Ch. 7 – Alcohol and Tobacco

This was another informative and interesting chapter. There were many things that I learned for the first time, and many others that were extremely interesting to hear again. It was a difficult chapter once again to connect to the health aspect outside of the obvious negatives that can come from the use of alcohol and tobacco when it comes to the progression towards the ultimate goal that I set for myself. Despite this, chapter 7 was a definite learning experience when it came to the multiple things that stuck out to me. The first thing in the chapter that made an immediate impression on me was the fact that “Alcohol consumption is the top cause of preventable death among U.S. undergraduates” (Donatelle, 2019, p. 152). It is definitely something that crossed my mind that alcohol would be a large factor in the death rate of college-aged people, but I did not think that it was the number one cause. This not only struck me as surprising, but also quite sad. Alcohol is extremely prevalent on college campuses. I guess that this makes the statistic make a bit more sense, due to the frequency of alcohol consumption by college students. However, it is still surprising to see so much alcohol in college life, yet not necessarily see the negativity unless you experience it firsthand or a friend does. Despite this, it is extremely possible (even probable) for this negativity to occur and for possibly the worst to happen.

The second thing that stuck out to me in the chapter was the long-term effects of alcohol. the most surprising of these effects to me was cirrhosis. I had never heard of cirrhosis before, and the reality of it is as bad as it sounds. If a person continually drinks heavily, “the liver cells die, and damage becomes permanent” (Donatelle, 2019, p. 158) According to the chapter, this disease is relatively common, as it occurs just from the regularity of heavy drinking. If someone is a heavy drinker, they are immediately at risk to get cirrhosis. This can even be fatal, simply from an action as easy to commit as drinking a lot on a regular basis. Cirrhosis is definitely a scary disease and a threatening one tothose who like or fall back on drinking.

The third thing that drew my attention in chapter 7 was the association between college students and smoking. It came as a surprise to me that “college students are the targets of heavy tobacco advertising campaigns” (Donatelle, 2019, p. 165). I might be a bit biased, as I don’t generally watch that much television, but I have never seen a tobacco product commercial that, in my opinion, was aimed at college students. On top of this, it greatly surprised me when I read that ” when students are asked how many students they think have smoked in the last thirty days, they perceive that rates are as high as 75 percent” (Donatelle, 2019, p. 165). My perceived rate would be astronomically lower, at or below 15%, yet others feel very differently. In my two years at BSU and 1 prior year in college, I have only seen 2-3 people smoking on campus, and do not know anyone (personally) of my age who smokes. The statistics when it came to tobacco in relation to college students definitely surprised me in more ways that one.

In terms of my health aspect over the past few chaotic weeks, I have found ways to keep what I am doing interesting, but have somewhat struggled to make solid improvements. Being home has meant a lot of time with my dog. He is a ball of energy and is constantly begging to play outside. I am not exaggerating when I say that I spend around 3 hours outside with him running around the yard and playing fetch. I know that this definitely has an impact on how hard I can go when I run, but it is still very frustrating at times to not see the improvements that I hope for (whether or not they are far-fetched to begin with). I mentioned in my last blog post that I hoped being back where I first started to run would inspire me to get back into a groove and improve greatly, but I feel like it has only added unnecessary and unwanted stress to myself, as I can’t help but compared myself now to when I was at my best. I constantly remind myself to push through the negative thoughts, but they definitely find their way back. I try to forget about these thoughts by making my running more interesting. I try to run with my dog every so often (in hopes to tire him out as well), but he gets way to distracted to run for any beneficial amount of time, so it is more of a for fun type of thing. I also run on a treadmill in my basement, as crazy as it sounds, in order to make the running I do outside seem more eventful and less boring. All around, I would say that I am feeling a slight return of the enjoyment I once had running, but that is definitely stifled relatively easily once I looked down at my watch and judge what I have done so far. I am pushing myself to keep going, but it definitely gets difficult sometimes.