HEALTH
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Shelbi Hines loves to eat Oreo ice cream. Whether she is sad because she misses her family or ecstatic because she aced the psychology exam she studied for all night, Hines grabs a bowl of Oreo ice cream and digs right in When Hines' boyfriend broke up with her last year unexpectedly, she turned to her favorite ice cream for comfort.
"I almost ate the whole carton," says Hines, Bexley, Ohio, sophomore. "My stomach didn't feel too good afterward, but it definitely cheered me up."
College students, like Hines, often turn to food for comfort because it is accessible and quick, says Susan Albers, a psychologist and author of Eating Mindfully. Albers describes comfort food as any food that induces a feeling of soothing and pleasure. It can also be something that you associate with past experiences.
This feeling is both biological and psychological. "Certain foods stimulate feel good chemicals in the body such as serotonin, the same neurotransmitter that is impacted by Prozac," Albers says. Sugary foods, like Hines' Oreo ice cream, have this effect because they immediately spike your blood sugar and cause excitement and happiness. However, people can associate any kind of food with happiness, Albers says.
This association happens early in life because we cognitively associate certain foods with
feelings, Albers says. "If you fall down and your mom gives you a cookie, you will associate that cookie with a soothing feeling."
Ben Martin associates his comfort food, which is homemade fried chicken and mashed potatoes, with happiness. "It reminds me of being back home and having family get-togethers," says Martin, Fort Worth, Texas, freshman. Martin says he loves to go home because his mom always makes fried chicken and mashed potatoes for him. When he can't be home, he drives over to Kentucky Fried Chicken for his comfort food fix. "I actually ate some last week because I was missing my family," Martin says.
Although people often use comfort food as a tool for happiness, it can also be used as a reward or for celebration.
Daniel Guebara likes to eat cheese dip when he celebrates. He makes it at home using Velveeta cheese, Rotel and hamburger meat. He usually eats cheese dip while watching basketball and football games on TV. "I always have it on Super Bowl Sunday," says Guebara, Deerfield, Kan., junior. "It's my favorite celebration food."
Comfort food has many benefits, but it can also have downfalls. Roger Gould, associate clinical professor at UCLA and author of Shrink Yourself, says some people turn to comfort food to deny the problems in their life. They can even
become addicted to a certain food. "It's like taking medicine to some people," Gould says. "It's very seductive because it's legal and it's advertised everywhere."
Gould says college students often fall into this trap. "It's is a big transition in their lives and can cause some of them to gain up to 20 pounds from eating comfort food," Gould says. He also says the first year of college is the worst for students because it is the first time some of them are away from their families.
Albers, author of Eating Mindfully, says if someone's only coping mechanism is to turn to food then it will negatively affect their weight and their health. "It's likely that you will continue to gain weight, which will turn your coping mechanism into the problem itself," Albers says.
To avoid this problem, Albers advises people to monitor what types of foods they are using for comfort. If the food is unhealthy, like a piece of cheesecake, she suggests only using it to soothe yourself, instead of as a treat.
If you're eating habits become a problem, Albers says to consult a professional psychiatrist. "A mental health professional can help you get to the bottom of why you are comforting yourself with food and help you find some healthy alternatives such as relaxation techniques, self massage and other distractions," Albers says.
CRAVING FRIED CHICKEN?
CHAVING FRIED CHICKEN?
Try out this simple recipe from
soulfoodandsoutherncooking.com.
2-1/2 to 3 pounds of broiler-fryer
chicken cut, cleaned and dried
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
brown paper or plastic bag black cast iron skillet
vegetable oil
paper towels
1. Mix dry ingredients in brown paper or plastic bag. Drop 1 or 2 pieces of chicken into bag and shake until meat is coated. Continue until all chicken is coated with seasoning.
2. On high, heat vegetable oil in skillet Add chicken to skillet in a single layer, don't overcrowd.
3. Reduce heat to medium and cook uncovered until meat is browned on both sides. As a general rule, cook chicken for about 15 minutes on each side. Before serving, allow chicken to drain on paper towels.
oard of worship to its opinions
changed her life.
The next morning she woke up naked in a hotel room just outside Manhattan, covered in bruises and scratches. Seven naked men slept on the floor around her. The men paid Tebow's friend to drug and bring her to the hotel. Her friend set her up for a night she would never forget. She turned into a victim of sex trafficking that night. All she wanted to do was have a
Kristen Tebow, a woman from Manhattan, just wanted to make friends her freshman year at Kansas State University. On a typical weekend night, she made plans with a new friend from marching band. She and her newly found friend visited a typical bar on the outskirts of Manhattan. Tebow's friend got her a drink; a few moments later she felt like the "world went crazy" and passed out in the bar's bathroom.
out to be controlling.
Other Signs:
3. Putting you down - The controller doesn't only want to be in control of your actions, but also your emotions.
- Isolating you from friends and family
- Perpetually blaming you for his or her own actions (anger,
- Discouraging you from pursuing outside interests
- cheating, yelling, etc.)
- Embarrassing you in public
- Cycling through moods
- Constantly discounting your feelings
Adapted from The Midwest Center for Stress and Anxiety
Thursday night, Tebow took back that night from those seven
"I just wanted somebody to hold me at that point," Tebow said. "I was crying for my dad."
Incidents like Tebow are not uncommon. And just like Tebow, survivors of sexual assault, rape,
little fun in college.
men and her "friend.'
SEE AWARENESS ON PAGE 3A
The Clothesline Project was a visible contribution to Take Back the Night Thursday evening. Victim and supporters created shirts to hang on the clothesline to tell their stories or to send a message about domestic violence.
Dalton Gomez/KANSAN
HEALTH
Filling the gap in children's scoliosis treatment
For every 1,000 children in the United States, three to five will develop scoliosis severe enough to require surgery. However, there are zero model pediatric spines to guide the course of treatment.
University researchers are working on a more accurate spinal model
BY MEG LOWRY
mlowry@kansan.com
Lisa Friis, assistant professor in mechanical engineering, said there are no available spines from deceased children with scoliosis to be modeled off of.
"Unfortunately, a 75-year-old
A federal grant of more than $1 million was awarded to the engineering department to fund spinal replica research. Friis, who has worked as a research scientist in orthopedics since 2001, said the grant was well-founded.
"The spine is a series of connected joints," Friis said. "If you do something to one level, it will affect all levels up and down. If we can create models and find how treatment influences functions on adjacent levels, we will be able to design implants better."
Lewis leads a group of graduate students and undergraduate students who help with the research. The group works closely with a pediatric surgeon from Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City,
"The spinal industry is about 15 to 25 years behind other areas of orthopedics," Friis said. "Some spinal surgery procedures still
The lab has successfully created a model of an adult lumbar spine, which has enabled researchers to now begin creating a pediatric model spine.
male's spine does not really represent a 12-year-old girl's, but this is what they are using to test spinal implants on," Friis said.
Mo., and medical device companies, which offer their insight. Creating a pediatric spine replica with nothing to work off of and measure from creates many challenges. For example, the engineers know that children are more flexible and their tissues are less dense, and that they will grow. However, they do not know to what extent.
"Babies are much more flexible, for example, and in some places have cartilage instead of bone," Lewis said. "Those kinds of properties just don't change overnight, so we are trying to find out how surgeries can work with that."
don't have as high of success rates as other surgeries, so these are the types of things we are looking at now."
"It's extremely difficult to create a model of a spine when we don't know the target values and also incorporate somehow the physiological changes that occur in kids," Lewis said.
Erin Lewis, a graduate student in bioengineering from Fort Scott, said medical device companies rely on a scaled-down model of an adult spine, which can lead to error and confusion.
Scoliosis surgeries involve
These kinds of surgeries include spinal implants and fusions, which are used to treat scoliosis.
SEE SPINE ON PAGE 3A
09
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three slots at contest
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Crossword...4A
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Designs made by students won the top three spots at the Aviation, Technology Integration and Operations conference in Texas.
TODAY'S WEATHER
INDEX
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Check out our interactive guide for the different areas of the spine at kansan.com/
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