Welcome Small Bites Contributor Tiana!
Today I am welcoming another new contributor to the Nutritioulicious blog, Tiana Yom. Read on for an introduction from Tiana so you can learn a little more about her.
—————————————————————————————————————–
Greetings Nutritioulicious community! My name is Tiana. I recently finished my Master in Public Health (MPH) at University of Michigan, where I concentrated in Health Behavior Health Education (HBHE). Go Blue! During my undergraduate career, I focused on the hard sciences: biology and chemistry. Since 2006, I worked as a research assistant in various academic institutions: Stony Brook University, Albert Einstein Medical College of Medicine, North Shore Feinstein Institute, and University of Michigan. Futhermore, last summer, I interned at New York City Department of Health.
Preventive medicine is where my passion and interests lie. Within preventive medicine, adult and childhood obesity resonates the most with me, as I was a morbidly obese child. Once I had better access to proper nutrition education and healthcare professionals I took control of my health. In 2008, I embarked on a 50 pound weight loss journey. By the end of 2010, I lost a grand total of 70 pounds!
I believe it is imperative to understand what we eat, how we prepare foods, why we eat what we do, and how our body uses the food we ingest. Here is a quote that immediately comes to mind that encompasses my thoughts on nutrition, diet, and health:
“The doctor of the future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather will cure and prevent disease with nutrition” – Thomas Edison
Today, I am joining Nutritioulicious (thank you Jessica!) to share my health and fitness tips and inspire you all to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle. I hope that my posts will be helpful to you all. Please feel free to comment and ask any questions – I will gladly answer them.
Couldnt agree more. Nutrition is a key factor in maintaining and/or moving towards great health. Sometimes it seems like the hardest thing to do is make a good choice in what you are about to ingest. I know from experience.
You’re absolutely right! Choosing the “right” foods becomes a bit difficult as there are so many falsely advertised health claims on many food and beverage products. Therefore I tend to do take my time and carefully read the nutrition facts and ingredients list. How do you do pick and choose your items at the grocery store?
Nutrition is key to a healthy lifestyle but it is very hard for some people to gain access to these healthier foods. What does the health profession hope to do to help people say from the inner cities gain access to healthier foods?
I am horrible with fried food as well, but worse, I can’t read labels properly. I am never really sure how much or how little I need of something. Looking forward to your posts!
Keisha, Thank you for your question. There are great resources for inner cities residents to access healthier foods. In 2010, NYC DOH started the Healthy Bodegas Initiative. Since then, there have been fantastic programs like “Shop Healthy NYC”, “Adopt-A-Shop”, and “Green Carts”. More information about these and other programs can be found in: http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/cdp/shophealthy.shtml
Another trend that I noticed during my time in Detroit as well as in Union Square in NYC was the implementation of roof top gardens and farmers markets. Hopefully there will be more sustainable farmers markets to come.
Here below is a link of all the current farmers markets in NYC today:
http://www.grownyc.org/ourmarkets
Hope this information was helpful!
To Can’t Read Labels Properly, I too was overwhelmed with the vast amount of information listed under the nutrition facts and ingredient lists. However, there are simple heuristics that you can use. For example, if there are ingredients that you find difficult to pronounce or simply sounds uncommon to you then think twice about that product.
How-to-read food and beverage labels guides will be posted soon. In the meantime, check out these following websites for further tips and definitions. Thank you for your comment!
http://www.fda.gov/food/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/NFLPM/ucm274593.htm
http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/healthy-ingredients