical that precedes another compound in the biochemical pathway) of dopamine-the major modulator in regulating cognitive control, the way we control our thoughts and goal-directed behavior.

It is well known that the supplementation of tyrosine, or tyrosine-containing diets, increases the plasma tyrosine and enhances brain dopamine release. Accordingly, it is the interplay between tyrosine, dopaminergic supply, and cognitive functioning that may be the biological mechanism underlying the thought that the food one eats has a bearing on one's state of mind.

Remarkably, the supplementation of tyrosine or consuming tyrosine-rich food to improve cognitive processes is safe and healthy and can be regarded as an alternative to cognitive-enhancing drugs, such as Ritalin or Modafinil, which use, unfortunately, is quite popular among students to improve their academic performance. These prescribed drugs, in contrast to the food supplement tyrosine, do not have FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) status and are often associated with side effects commonly experienced with amphetamine-like drugs. Moreover, again, in contrast to tyrosine, they are known for facilitating addiction in vulnerable individuals. Also, "an overdose" on these drugs is not infrequent when people take a higher dose than prescribed.

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'Der Mensch ist, was er iβt' (you are what you eat) is a famous quotation from the German philosopher Feuerbach, suggesting that the food one eats has a bearing on one's state of mind. Can food function as cognitive enhancer?

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people tend to eat food not for their primary needs but for their mood . According to the article Harvard Bussiness Review titled "weirdly true, we are what we eat." , what we ate affects our mood and health [be more succinct in what you write]. It stated that our mood and behaviour could be because of what we consume like they said they think we have a more aggressive behaviour if we were to eat spicy food even though it wasnt confirmed fully. In the article, it also stated that in order to improve our mood and health, we should eat more food with more nutrients and reduce the intake of sugar and alcohol

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https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight

Many people gain weight due to overeating. Obesity has nearly tripled in 1975, and people are worried about what they are eating. Reports from the World Health Organisation (WHO) showed that 39% of adults aged 18 years and older were overweight in 2016 ans 13% of them were obese.Over 340 million children and adolescents 5-19 were overweight or obese in 2016.

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Key facts

In 2022, 1 in 8 people in the world were living with obesity.

Worldwide adult obesity has more than doubled since 1990, and adolescent obesity has quadrupled.

In 2022, 2.5 billion adults (18 years and older) were overweight. Of these, 890 million were living with obesity.

In 2022, 43% of adults aged 18 years and over were overweight and 16% were living with obesity.

In 2022, 37 million children under the age of 5 were overweight.

Over 390 million children and adolescents aged 5-19 years were overweight in 2022, including 160 million who were living with obesity.

Overview

Overweight is a condition of excessive fat deposits.

Obesity is a chronic complex disease defined by excessive fat deposits that can impair health. Obesity can lead to increased risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease, it can affect bone health and reproduction, it increases the risk of certain cancers. Obesity influences the quality of living, such as sleeping or moving.

The diagnosis of overweight and obesity is made by measuring people's weight and height and by calculating the body mass index (BMI): weight (kg)/height² (m²). The body mass index is a surrogate marker of fatness and additional measurements, such as the waist circumference, can help the diagnosis of obesity.

The BMI categories for defining obesity vary by age and gender in infants, children and adolescents.

Adults

For adults, WHO defines overweight and obesity as follows:

overweight is a BMI greater than or equal to 25; and

obesity is a BMI greater than or equal to 30.

For children, age needs to be considered when defining overweight and obesity.

Children under 5 years of age

For children under 5 years of age:

overweight is weight-for-height greater than 2 standard deviations above WHO Child Growth Standards median; and

obesity is weight-for-height greater than 3 standard deviations above the WHO Child Growth Standards median.

Charts and tables: WHO child growth standards for children aged under 5 years

Children aged between 5-19 years

Overweight and obesity are defined as follows for children aged between 5-19 years:

overweight is BMI-for-age greater than 1 standard deviation above the WHO Growth Reference median; and

obesity is greater than 2 standard deviations above the WHO Growth Reference median.

Charts and tables: WHO growth reference for children aged between 5-19 years

Facts about overweight and obesity

In 2022, 2.5 billion adults aged 18 years and older were overweight, including over 890 million adults who were living with obesity. This corresponds to 43% of adults aged 18 years and over (43% of men and 44% of women) who were overweight; an increase from 1990, when 25% of adults aged 18 years and over were overweight. Prevalence of overweight varied by region, from 31% in the WHO South-East Asia Region and the African Region to 67% in the Region of the Americas.

About 16% of adults aged 18 years and older worldwide were obese in 2022. The worldwide prevalence of obesity more than doubled between 1990 and 2022.

In 2022, an estimated 37 million children under the age of 5 years were overweight. Once considered a high-income country problem, overweight is on the rise in low- and middle-income countries. In Africa, the number of overweight children under 5 years has increased by nearly 23% since 2000. Almost half of the children under 5 years who were overweight or living with obesity in 2022 lived in Asia.

Over 390 million children and adolescents aged 5-19 years were overweight in 2022. The prevalence of overweight (including obesity) among children and adolescents aged 5-19 has risen dramatically from just 8% in 1990 to 20% in 2022. The rise has occurred similarly among both boys and girls: in 2022 19% of girls and 21% of boys were overweight.

While just 2% of children and adolescents aged 5-19 were obese in 1990 (31 million young people), by 2022, 8% of children and adolescents were living with obesity (160 million young people).

Causes of overweight and obesity

Overweight and obesity result from an imbalance of energy intake (diet) and energy expenditure (physical activity).

In most cases obesity is a multifactorial disease due to obesogenic environments, psycho-social factors and genetic variants. In a subgroup of patients, single major etiological factors can be identified (medications, diseases, immobilization, iatrogenic procedures, monogenic disease/genetic syndrome).

The obesogenic environment exacerbating the likelihood of obesity in individuals, populations and in different settings is related to structural factors limiting the availability of healthy sustainable food at locally affordable prices, lack of safe and easy physical mobility into the daily life of all people, and absence of adequate legal and regulatory environment.

At the same time, the lack of an effective health system response to identify excess weight gain and fat deposition in their early stages is aggravating the progression to obesity.

Common health consequences

The health risks caused by overweight and obesity are increasingly well documented and understood.

In 2019, higher-than-optimal BMI caused an estimated 5 million deaths from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancers, neurological disorders, chronic respiratory diseases, and digestive disorders (1).

Being overweight in childhood and adolescence affects children's and adolescents' immediate health and is associated with greater risk and earlier onset of various NCDs, such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Childhood and adolescent obesity have adverse psychosocial consequences; it affects school performance and quality of life, compounded by stigma, discrimination and bullying. Children with obesity are very likely to be adults with obesity and are also at a higher risk of developing NCDs in adulthood.

The economic impacts of the obesity epidemic are also important. If nothing is done, the global costs of overweight and obesity are predicted to reach US$ 3 trillion per year by 2030 and more than US$ 18 trillion by 2060 (2).

Finally, the rise in obesity rates in low-and middle-income countries, including among lower socio-economic groups, is fast globalizing a problem that was once associated only with high-income countries.

Facing a double burden of malnutrition

Many low- and middle-income countries face a so-called double burden of malnutrition.

While these countries continue to deal with the problems of infectious diseases and undernutrition, they are also experiencing a rapid upsurge in noncommunicable disease risk factors such as obesity and overweight.

It is common to find undernutrition and obesity co-existing within the same country, the same community and the same household.

Children in low- and middle-income countries are more vulnerable to inadequate pre-natal, infant, and young child nutrition. At the same time, these children are exposed to high-fat, high-sugar, high-salt, energy-dense, and micronutrient-poor foods, which tend to be lower in cost but also lower in nutrient quality. These dietary patterns, in conjunction with lower levels of physical activity, result in sharp increases in childhood obesity while undernutrition issues remain unsolved.

Prevention and management

Overweight and obesity, as well as their related noncommunicable diseases, are largely preventable and manageable.

At the individual level, people may be able to reduce their risk by adopting preventive interventions at each step of the life cycle, starting from pre-conception and continuing during the early years. These include:

ensure appropriate weight gain during pregnancy;

practice exclusive breastfeeding in the first 6 months after birth and continued breastfeeding until 24 months or beyond;

support behaviours of children around healthy eating, physical activity, sedentary behaviours and sleep, regardless of current weight status;

limit screen time;

limit consumption of sugar sweetened beverages and energy-dense foods and promote other healthy eating behaviours;

enjoy a healthy life (healthy diet, physical activity, sleep duration and quality, avoid tobacco and alcohol, emotional self-regulation);

limit energy intake from total fats and sugars and increase consumption of fruit and vegetables, as well as legumes, whole grains and nuts; and

engage in regular physical activity.

Health practitioners need to

assess the weight and height of people accessing the health facilities;

provide counselling on healthy diet and lifestyles;

when a diagnosis of obesity is established, provide integrated obesity prevention and management health services including on healthy diet, physical activity and medical and surgical measures; and

monitor other NCD risk factors (blood glucose, lipids and blood pressure) and assess the presence of comorbidities and disability, including mental health disorders.

The dietary and physical activity patterns for individual people are largely the result of environmental and societal conditions that greatly constrain personal choice. Obesity is a societal rather than an individual responsibility, with the solutions to be found through the creation of supportive environments and communities that embed healthy diets and regular physical activity as the most accessible, available and affordable behaviours of daily life.

Stopping the rise in obesity demands multisectoral actions such as food manufacturing, marketing and pricing and others that seek to address the wider determinants of health (such as poverty reduction and urban planning).

Such policies and actions include:

structural, fiscal and regulatory actions aimed at creating healthy food environments that make healthier food options available, accessible and desirable; and

health sector responses designed and equipped to identify risk, prevent, treat and manage the disease. These actions need to build upon and be integrated into broader efforts to address NCDs and strengthen health systems through a primary health care approach.

The food industry can play a significant role in promoting healthy diets by:

reducing the fat, sugar and salt content of processed foods;

ensuring that healthy and nutritious choices are available and affordable to all consumers;

restricting marketing of foods high in sugars, salt and fats, especially those foods aimed at children and teenagers; and

ensuring the availability of healthy food choices and supporting regular physical activity practice in the workplace.

WHO response

WHO has recognized the need to tackle the global obesity crisis in an urgent manner for many years.

The World Health Assembly Global Nutrition Targets aiming to ensure no increase in childhood overweight, and the NCD target to halt the rise of diabetes and obesity by 2025, were endorsed by WHO Member States. They recognized that accelerated global action is needed to address pervasive and corrosive problem of the double burden of malnutrition.

At the 75 th World Health Assembly in 2022, Member States demanded and adopted new recommendations for the prevention and management of obesity and endorsed the WHO Acceleration plan to stop obesity. Since its endorsement, the Acceleration plan has shaped the political environment to generate impetus needed for sustainable change, created a platform to shape, streamline and prioritize policy, support implementation in countries and drive impact and strengthen accountability at national and global level.
References
1. GBD 2019 Risk Factor Collaborators. "Global Burden of 87 Risk Factors in 204 Countries and Territories, 1990-2019: a systematic analysis for the global burden of disease study 2019". Lancet. 2020;396:1223-1249.

2. Okunogbe et al., "Economic Impacts of Overweight and Obesity." 2nd Edition with Estimates for 161 Countries. World Obesity Federation, 2022.

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Obesity and overweight fact sheet from WHO providing key facts and information on causes, health consequences, double burden of disease, prevention, WHO response.

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food is the most important factors in our overall health since the food we eat becomes who we are and influences our physical and mental health and emotional well-being.

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everything we eat is what we are. we eat it and most instantly, we feel better.but food doesnt always improve our moods. sometimes it can evoke negativity. if you consume hot and spicy food, theres a greater chance that you will be hot headed. it also says that in order to improve our mood and health, we should eat more healthy food with more nutrients and reduce the intake of sugar and alcohol.

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Imagine fuels that are in cars. When a car runs out of fuel, the car wouldn't work right?

Same applies to us humans!

We need food to boost our energy for a beautiful day ahead. But sometimes it can be really disastrous. Just go to YouTube and search for "Mukbang" or what Koreans like to call them "먹방" which actually means an online video broadcast in which a person eats while interacting with their audience quotations. This is not really what it looks like. They eat a whole tonne of food and sometimes they don't even finish it. They made it look so nice that some of us really wanna try what they are eating. Famous YouTubers like Zach Choi ASMR and Peggie Neo from Singapore too. These people are destroying their organs and might have certain health conditions when they get older. I mean, why spoil your body for views and likes and money?