Question

write a 2 page reflection paper.

identify influences in your past that have shaped your view of food or your eating habits. these may include cultural environmental or social factors as well as influential family members. how have these influence your current eating patterns weight and health status.

discuss your healthy and unhealthy eating habits and habits and how these habits developed

identify emotions and relationships in the past that may have contributed to the formation of your current eating habits

identify your preferences and tastes and foods that you enjoy do you see any connections with past influences

Answer 1

Factors that influence Eating habits

An individual's Food choices and Eating patterns can be influenced by many factors such as Bilogical , social, economic, psychological, physical determinants , also attitude, beliefs and knowledge about food. The major biological determinants are hunger, appetite and taste. Social factors are culture, meal pattern, family , peers etc. Economic factors are cost, income and availability of food etc. Physical determinants such as education, access, time and cooking skills can also influence the food choices.  

( My ) Food choices and Eating patterns are influenced by Family 's eating patterns, culture and the knowledge acquired during the professional course. Many past events of (my) childhood have influenced the food habits. As my mother used to add very low sugar to items like coffee , or tea, so even today I can't tolerate sugar more than a certain level in coffee or tea. A mild amount of sugar for cofee or tea is my food choice and ( I ) used to avoid sweet items as it is not my preference. My family used to eat dinner early, but the scenario changed when I joined for the professional course , there most of the friends used to eat late night dinners. Many days it took for me to change to the habit of early dinnering.

Weight and Health status: As the family used to engage in regular physical activities such as farming , gardening, exercise etc, noone in the family is obese , overweight. They used to take the approximate amount of calories along with physical activities . This practice cultivated the habits of physical exercise in me , I used to do regular physical exercise and relaxation techniques and used to have a moderate amount of diet , not too less or no too much . So until today My general Health status and weight is in a healthy range.  

Healthy and unhealthy habits: One of my healthy habits is the avoidance of packaged or canned soft drinks. Once I joined for my professional course, my nutrition teacher taught us on the concept of '' how to read labells''. After that she read a label of a soft drink package and interpreted the meaning f labels, and the dangerous ingredients it contains and its adverse effect on the body. From the day I stopped to drink all canned or packaged soft drinks.  

Unhealthy habit is the late night dinnering. Having dinner late at night is not good for health. Early dinners are healthy. Eating just before the bedtime is the unhealthy habit, that I learned from my friends.

Emotions and relationships also influence our food choices. Friends from other countries used to introduce us the new food items. Enjoying those foods today some times, gives the remembrance of past friendship and happiness. Enjoying the traditional food of our community, gives another satisfaction or feelings of belonging to a particular culture. Every body likes and find happiness in occasional enjoying of their traditional foods irrespective of their current status or position. Culture and past practices   influences the food choices of an individual largely.