This chapter was definitely important and interesting to me because in my dad side of the family, almost all my family suffers from heart problems. Just a week ago, my grandfather’s brother died from a heart attack, my grandfather had a small heart attack just last year as well as other heart problems that almost killed him and my dad takes medications for his heart and asthma problems. Most of my uncles from my dad’s side that have died was due to a coronary heart disease or a heart attack. This is something that I have always been aware but also another factor of why this is so common in my family other than heredity, it is also their life styles. My grandfather was a smoker for decades until he had the heart attack and had to get an open heart surgery. I think what caught my eye about this topic was how bad cholesterol (LDC) as well as fat increase your chances of suffering from any cardiovascular disease. Because I know how sad and scary is to see someone have a heart attack and since it is something that runs in my family, I have always opted not only on exercising but also cutting off the amount of meat and processed food I put in my body since this is definitely a big factor of lots of diseases.
I think the most interesting and surprising topic for me was the risks of cancer. I don’t know why I always thought that cancer could be hereditary and in some cases environmental. However, I was really surprised when some of the risks of cancer were alcohol and stress. Even though I know alcohol is not the best thing for our bodies, I just never assumed that it could cause cancer. Also, stress, I think this is the most scaring thing for me because even though stress is considered something ” we can control”, I think this is not necessarily the case. Some people have very stressful jobs that they have to keep to pay their bills as well as a lot of personal and familiar issues that we can not control. Stress is not something that simply goes away after meditation or yoga or herbs, it is something that controls our minds and also affects our bodies in so many different ways and I would argue that this is something uncontrollable and it is also unfortunate that can give you cancer.
One other thing that caught my eye was skin cancer. I never really paid attention when people used to say to wear sunscreen. I am from Dominican Republic so I am naturally “tan” which means I have never burned and I can easily tan in like an hour. Until now I never wear sunscreen because I was always like ” I don’t need it, I don’t burn, I tan super easy” but after reading this chapter I noticed that I am definitely being super ignorant and because I don’t burn it doesn’t mean that the sun won’t affect me and that I can also get skin cancer. Even though it is easier to get skin cancer when you have a lighter skin, doesn’t mean that if you are not Caucasian you are immune to skin cancer.
I think this chapter relates to my muscle building and healthier eating because all this diseases have a couple of things in common but one of them is our healthy eating and exercising. I think that even though I don’t usually eat a lot of meat and food with bad cholesterol, I think now I will definitely see it a little different when I do eat it, especially since cardiovascular disease runs in my family.
Environmental Health 