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  PUBLIC HEALTH MUSEUM
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Visit Us
  • Exhibits
  • Support
  • Events
    • Outbreak! >
      • Outbreak! Blogs: Student Final Projects
    • World TB Day
    • Public Health Week
  • Pandemic
    • Timeline
    • Terminology
  • Newsletters
  • Prop Rentals
Read the Outbreak!2020 Student Blogs. We are so proud of their contributions!
*These posts express the opinion and research of the writer and should not be construed as medical advice or the position of the Public Health Museum.

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Nutritional Psychiatry: How Your Diet Affects Your Mental Health

1/12/2021

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​We have all heard the phrase “you are what you eat,” but we never realize how true it is. The connection between your diet and mental health is part of a field of study called nutritional psychiatry.
First, it is important to understand the microbiome in our bodies. It’s a community of various bacteria that are beneficial to humans in many ways, including keeping a balance between the good and bad bacteria in our gut. Your diet has an effect on the regulation, or dysregulation, of your microbiome. A healthy diet leads to a proper balance between good and bad bacteria which prevents disease and mental illness, while a diet that contains high amounts of processed foods causes inflammation and disorders. This is also due to the fact that most of the serotonin, the mood controlling neurotransmitter, is located in the gut. A healthy gut environment sends a positive message to our brains. Prebiotic and probiotic foods play a key role in maintaining microbiome balance. 

Author

Janhavi Maniar
​Outbreak! 2020


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How Quarantine Has Affected Teenagers’ Eating Habits

1/12/2021

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​Amidst the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic, life, as we knew it, slowly became further and further from the ever-evolving disaster we now face today. Forced to balance remote learning, online extracurriculars, and social isolation, naturally, teenagers are overwhelmed. Teenagers cope with stress in different ways, and unfortunately for many, myself included, it’s easy to snack at inconvenient times of the day in an effort to reduce stress but end up losing sleep because of it. So how does quarantine affect an adolescent’s eating habits?
Firstly, scientists found that emotional eating correlates with worse sleep (Farhangi). In a study conducted by the Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in Tabriz, Iran, researchers noted that “frequent snacking [is] prevalent among adolescents” (Farhangi). Further, they observed that “the prevalence of night eating syndrome in poor sleepers was substantially higher compared with good sleepers” (Farhangi). Based on their research, scientists concluded that snacking, a poor eating habit, was common in teenagers, and night eating syndrome, an eating disorder associated with poor eating habits at night, led to worse sleep quality. 


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The Rapture Of A Dove: Social Media And Its Effects On Teenage Girls’ Mental Health

1/12/2021

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​The generation we live in today is severely addicted to the internet and what it has to offer. There is an immense amount of propaganda on things such as dietary supplements or the hottest new clothing item. What type of message does that send to adolescents today? When we see popular influencers advertising and encouraging the sales of these products, we are so quick to buy them. The images of that beautiful model with just the right amount of curvature advertising a certain tea or protein shake locks us into what we could be if we had that certain item. And once we have this product and begin to use it and not see results, we blame ourselves and start the comparisons. The comparisons don’t even need to start from this. It's as simple as looking at an image of a person you believe looks better than yourself. This generation is one that suffers greatly with acceptance of self-love. This ultimately leads to them thinking they aren’t enough, or they must completely change themselves in order to be accepted by society. 

Author

Amanda Nazareth
Outbreak! 2020


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Scarce Sleep

1/12/2021

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Approximately ⅓ of our lives are spent sleeping. Sleep is one of the basic needs we require daily to function. It’s essential to our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. Sleep promotes memorization, analytical thinking, creativity, bolsters our immune systems, helps regulate hormones, enables the recovery of muscle and tissue, and helps regulate our moods. On the other hand, inadequate sleep can lead to poor academic performance due to lack of attention, an increased risk of obesity, a higher chance of partaking in high risk behavior, reduced reaction time, and mental health disorders such as, anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder. The benefits of sleep clearly outweigh the consequence, so why are so many teenagers unable to get enough of it?
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Author

Maitri Naik
​Outbreak! 2020


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There’s a Way Out: Hoarding Disorder

1/12/2021

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​Hoarding is a mental disorder in which a person accumulates excessive possessions and feels distress when parting with them. This leads to unsafe living conditions, malnutrition, and poor personal hygiene. Hoarding disorder, or HD for short, is a growing issue. Studies suggest prevalence is around 2-5% of the population and will continue to increase. The disorder is more common in adults than younger individuals.
I chose HD for my blog post because it is a great concern for both the individual and the public but is rarely talked about. There is a house in my town that is owned by a hoarder and it pains me to pass by it. It makes me extremely upset to think of the possible animals that are living inside. It also breaks my heart to think about the damage that the person is doing to their own body, both physically and mentally. 

Author

Valerie MacDonald
​Outbreak! 2020


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The Zika Risk Still Remains

12/24/2020

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​In the spring of 1947, a rhesus monkey in Uganda developed a sickness yet to be known to the world. Once analyzed and isolated by scientists, it was denominated the Zika virus, primarily transmitted by the Aedes spp., a common type of mosquito. For the next sixty years, the Zika fever was identified in humans a mere fourteen times - yet, its danger was on track to become prevalent across the world. This was proven in April of 2007, when the virus began to break out among humans in several different locations, first slamming the South Pacific islands and then racing into Brazil. With its expansion, Zika began to manifest through flu-like symptoms and rashes in about 20% of the infected, as well as Guillain-Barré syndrome, microcephaly, and more in the newborns of pregnant mothers who contracted the illness. By the fall of 2016, the Zika fever was widespread in the Americas, Asia, the Pacific Ocean islands, and Africa, spreading through Aedes spp. mosquitoes, sexual contact, blood transfusions, and organ donations. 

Author

Aparna Kamath
​Outbreak! 2020


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Feed the People!

12/24/2020

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​“You are what you eat,” they say; despite the original intention of the phrase, it can be readily applied on a dietary basis. Proper nutrition is vital to one’s overall health. Yet, food insecurity disproportionally affects low-income families, racial and ethnic minorities, and families run by a single parent. Children and adults alike are susceptible to the detrimental effects of food insecurity, which ranges from chronic diseases to mental disorders which undeniably contribute to an  increased mortality rate. However, such conditions are preventable when the right initiatives are taken; that being said, maintaining a well-balanced diet is among the most important factors.

Author

Emily Cai
​Outbreak! 2020


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Tiny Terrors; The Truth Behind the Disease that Many Don’t Know

12/24/2020

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Lyme disease is a zoonotic disease which an individual obtains by being bitten by a black-legged tick infected with the bacterium Borrelia Burgdorferi. Although many people have heard of Lyme disease, many do not know how common the disease is and how difficult it can be to recover from. Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne illness and 300,000 people in the United States contract Lyme Disease every year.
 The early symptoms of Lyme disease can start anywhere from 3-30 days after an individual has been bitten. The most recognizable symptom is a red rash called erythema migrans which looks like a bull’s-eye and gets larger over the course of several days. Other notable symptoms include fever, headache, muscle soreness, and swollen lymph nodes. If these early symptoms are not caught and treated, then more severe symptoms will develop. These include arthritis, nervous system complications, and heart issues.

Author

Julia Kole
​Outbreak! 2020


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