Project 2
Laura Carpenter
College is hard, and being healthy in college is harder. “Hello Healthy” is a blog in partnership with “my fitness pal” with a goal to provide easy ways to improve one’s health and lifestyle. The site is split into four main categories, which are further split into groups of articles for each category. These four main ones are: Eat, Moves, Live, Learn. They all contain tips, nutritional information, and ways to improve every-day life. Its’ articles are from a combination of authors, ranging from registered dietitians, to weight trainers. The breadth of authors, makes the website more credible in it’s information, because those writing are experienced and trained in their fields specifically. Every article, as well as the homepage to the site, include buttons to push to share it on all types of social media, including: Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook. This shows that the site heavily relies on social media as its primary source for their articles to be seen. Since the site is a partner with “My Fitness Pal”, links to it, as well as “My Fitness Pal” branding covers “Hello Healthy”. Also, every article, as well as the main page, has pictures; these work to grab the reader’s attention, as well as to hold the audience’s attention. When all that is seen is word after word, for several pages, it is hard to stay focused. Through logic, an encouraging tone, specific examples, and implementing research, “Hello Healthy”, aims to better the health of every individual, at any place in life.
The “Learn” category, serves to educate the readers; whether it be on how to use “My Fitness Pal”, or on what recent food recalls there are. A recent article under this category was “The Basics of Body Recomposition: How to Lose Fat and Gain Muscle at the Same Time”. The article alone intrigues the readers, lose fat and gain muscle? It sounds like a dream. Instantly, the reader is intrigued by the title, and then enraptured by the random bolding of sentences. This bolding serves to highlight the main points of the article, and if anything else, the author wants the reader to take away those points and tips. Along with the rest of the website, this article holds a light and encouraging tone. This particular author uses second person, implementing the word “you” all over, makes the reader feel more involved and makes the topic feel more relevant. He also brings up research multiple times, making him a more credible source. Multiple times, he breaks down fitness lingo into something everyone can understand, so that the article is more relevant to everyone, rather than just the fitness gurus. He also brings logic into the article by deductive reasoning. “Part of recomposition training is gaining muscle, and the most effective way to do that is resistance training, therefore, to achieve recomposition, you must resistance train.” Logic is also used when he gives specific examples of how this training can affect overall health. “Calorie cycling is going to help you lose fat while you gain muscle, optimize your hormones, and live longer”, who wouldn’t wan to do it then? Every technique he gives, he makes interesting, as well as relevant. He wants the readers to be convinced that “recomposition training” can be for anyone. Rather than oversimplifying, or overcomplicating, he is real about the technique, and explains that it won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.
Another one of the main categories was Move. “Four Ways to Love Exercise-Yes It’s Possible”, is the most encouraging title a girl could ask for. The title alone makes the reader excited to find out what’s next and to get out there and be active. The next thing that grabs attention is a picture of a super fit girl who appears to have recently worked out. Instantly, the reader is compelled to go grab some tennis shoes and hit the gym. Although a person’s biggest motivator should be themselves, its human nature to compare to others, and this picture makes the reader want to look and do the same. The author, who is a personal trainer and well coach, had her own forty-pound weight loss, which makes the appeals to pathos, and makes her appear more real and intrigues to reader to listen more carefully. She breaks her article down into a list (1, 2, 3, 4), with bold lettering at the title for each number title. All of these titles are also encouraging: “Find Movement You Enjoy Doing”, “Take it Down a Notch”, “Mix it Up”, “Value Quality over Quantity”. These titles are meant to grab the audience’s attention, so that they are willing to focus on the rest of the article and find out more. “One study done by researchers at the University of Alabama Birmingham found that women who exercised six days a week actually ended up burning 200 calories less per day than those who performed the same workouts two or four times a week.” She also brings to everyone’s attention that she has done her research, and is not just throwing out random theories that should be taken as facts. She is sure in her statements. Her goal in this article is obviously to make exercise seem attainable and possible for those who have always struggled with self-motivation. There is no reason for individuals to hinder their own success by forcing themselves to do exercises they don’t enjoy. It’s encouraged to find something enjoyable, and to fall in love with that type of fitness, and pursue it, and this is only logical. Why force something upon yourself when you hate it? It obviously will not last long, and that is not the effect you’re looking for.
Eat is the third category, and interesting article, recently published, is “Solutions to the Biggest Challenges of Eating out”. Any ready feels immediately “called out” upon the title. After a night out to eat, everyone comes home feeling guilty, even if it was for putting a little too much salad dressing on that buffalo chicken salad, or eating an entire order of burgers and fries. Rather than calling out people, the author actually aims for the readers to just put themselves in that scenario, and to encourage us to do better next time. The author is a registered dietitian, who obviously has credibility just based off her title. The article is first introduced by some basic statistics. “American’s eat and drink on average about a third of their total daily calories away from home”. When the reader continues to read, rather than finding a sentence saying to never eat out again, they find the author to be understanding of any typical American’s eating habits outside of the home. Instead of giving the reader crazy ideas of how to eat out “right”, she gives reasonable examples of how to save calories, and how to monitor portion sizes. “Instead of letting yourself get to the desperate hunger zone, remember to eat regular meals and light snacks during the day”. She also suggests for portion sizes to get a to go box, and box up half of it before you start your meal, or to imagine the size it should be on your plate and eat only that much. By backing up her reasoning for portion control through stating “Drs. Lisa Young and Marion Nestle, portion sizes at restaurants took a sharp increase in the US during the 1970’s and have continued to expand,” she earns more credibility, and it draws the reader in further. Through logic, the author suggests that “you can come back another time or take home leftovers” when we start to get in our heads that its okay to gorge on the delicacy of foods we encounter when we go out to eat. Rather than being judgemental throughout the article, the author is thoroughly encouraging; she knows it’s not easy to pass up delicious food. She knows that sometimes we fall off of our diets, or don’t stick to the original plan of clean eating, but suggests that instead of beating yourself up about it, you should stand up, brush yourself off, and continue to try to make healthier choices.
Last, but not least, Live finishes off the categories. “How to Break up With Drive-Thru Dining” reads as an interesting title. Break up? As in a relationship? That is exactly what the author suggests. American’s have a relationship with food, and usually it’s not the healthiest. The picture for this article is what you might expect to see late at night when all the fast food restaurant signs are lit up. Instantly, thoughts of late night runs to Krispy Kreme, Bojangles, or Dominoes come to mind. After these mental realizations come forward, the reader is hit with cold hard statistics about drive-thrus. “65% of McDonald’s annual sales, $10.55 billion, go through car windows”. “It takes an average 189 seconds for customers to get their food from the drive-thru window”. That is a lot of McDonald’s, and that is a very short amount of time to receive the mass amount of calories in that bag of burgers, fries, and McFlurries. The scary part isn’t necessarily the food itself; it’s the speed and convenience at which it is given. The author aims for the reader to take a step back and re-evaluate their life choices when it comes to choosing the drive-thru rather than taking an extra five minutes to make something at home. Logic comes into play at the author suggests that “anything that is convenient is likely to be abused, and if you want to break up with the drive thru, we have to make the healthy alternative even more convenient.” In that sentence, He uses both “you” and “we”, so that no one feels entirely called out, but they realize that they are included in the scenario, and are not alone. He ends the article with “Dump this loser” and “you deserve better”, both these phrases adhere to the title suggesting a relationship. It also empowers the reader to be better and aim for higher and to push through that aching hunger for a few more minutes to have a more nutritious meal, even if it takes a little more work.
The entire “Hello Healthy” website is incredibly encouraging, and empowering. It makes each individual want to put his or her health first. It also meets ever individual on their road of healthiness, whether that be losing weight, gaining muscle, or just living a day to day healthier life. This is exactly what “Hello Healthy” aims to achieve. The authors on the website understand that no one is perfect, and everyone struggles with their health journey, and they are their to encourage and provide useful and helpful information for the readers to make the best decisions. With an easy to navigate web space, and colorful images, “Hello Healthy” is an attractive website with an incredible amount of helpful information
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