Module reviews-
1. Nutrition
After attending the nutrition module I have come up with the following conclusion.
I learned a lot in this module along with thoroughly enjoying it. I am fascinated with the things we eat and what they contain and I felt ms Moore was really passionate about the subject. I enjoyed this module more then any other due to the teaching side of it and my interest in the subject.
2. Mindfulness
After attending a number of weeks in this module I have come up with the following conclusion. I did not feel this subject was very beneficial or that it helped me with my mental health. I did not feel that writing down quotes about the mind helped me with my mental health whatsoever and was kind of draining. For example I didn't think writing the quote "the mind is a heaven and a hell" was helpful and was making the subject more of an exam rather then a relaxing place. The exercises we carried out I did not feel worked and I was more bored by them then relaxed. If I were to give any advice for future modules in this subject it would be to not write down mindfulness quotes and instead watch more videos and not to take the subject as seriously.
3. Careers
If I'm going to be honest this was one of my least favourite modules. I felt we did not cover much material and the teacher didn't really interact much in the class, instead we were told to work on careers portal but not really told what to work on. I was disappointed as I felt this could have been a module I really enjoyed.
4. Public Speaking
For my public speaking exam I talked about healthy eating. In this I discussed artificial flavours, colours and preservatives and the negative impact it has on our bodies.
I had prepared well for my exam and I wasn't too nervous as it wasn't the first time I have done something like this. However of course something would have to go wrong and my power point refused to work. Eventually after allowing two of my classmates to go before me I managed to get my PowerPoint working. I thought my speech went well but not as well as I had practiced it. Despite this the examiner liked my speech and the humour I used in it. I was also happy that she seemed to have understood my speech as she didn't ask any questions I had already answered in my speech.
Here is my speech-
What kills you
Today I will be discussing the foods we eat and the long term effect they can have even when they are marketed to be healthy.
The foods almost all of us eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner all contain cancer and other serious diseases causing sweeteners, flavours and preservatives. studies by the U.S Centre for Disease Control (CDC) have shown that over 50% of serious diseases such as cancer are preventable in a persons life by through the way they exercise and the way they eat.
The first thing I will be discussing is diet foods. When you hear the word 'diet' you normally think it is healthy, however for many foods and drink this is not the case.
You see when you eat or drink something that says sugar free it normally has extra additives to give it a sweet flavour which are what we call artificial substances.
These substances may not affect you for decades to come but your just going to be more likely to get things like cancer in old age.
Also studies by Harvard University have shown that by drinking over 21 cans of zero calorie soda a week compared to someone who does not drink these doubles your likely hood of being overweight or obese, wait a second I thought these artificial sweeteners were supposed to help us loose weight not gain it.
This is because we are fooling ourselves by thinking we can have something like a cookie because we are only having a diet soda in which we wouldn't have had if we drank a sugar sweetened soda and because of the unknown effect these sweeteners have on the function of our bodies.
Studies have also shown that a daily consumption of diet drinks increases your risk of getting metabolic syndrome by 36% and type two diabetes by 67%. But don't listen to me, it says diet on the front so it must be good for you.
Secondly I am going to talk about preservatives. Their similar to artificial sweeteners except their much worse. Ever found it weird how a slice pan you get from your local store goes mouldy before it goes stale but homemade bread goes stale a day after you have made it or have you ever wondered how packet ham lasts for so long before it goes off.
This is all thanks to our artificial preservatives. For example the preservative in processed red meats 'Sodium Nitrite' has been marked as a 'definite' cause of cancer. This is a very strong salt chemical. Nitrates like this are also found in things like rat poisoning. But there allowed put these chemicals in foods. And it's not just red meats all processed meats in general have been marked as a definite cause of cancer.
Study's have also shown that by consuming 12 or more hotdogs a month can increase a child's chance of getting leukaemia by a whopping 10% according to The university Of Southern California School Of Medicine. This university also carried out an even more shocking study which consisted of 190000 people aged from 45-75 and found that the people who ate the most processed meat had a 67% more likely chance of getting cancer then those who ate the least. If that won't put you towards vegetarianism I don't know what else will.
Lastly I am going to talk about colours and flavours. I am going to go straight to the most dangerous Monosodium glutamate (MSG). Monosodium glutamate is a flavour enhancer and preservative added to many packaged and canned goods. So dangerous, the Arizona Centre for Advanced Medicine believes this product increases the growth of cancer cells in the body and stimulates neurotoxicity.
Its consumption is associated with symptoms of headaches, heart palpitations, brains lesions, and Parkinson’s disease. Non-industry supported research concludes that MSG acts like an excitotoxin slowly poisoning cells in the entire body. I think the worst part about this is that we all use packaged and canned foods whether we want to or not or we simply wouldn't be able to eat anything.
Some chemicals that we are eating we aren't even told are in the food at all for example, again in canned foods the actual lining of the can contains a product called bisphenol-A (BPA),which dissolves into the food due to its acidity especially canned tomatoes, which has been shown to genetically alter the brain cells of rats. Many plastic goods, water lines, and many dental composites also contain BPA. It alterers your brain in a negative way but you don't even know your taking it.
The main point of my speech today is if you can't pronounce it don't eat it.
A week later I received my Public Speaking certificate and was given a score of 86-First Class, a score that I was happy with but I would have preferred a score over ninety. I enjoyed my public speaking module and I feel I have developed new skills because of it.
5. Pottery
I really enjoyed my pottery course. Mr O'conner was a great teacher and it was one of the more fun modules. I liked moulding different shapes with the clay even if they were more then often rubbish. Pottery and even art in general is something I wouldn't normally embark on and I was glad I did.
6.Health
This module was with Mr O'conner again and we discussed things like hazards to health and safety regulations. I think this was an important module as it taught us things that would really benefit us in the future.
7.Politics and society
This module was based a lot around history. I have always enjoyed history and so as you can imagine I enjoyed this module. We looked at a lot of old Hollywood actors and it was interesting to see how much the film industry has changed in the last century.
8. Relationships and sexuality education
Let's just say this module was different to others that we have done. I'm not saying this was a bad thing, in fact I think it was really important to learn about for future experiences. We learned about rape and consent and how this can be misinterpreted.