Chapter 1 First Reader

The reading from the first week of class was chapter one which is just a summary of what the book will be covering. There were so many different topics that it covered I got a little bit overwhelmed. A few things that caught my attention in the reading were evolution, vaccines and viruses, nutrition, human reproductive health, pregnancy, and childbirth. The other topics did not catch my attention as much as the ones I have listed here. 

Evolution is one of my favorite topics to learn about. I am always interested in how things evolve and change. I found the reading on page four, paragraph two surprising. Why is it that people think evolution is something you believe in or do not? Rather put, why is evolution considered in the United States or Western cultures as a belief system? My thought to the answer would be it has something to do with the religious aspects of peoples lives. However it is still something I cannot fully grasp even being a person of Christianity myself. 

My favorite part of the reading was over reproductive health. I had never thought about the reproductive lives of our ancestors before reading this section. I am curious to learn more about what effects the menstrual cycle has on the female body. I have wondered for a while about how many menstrual cycles a female has in the course of her life, but I have never bothered to look it up. The numbers 350-400 seem small to me, but maybe that has something to do with birth control. Of course reading that our ancestors only probably had around 100-150 is very surprising even though it probably should not be. 

The section on pregnancy also answered a lot of questions I have had. One of my friends just had a baby and she talked about morning sickness a lot. Especially, how it was for her was all day not just in the mornings. I had been wondering why women get morning sickness, or rather nausea while they are early on in their pregnancy. It makes perfect sense that it would be a defense mechanism. I am looking forward to covering more on this topic if not in this class but possibly in another.

I am looking forward to going over the question of whether or not we are healthier than our ancestors.

Carmen