Course Project: Strategies for Building a New Routine
Part OneAnalyzing Your Dieting Habits
As you made your way through the first module in this course, you likely found some familiarity in the way that Professor Levitsky was talking about dieting. Despite being common practices, diets are rarely successful in the long termbut that doesnt mean that the reasons why you decided to diet in the first place go away.
In this part of the course project, you will analyze your own dieting habits in order to identify which traps you are falling into and how you may be able to adjust your practices for a greater chance at successfully meeting your goals. Choose a time when you followed a diet for weight loss. If you never have, talk to a family member or close friend that has. Then answer the following questions.
What were your motivations for choosing to diet? What was your goal?
Describe the diet you chose to follow. What were the rules/constraints?
Did you successfully meet your goal while following the diet? Why do you think it was or was not successful? Explain using what you learned in this module about the challenges of dieting.
What environmental factors (i.e. eating out with friends and family) affected your ability to “diet”?
What would you do differently if you choose to diet again? Explain using what you learned in this module.
What advice would you give to a friend that shared an intention to start a diet?
Part TwoReframing Exercise
Part of maintaining the long-term health of your body is understanding why healthy behaviors are healthy. One of the biggest misconceptions in weight loss is that exercise will make you lose weight. In the video Is More Exercise the Solution?, Professor Levitsky shared what can be a startling factexercise, though it has a myriad of benefits, is not a direct determinant of body weight. Exercise is, however, one of the most important behaviors for maintaining health. It is therefore essential to have a good understanding of both why exercise is really important and how to do it most effectively.
In this part of the course project, you will examine the role of exercise in your life and how you might make adjustments to your current habits to better align with best practices for long-term health. In doing so, you will mentally reframe exercise from a tool for weight loss to a means for improving your lifestyle.
Answer the following questions:
Using the concepts you learned in this course, describe in your own words three scientifically supported benefits of exercise.
Do you already exercise regularly? If so, describe what motivates you to keep going. If not, describe what psychological factors make remaining motivated difficult.
Think about the science of what happens in your body during the different stages of exercise. What surprised you? Explain how your conception of the way your body fuels and functions changed.
Given your current exercise habits and new knowledge of how exercise works, what will you do differently in regards to exercise moving forward to increase your health? Address the following three categories in your answer:
a. Dietary (How might you change your eating habits?)
b. Psychological (How will you stay motivated?)
c. Physical (When and in what ways will you exercise?)
Part ThreeBecoming a Vigilant Consumer
In our modern world, advertisements are everywhere. You see them on television, or on the Internet, or as you walk down the aisle in the grocery store. They are impossible to get away from. And yet, how many of them can you really trust? When it comes to products that claim to give you energy, it pays to be especially vigilant. If you look at the label of any energy drink, you will see that the active ingredient is actually caffeine. As you touched on in an earlier discussion in this course, caffeine will stimulate your central nervous system and provide the feeling of being energizedbut it does not create energy. It does, however, work to create the illusion that the protein or carb boost that the label advertises is an effective way to raise energy levels.
The truth is, most people do not need to take supplements, for exercise or otherwise. Advertisers spend millions of dollars each year to convince consumers that they have nutritional deficiencies. In order to avoid falling for these tricks, it is important to be able to discern what motivates your own behavior when it comes to shopping for health products.
Visualize your weekly grocery list. Choose a healthy item that you consume regularly: you may select a food specifically manufactured as part of the diet industry (e.g. a protein bar or vitamin supplement) or simply an item that you continue to buy to combat a perceived deficiency of some nutrient (e.g. carrots). When you have an item in mind, answer the following questions.
Think back to the first time you bought this item. What made you choose it?
Analyze the message that advertisements for that item convey. A good place to start is by looking at the packaging; TV or print ads may also be relevant. What do the advertisements want you to believe about that product?
Based on the information in the nutrition label, can you find any obvious holes in the advertisements claim? (For instance, if youve purchased a protein bar, is it actually high in protein? Are there other active ingredients?)
Did this messaging play a role your decision to purchase it? If so, explain how it aligned with your health goals.
Should you continue to purchase this product in the future? Explain why or why not using concepts from this course.
What advice would you give to a friend who is looking for a new health product to try? What kinds of red flags should your friend look for?
To submit this assignment, please refer to the instructions in the course.
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