By: Amabelle Mirzi Bautista
Eating is a human’s daily basis in getting the needed nutrients and the needed energy for the whole day. Usually our parents told us that we should eat every three to four hours but is eating every moment is really healthy or doing it will only makes us suffer? Is it only the food that is harmful? Or is it the way how we eat? Or maybe we, humans, are not following the real rhythm of our body? Recently, Anahad O’Connor who is known to be a journalist and a staff reporter in New York Times has posted an article in the internet. First off, Anahad O’ Connor’s biography states that, he joined the NYT in year 2013 and he writes about health, fitness, nutrition, epidemiology, and science. Before joining the NYT he was a neuroscience with a psychology degree at Yale University. Also, upon looking at his data, Anahad O’connor, has already published four different books related to the food industry and to world myths. He started publishing at the year 2007 and his latest book was published last 2010. His book “The 10 Things You Need to Eat” was his New York Times Bestseller in the year 2010. As of now his article entitled “When We Eat, or Don’t Eat, May Be Critical for Health” posted last July 24, 2018 answers the questions given above.
“When We Eat, or Don’t Eat, May Be Critical for Health” revolves around the book, The Circadian Code. It is revealed by Dr. Satchidananda Panda, a professor at the Salk Institute and an expert on circadian rhythms research. The book includes the experimental researches where scientist will test people and animals connected to the circadian rhythm. As reading further in the article made by O’Connor he is trying to inform people about the circadian rhythm and to suggest should follow the circadian code because of its advantages or its health factors.
As mentioned earlier, Anahad O’Conner is the author of “When We Eat, or Don’t Eat, May Be Critical for Health”. The content of his work is objective because he based his statements to the experiments of scientists starting from animals to humans. Seemingly, the aims of his work are to inform people about the book “The Circadian Code” and how this circadian rhythm does affect our body. His approach in doing the article is collecting the highlights of the book including the needed information to know first, the statements of the scientists that generalize the whole topic of the book and the experiments that are conducted to prove their study. The way sequenced the whole article is effective because the way he write his work really catches the attention of his audience/reader even though it is a long article yet, it could have been better if he first stated the experiment made by Dr. Panda in 2012 using the identical mice than stating first the experiment involving healthy adults because it is more logical to say that “if it works on mice will it work on people too?” than thinking “if it works on people will it work on animals too?”. There are types of readers that if the author has already stated the biggest proof that he has the readers will start to neglect the following small proofs that you are giving next. For that reason, logical sequencing, even in giving proofs is important because situations like these may happen. Overall, the way of his collection of data of the book, research, or study is well structured, aside from how he put together the data collected he wrote it in the way his audience can read it with much more understanding and include some examples related to the statement yet not confusing his readers. For example:
““If you’re constantly eating at a time of day when you’re not getting bright light exposure, then the different clock systems become out of sync,” she said. “It’s like one clock is in the time zone of Japan and the other is in the U.S. It gives your metabolism conflicting signals about whether to rev up or rev down.”
Most people know what happens when we disrupt the central clock in our brains by flying across multiple time zones or burning the midnight oil: Fatigue, jet lag and brain fog set in. Eating at the wrong time of day places similar strain on the organs involved in digestion, forcing them to work when they are programmed to be dormant, which can increase the risk of disease, said Paolo Sassone-Corsi, the director of the Center for Epigenetics and Metabolism at the University of California, Irvine.”
In the statement above we can see that O’Connor had taken quoted something from the study and then he supports the quoted statement with example and facts that are connected to it.
O’Connor’s article, “When We Eat, or Don’t Eat, May Be Critical for Health” , is highly informative because it states that what we eat is not only the factor that affects our health. When we eat or don’t eat affects it too because following the rhythm of our body is to avoid conflicts such as different illnesses. It also states that, every organ in our body has its own clock to work on a daily basis. Once changed or used too much it may cause major negative changes in our body. For the reason that we should always keep in mind the successful experiments that show the differences between having a time-restricted regimen than having none because those experiments are the proof of how to have a good diet for a person’s health. In some circumstance, O’Connor should not neglect the sequencing of his examples for proofing because it is one of the most important parts of an article the supporting detail. Overall his work is well-structured because he has given all the terms that the readers needs to know, he has put the word into his own understanding, he has quoted some statements from the scientists itself, and he has collected other facts and studies related to the topic.
References:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/24/well/when-we-eat-or-dont-eat-may-be-critical-for-health.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FFood
https://www.nytimes.com/by/anahad-oconnor
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1116342/the-circadian-code/
Eloquence 