Food, Obesity, and Psychology

"Your child will live a life ten years younger than you because of the landscape of food that we’ve built around them.”    -Jamie Oliver

     Food is something that is essential to our health and our life in general, but sometimes food becomes a problem. When food becomes a desire or compulsion, it is the start of a serious problem. Everyone has heard that the number one cause of death in the States is heart disease, which is then followed by diabetes, and a whole list of things that could have been prevented.  I know people often talk abouy how they believe that this is the year to get in shape or eat healthy, I think it is necessary to start now before the pounds become harder to shed. 
      Everyone has their comfort foods, which they need when they don't feel so great and are under stress. Even though we may think that it may not interefere with our health, it does have an impact. Comfort foods and eating out of boredom are unhealty and are do to the neurotransmitter Dopamine, which is a receiver of pleasure.  The same receptors that dopamine excites also give pleasure by means of drug use, sex, and food.  When you get food, or even engage in those other activites, your brain sends a message and tells you that this feels good.  Because it feels good, it is something that will likely occur again.  Things that give us pleasure are ones that we want to keep doing because we want to maintain that "high". Your belly enjoys eating popcorn, not necessary for the taste, but because it makes you feel good, so then you do it again and again. It can become a vicious cycle, and I think it's essential for each individual to be aware of what they eat. Too much of a food high can lead not only to weight problems, but to disease and to eventual death because of those diseases.  If you were ever told you are what you, it is true, so make sure to respect it.
     I know this post is a bit different from what usually may be written, but it does have a psychological aspect. Also, I was inspired by the TED Talk that is available below. Please watch and at least skip through the articles below. I hope you enjoyed this post of Psych Knowledge. Stay tuned for even more info, thank you!

 (I do not own the rights to any of the links below)

Jamie Oliver's TED Talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/jamie_oliver.html

Two helpful online articles:

• Article 1
• Article 2

Schizophrenia

   

(This image is from here!)

    These days when most people think of this mental disorder would probably jump to the movie "A Beautiful Mind", which was directed by Ron Howard.  The movie tells of a brilliant man who has hallucinations and delusions, which are two of the positive symptoms of Schizophrenia.

    Individuals that are diagnosed with this mental disorder can be be thought to have acute or chronic Schizophrenia. Acute Schizophrenia is mostly associated with positive symptoms, which I will list below, and is usually a one time thing.  An individual may have a psychotic break in their early twenties, and then show no other signs. With chronic Schizophrenia, the individual faces this disorder throughout their life and it is associated with negative symptoms.  

    The most common positive symptoms of schizophrenia are delusion, hallucination, and thought disorder, and others are uncommunicative and socially withdrawn. There are various types of delusions. Thought broadcasting is when the individual believes that someone else can read their mind.  Thought insertion is when they think that someone has put a specific thought into their mind.  Thought of control is when the individual believes that something that they do will have a consequence on the world. Delusion of persecution is when they think that someone is trying to kill them, which is obviously rational to a normal person.  Another rare delusion is one of grandeur, which is when the person thinks that they are Jesus, or anything related with religion.  The definition for a  delusion is a profoundly, invalid belief.  A hallucination is almost never visual; quite often it is a voice which can be linked to the delusion.  This hallucination does not come out of nowhere, but rather it seems as though it is a message and you are being told something.  In addition to the auditory sense of the hallucination, there is also a tactile sensation. An example of these are bugs on the skin, snakes in your stomach, and so on. Someone with schizophrenia can cycle in and out of episodes of delusion and hallucination. Thought Disorder seems to have a poetic feel to it. The individual is able to talk and speak, but what they say may not always make sense. It is as though they have a word salad and these thoughts seem to be 'off track'.
     Negative symptoms are things that are absent in this individual compared to a "normal" person. They are socially withdrawn, have a poverty of speech, flat affect, and they do not initiate goal-oriented behavior. If the schizophrenic person is aware of them self, then they would be able to tell that they are not connecting with the people that are around them.  These negative symptoms can be associated with loss of brain tissue and frontal lobe damage.  The positive symptoms are not associated with frontal lobe damage, but an increase in the neurotransmitter Dopamine.
    There is so much more that can be written about Schizophrenia, but I thought that I would give a somewhat brief introduction to this mental disorder. Hope that you enjoyed the Psych Knowledge that is within this post. Feel free to comment and stay tuned for even more great topics coming up. Thanks again for reading!!! Take care!

Hippo + Campus = Hippocampus

(this image is from here!)

    The hippocampus is an area of the brain that is for storing and retrieving memories, or it's a way of learning to recall.  The hippocampus sends to the cortex and other areas to fire areas for the "episode" to become real.  Short-term memory is when you are trying to remember or recall something and an hour later the thought doesn't come to you.  Sometimes the memory is consolidated into long-term memory, such as remembering a phone number, or where you parked your car. (Consolidation is when short-term memories are encoded into long-term memories.)It is not a structural change in the brain. In order for short-term memory to turn into long-term memory there needs to be structural changes in the brain need to occur.
   One of the famous cases of damage to the hippocampus is Patient H.M. He had been in an accident, and the doctors decided that the best thing to do was to remove his hippocampus. As long as he was able to keep his short-term memory active, as in working memory, he was able to remember things. When he would get distracted, H.M. would forget what he was trying to remember for the doctor, and would even forget the question.
   Before his hippocampus was removed, his memory was like anyone else's, but after his surgery he had trouble with his short-term memory. Afterwards, he was still able to recall any memories that he had from his childhood. This told researchers that the hippocampus was not necessary for retrieval of memories from the past. However, H.M. had trouble retrieving memories from several years prior to his surgery.  The reason for this is because this process of consolidation doesn't occur all at once. It happens over the course of time; takes years, months, and so on.
     H.M.'s immediate short-term memory was intact, or at least for a little while.  He was capable of having a conversation with someone, but if he talked to that person for too long, then he would forget.  He would be able to read the same book and magazine over and over again. If a nurse that H.M. met left the room, then came back, H.M. would reintroduce himself to the nurse as though he had no idea of who she was. He would constantly ask where he was and other similar questions.
     Even though he wasn't able to make any new memories, he had the potential to learn new skills. One of them being a finger maze, which consisted of H.M. tracing a maze with his finger, and as he kept doing it, he would get better at it each day and each time that he tried. Even though he was getting better, he was not able to remember that he was actually getting better; this is an example of rehearsal of skills, or practicing your procedural memory.
      A great example of short-term memory loss is the movie "Momento". The character in this movie has the same sort of problems where he is unable to recall things for more than several moments. He also constantly asks if he has talked to a particular person before and other similar scenarios. The film is entertaining and gives the film watcher the ability to get an insight into this deficiency.
     Thank you for reading this post on Hippocampus with a focus on H.M. Hope you enjoyed this post and today's Psych Knowledge. Thanks!