Exploring the world is an important aspect of education. Certainly, without exploring one’s world, we would discover nothing new. However, not all self-explorations yield positive results. Students with seemingly harmless intentions to explore their world sometimes go too far and end up damaging their health and academic performance.
Question: What types of “seemingly harmless exploration” can negatively affect physical and mental health?
Answer: Adopting new ideas can sometimes influence eating habits. The drive to lose weight or attain and maintain an overly lean body weight can lead to low essential nutrient intake and malnutrition. In addition, environmental and agricultural sustainability concerns can lead to narrow eating styles such as poorly designed vegetarian diets.
Initially, health and function might appear to improve on a diet that is low in one or more essential nutrients. Eventually, however, a short nutrient supply will result in health problems. It takes time to drain the body’s nutrient reserves enough to impair health, but when the body’s reserves are depleted even of a single essential nutrient, physical and mental function can take a severe dive.
Q: How can weight loss affect nutrient intake and personal performance?
A: Anything that leads to limited or overly narrow food intake can reduce essential nutrient intake and eventually have adverse effects on health. Due to decreased food or food group variety in most weight-loss diets, the supply of an essential nutrient like iron might be compromised. In addition, a recent study showed that overweight individuals with a limited calorie intake experienced decreased iron status despite consuming twice the recommended iron intake.
Q: Can sustainability concerns lead to poor nutrition?
A: A good sustainable agricultural system such as that practiced by early Hawaiians also sustains good human health. Too frequently, however, current thinking about sustainability issues can lead concerned individuals to avoid foods they perceive as being an extravagant use of resources. When a key food such as red meat is removed from the diet, the consequence can be severe. If its removal is not compensated through the consumption of other foods that provide adequate amounts of protein, iron, zinc and B vitamins, health can eventually take a heavy hit.
Q: Which essential nutrient deficiency is most likely to develop in young adults, especially females?
A: Iron and zinc deficiencies are especially common in young women. Not only do young women experience more social pressures to maintain a low body weight, but they also require about twice as much iron in their diet as men. Consequently, iron deficiency remains the most common nutrient deficiency experienced by women during their child-bearing years.
Q: What are the potential ramifications of an undiagnosed iron deficiency?
A: Low levels of tissue iron have been tied to fatigue, decreased ability to sleep, impaired immune function, problems with cognitive functions (such as alertness and memory) and restless legs syndrome.
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Joannie Dobbs, Ph.D., C.N.S., and Alan Titchenal, Ph.D., C.N.S., are nutritionists in the Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Sciences, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, University of Hawaii-Manoa. Dobbs also works with University Health Services.
