#module 13

On 21st of September I was part of visit 14. That visit is usually the end of the 12 week intervention of project Satin.  The participants have to come at the project site in the morning after at least 10h fast. The following procedures and assessments are performed:

1. Full body DXA-scan - The examiner starts with filling in standardization form in order to make sure that the participant have not consumed too much alcohol or have excessively exercised. Women who are not in the Menopause are handed a pregnancy test . Then when the participant is cleared for scanning, they take off their shoes and clothes, if they have any jewellery, they take off them too, and lie down in the middle of the DXA-scan bed. The scan takes 5-10 minutes to finish the scanning and then prints out images of body fat percentage, bone mass density and muscle mass.  The examiner explains the results and make sure the participant have a copy of the scan. 

2. Measuring of body weight, hip and waist circumference - measurements are taken twice, then the average of both values is written down.

3. Measuring of sagital diameter - It measures abdominal fat. Participants lie down, the tool is positioned between the back and belly. The participant is asked to breath in and out and then the measurement is taken. That is repeated twice and average value noted down.

4. Measuring blood pressure -  The participant take 5 minutes to relax. Then with electronic blood pressure monitor is measured the blood pressure twice and noted the average value. 

5. Recording of adverse events or concomitant medication.

6. Hand in 3 day weight dietary record, performed before the visit

7. Hand in the Acti Graph and related diaries.

8. Hand in product consumption diary.

9. Consumer benefit - experimental paradigm. -  This is a test sequence performed on a computer/laptop (photo) It starts by showing 2 images of food items, immediately after that it shown black screen and tiny arrow pointing up or down. If the arrow points up, the participant press the key T from the keyboard, and if points down- V. The second test shows 2 images again, but this time only one of the image is food. The participant have to press Y if the image of food item is above a central line and N if is below. If the line becomes thicker, then the participant stops. The third test, on the screen are shown 2 images, one is food item and another one is not. The participant need to repeat the same actions as the second test, but this time the participants  pays attention to the the image that is not a food item.

10. Questionnaires.- The participant have to complete 3 questionnaires for sleep; stress and appetite and experience of the program.

11. Hair samples. - if the participant is a part of a sub group -B, then examiner takes hair samples to measures stress by measuring cortizol levels.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, these are just a few of the social media sites that you might hear about on a normal basis.

Just to give you a better idea here is a fact:

nearly 2.1 billion people have social media accounts, of those close to 1.7 billion are active.

I find it funny how there is this negative stigma around social media.

For something that is used in so many ways by so many people so often

You would think you hear more positive things about it.

But instead you hear about:

How children are so addicted to their phones and aren’t really living their lives,

How people are being cyberbullied and feel like they don’t belong,

How social media is bad.

What people neglect to discuss is all the positive things that come from using social media.

You probably haven’t heard about the girl that found a way to express herself and take the thoughts in her mind and put them out there for the world to hear. She took to the internet in search of something that would help her. Back in March of 2013 she started a YouTube channel. And that decision changed everything.

That girl is me.

And for me, it starts here.

in the comfort of my room.

I sit in front of an inanimate object and I talk to it.

And while at first it might seem crazy and like no ones listening but once i’m done and upload it, it’s available to the world to hear.

Because of this I have an incredible support system, people from all over the world who have my back and challenge me to be a better person.

I am exposed to people who are doing and creating amazing things that I believe can change the world and make it that much more of a better place to live in.

I have had opportunities to travel, distances near and far, that have given me the chance to meet even more influential people

Because of all this I’ve become more confident in myself. I know who I am.

So this week I already started to work on my real project. 

In second week we went to the supermarket Aldi  and bought 2 packages of chicken  fillets  (non ecological and ecological). To find out if there is any bacteria in the meat  we have performed  direct culture method. Direct culture method is used to count the number of colonies on the agar plates, more colonies the plate has higher contamination is found. To perform this experiment we used 1ml  of meat rinse together with buffered peptone water (it is a special liquid for the purposes of growing bacteria). We also named the plates A, B, C, D etc since we needed to recognize if the meat is ecological or not, we were also interested at looking if bacteria E.Coli is resistant to antibiotic called cefotaxime. we made equal amount of plates:

8 plates of non ecological meat and without antibiotic, 8 plates of non ecological meat but with antibiotic, 8 plates of eco meat without antibiotic and 8 plates of eco meat with antibiotic. in the result analysis we found that there was a higher contamination in  ecological meat and especially if there was no antibiotic. 

There will be more following experiments, based on that we will make final analysis

I will be working in the department of Veterinary Disease Biology located in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The aim of the project is to quantify ESBL (extended-spectrum beta-lactamase, ESBL) producing bacteria in chicken meat sold in supermarkets and know the exposure of consumers to such bacteria. ESBL producers are bacteria that produce an enzyme (extended-spectrum beta-lactamase, ESBL) that inactivate cephalosporins, which are very important antibiotics for treating infections in humans.

In this project, we will go to different supermarkets and purchase either chicken breast or whole chicken carcasses, we will rinse them and we will use the rinsing liquid for the experiments.

The work will take place at the lab for 12 weeks and data collection will be later used in the final BA thesis.

I am very excited to incorporate digital art therapy into my practice. Here are a few of favourite resources right now.

Graffiter - Making Graffiti Online

Polyvore Collage

 Grooveshark

Examples of Art that I created Online for Therapeutic Purposes.