The Food in Your Dorm That's Killing You
November 25, 2014 by Matt Langdon
Remember the days of delicious home cooked meals, provided and cooked to perfection by your parents while you were growing up? Yeah, I barely remember them too. To help cope with those memories, many college students across the nation have turned to cheap, easy to make, processed food products (Jacob 1). Sure, settling for some mac n' cheese as your main course provides you with a larger beer budget, but it is important to keep eating these foods to a minimum and watch what you eat, especially if you value the opinion of that one attractive girl/guy sitting across from you in the cafeteria watching you stuff your face full of cheesy potatoes and hot sauce.
When it comes to the average students processed foods of choice, I'm sure we've all stocked our mini fridge and closets to the brim with the following:
1. Ramen noodles
2. buttered popcorn
3. frozen pizzas
4. Oreos
5. microwavable mac n' cheese cups
These foods while delicious, are high in levels of sodium, fats, and other mysterious ingredients that are harmful to your body. Processed foods need these additives to enhance shelf-life, taste, and overall shape of the product(Denny 1).
The added sugar in these products will be sure to not only increase your waste size, but if eaten in large amounts, can lead to the development of Type II diabetes(Denny 1). It can also add some texture to your face, and we all know there's nothing worse than going through your tagged photos, and having that blatant pimple on your forehead, staring you back in the face, mocking your existence.
The high sodium content in the products can lead to over consumption of sodium. The repercussions of this is high blood pressure, which causes heart problems later on in life, and kidney disease, and subsequently; kidney stones(Denny 1). Ouch..
The fat content in processed foods is just as scary, and is the prime reason for the existence of the term, "the freshman fifteen". Over eating those greasy pizzas and milk-dipped Oreos lead to obesity, probably the current biggest problem in student health.
Hopefully you weren't just indulging yourself in a scrumptious fat filled meal.
Now, I've had my fair share in partaking in the glorious act of binge eating on a broke, college student budget, but just make sure it's not a common occurrence. Otherwise, you're these habits that you pick up in your college years could never be unlearned, causing inevitable, long term health issues.
College is the best time of your life. So party hard, make good grades, and don't over do it on the cheap stuff, especially the food.
Work Cited
Denny, Sharon. "Surprise! This Is Processed Too!" How to Spot Healthy and Unhealthy Processed Foods from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.
Jacob, Aglaee. "Processed Food Definition." Healthy Eating. Demand Media, 2013. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.
Jacob, Aglaee. "Processed Food Definition." Healthy Eating. Demand Media, 2013. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.
Matt,
ReplyDeleteYour blog is really good. You picked a topic that is easily relatable to college students as microwavable food is part of the college diet. You did a good job of explaining the consequences of eating proceesed food. The visuals were very useful and added humor to your blog. Logos is used as you provided evidence that processed food leads to health risks such as diabetes.I would suggest using more pathos to try to convince the readers that there is a serious threat or that the food they are eating shouldn’t cause diseases. The list at the beginning is helpful ,but it also makes it seem like processed foods are limited to the list. You should elaborate on how processed foods are all around us and are not limited to oreos and ramen. Your blog seems a little short you don’t give us a solution it kind of just drifts away. I suggest giving the audience an alternative instead of processed foods. But, overall good job.
Matt,
ReplyDeleteYour blog was really enjoyable. Your content is obviously relevant to all of us reading it, and the tone maintains that connection with the audience. The organization of your post was good, and I liked your use of bullet points to break down what you were saying into bite sized chunks. I absolutely love both of your gifs, although I feel like overall your post could have benefited from more incorporation of images and links. Other than that, you integrated your sources well, and your post was funny. Good job!
Matt,
ReplyDeleteThis blog post is obviously directly target to your intended audience and you do a great job of relating personal experience within the content of the blog post. Your blog contains a good mix of of logos and pathos appeals with the statistics regarding the nutritional value of processed foods and relating the effects of health with the students' lives. The pathos appeals are not as obvious as the logos ones but they still are effective with lines such as "having that blatant pimple on your forehead, staring you back in the face, mocking your existence," which effectively hit emotional strings of a college student (par. 4). The blog is also laid out in a good manner with variation among paragraphs with a list and relevant and entertaining pictures to keep the blog fresh. The only rhetorical appeal that seems to be lacking is that of ethos; while you keep your credibility as a college student and being able to directly relate to the issue at hand, the ethos could be a bit more explicit or otherwise stated more overtly. Really though, the blog post was very well crafted and effective for its purpose.
Matt,
ReplyDeleteI found your blog enjoyable and thought it was hilarious. Your pathos invoked humor with your comical comments. It brings a lighter sense to a serious topic, You write about the facts and consequences of the food that most college students eat which makes it easy to relate. With your logos, you build credibility with the sources you use in your blog. It provides evidence with the points you make. I believe that you achieved your rhetorical strategy of informing the audience about the harmful effects of the foods that college students typically eat. To improve your blog, I suggest providing possible solutions to the problem you're presenting. I think you did an overall good job with your post and I believe that it was put together very well and well thought out.