Rachel's Challenge

What is most important to me is definitely my family and my friends. School work and making good decisions is also very important to me, but my number one priority is my family and friends. The people that are always there for me and that I have the most fun with are the people I focus on treating right and just having a good time with. I care about them so much and that's how it's always been to me. I want to be remembered as someone who cares about the big things in life, the things that really should matter and someone that doesn't let the little, useless things get in the way of anything.

Alcohol

The fascination with alcohol especially with teens is that they want the feeling that alcohol first gives you. Another reason teens may resort to alcohol is that they do it to look cool, or to fit in and they don't understand the effects teen drinking has on them. And the last reason that I can think that teens would drink is to take away their problems and they go to alcohol to settle their problems. Alcohol is definitely not healthy for your body. It breaks down the liver, increases the risk of arthritis, increases the risk of cancer in the liver, pancreas, rectum, breast, mouth, pharynx, larnyx, and esophagus, causes physical and behavioral abnormalities to the fetus, raises blood pressure, blood lipids and the risk of a stroke and heart disease in heavy drinkers. Heart disease is generally lower in light to moderate drinkers. It raises blood glucose and it can lower blood glucose, especially to people that have diabetes. It enlarges the kidneys, alters hormone functions, and increases the risk of kidney failure. It also causes fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis and cirrhosis. It increases the risk of protein-energy malnutrition,; low intakes of protein, calcium, iron, vitamin A, vitamin C, thiamine, vitamin B6 and riboflavin, and impaired absorption of calcium, phosphorus, vitamin D and zinc. It causes neuropathy and dementia and impairs balance and memory. It increases energy intake, but not a primary cause of obesity. And last it causes depression, anxiety, and insomnia. I don't think alcohol should be banned because the people who don't abuse it shouldn't have to be punished for the one's who don't.

Soy

My personal opinion on Soy is that I wouldn't eat it. If it has many negative consequences including high levels of phytoestrogen and derivative of the female hormone estrogen, why take it? Even if it's said to be a superfood and has a variety of health benefits cuch as preventing cancer, I still don't think taking the risk of the negative consequences is worth it.
The American farm has drastically changed over the past 50 years and doing this allowed us to have more variety and more consistency, at lower prices, in our grocery stores. The negative health aspects of industrialized farming is it's not all natural. It's pumped with chemicals to make it grow faster, bigger, produce more meat, eggs, and so on. That's not always healthy for people to eat. And yes, there is a very easy solution to reverse these trends, and that is to just go all natural and keep it the way things are meant to be.