As we all know, nutrition is a hot topic in the United States all year round and makes for fascinating research as more and more information is discovered on subjects from health and fitness to nutrition and dieting. To celebrate National Nutrition Month here at Questia, we’re sharing some of our best content on nutrition for free for a whole month! These books are all librarian-selected and approved for use in high-quality research papers. Check out the five below books to get your research started, and you’ll be ready to write and research like a pro.

The Nature of Nutrition: A Unifying Framework from Animal Adaptation to Human Obesity

Authors: Stephen J. Simpson and David Raubenheimer

Nutrition has long been considered more the domain of medicine and agriculture than of the biological sciences, yet it touches and shapes all aspects of the natural world. The need for nutrients determines whether wild animals thrive, how populations evolve and decline, and how ecological communities are structured. The Nature of Nutrition is the first book to address nutrition’s enormously complex role in biology, both at the level of individual organisms and in their broader ecological interactions.

Public Health Nutrition: From Principles to Practice

Editors: Mark Lawrence and Tony Worsley

A systematic, research-based overview of the central principles and practice issues in the growing field of public health nutrition. With chapters by leading international experts, this is essential reading for practitioners and students in public health, nutrition, health policy and related fields.

Controversies in Food and Nutrition

Authors: Myrna Chandler Goldstein and Mark A. Goldstein

You can never have too many vitamins, until they kill you. Eat meat, but avoid beef, chicken, turkey, and pork. Packaged foods are more efficiently preserved than they were 100 years ago — but should we actually eat the stuff? Consumers are besieged with conflicting messages about food and nutrition, making it difficult for the average customer to know what to believe. Is anything safe at McDonald’s? Do carbohydrates cause obesity? This provocative new resource explores 15 common controversies in the field of food and nutrition.

A Dictionary of Food and Nutrition

Authors: Arnold E. Bender and David A. Bender

This leading dictionary contains over 6,150 entries covering all aspects of food and nutrition, diet and health, including 150 entries new to this edition. From absinthe to zymogens, the volume offers jargon-free definitions that clearly explain even the most technical of nutritional terms, covering types of food (including everyday foods, little-known foods such as payusnaya, and dishes from around the world, from accoub and fair maids tomushy peas and zakuska), nutritional information, vitamins, minerals, and much more.

The Psychology of Eating and Drinking. Edition: 3rd

Author: A. W. Logue

Our fascination with eating and drinking behaviours and their causes has resulted in a huge industry of food-related pop science. Every bookstore and magazine stand is filled with publications promising to get your child to eat his vegetables, to tell you if someone you know has an eating disorder, or to show you how to lose weight. But the degree to which any of these works is based on scientific research is very limited: the information offered is at best incomplete and often simply incorrect. However, in contrast to this popular literature, the scientific research on eating and drinking behaviours is usually too technical for the general reader. Alexandra Logue’s The Psychology of Eating and Drinking, Third Edition, is unique in being a textbook that can also be comprehended by the educated general reader.

Visit Questia for even more research on Nutrition and the Psychology of Eating. Check out the National Nutrition Month page on Facebook for tips and info on nutrition.

1. Assess your workload: Start off on the right foot by taking a step back to see where you stand among your big heap of assignments. An article by Michael Sandler called “Surviving semester’s end: Expert advice for avoiding panic at the end of the semester” suggests that you put all exam dates and deadlines for papers and assignments in an excel table. If you have other responsibilities such as extracurricular activities or a job, make sure they’re on your radar, too. Excel tables help you to easily glance at what’s due and when.
2. Ration your time: According to the article “Beat the clock: Learning to manage your time,” you should budget three hours of outside class work for every hour you spend in class, as a general rule. Along with reading, reviewing and doing homework, factor in extra time for major projects or papers, while giving your hardest classes top priority.
3. Resist distractions: Health Psychologist Lynn Rossy suggests in “Ten tips to reduce end-of-semester stress,” to check email at limited times during the day and avoid other unnecessary distractions like Facebook and phones. If you can’t resist the temptations, disconnect your computer from the Internet and put your phone away in another room.
4. Organize your work space: A typical college dorm room or apartment probably looks as disheveled as your hair from all the hair pulling during finals! An article called “Testing Times to Come; as Coast Students Prepare for End-of-Year Exams, Experts Offer Some Handy Study Tips” by Hannah Busch shares tips for time-management and staying focused, including the importance of an organized study area. “Where you study has a huge impact on how you study. Having a tidy desk means you’ll spend more time studying and less time looking for things. The area should be well-lit and quiet.” If this sounds like an impossible feat for your personal desk, high-tail it to the library!
5. Stay healthy: Training your brain is like training for sports. Author Michael Sandler suggests that you take time to eat, sleep and exercise to maintain a healthy body and mind. Stay well-hydrated and snack on foods high in protein to keep you alert. Break out the shake weight if you must and exercise at least 20 minutes a day, three days a week to improve mental stamina and focus.
6. Go easy on the caffeine: Caffeine is fine in moderation, but you can recharge your mind in other ways too. Psychologist Lynn Rossy offers helpful alternatives to downing energy drinks and pulling all-nighters. “Use stretching, walking, running or other exercise as a way of re-invigorating the body and mind. Stay away from sugary snacks that give you a quick high and then have you running on empty for the next few hours.” With too much caffeine in your system, you might end up staying awake all night beyond the time needed to study and won’t get enough rest to actually take the final the next morning.
7. Remember what you learn: Eliminate the bad habit of cramming as much information into your head as possible then purging it after finals. A lot of time and money has been put into your education, so you should take the value along with you well after finals. In the article “Get the Most Out of Your Course,” Tara Kuther, Ph.D., recommends holding on to that course material. “A crucial course may become part of your basic skill set and something you refer back to often in your career. Other courses are useful in preparing for graduate admissions exams such as the Graduate Record Exam or licensure exams.” As finals week comes to a close, and all your exams and projects are finally handed in, don’t just throw away your papers and bolt for the door. Make sure you collect all your final papers and exams from your professors even if you turned them in on the last day. You never know when you’ll need to draw on them in the future.

Keep these tips in mind as you approach finals week and you’ll have a great jump start on wrapping up a successful semester. You’ve made it this far, you can go the distance! The education you’re striving toward is a life-long investment. Be sure to get the very most it by preparing, staying healthy and retaining the information you worked so hard to digest.

Share with us in comments below: What are your tips and tricks for surviving finals week?

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1. Everything in moderation – including moderation. “The secret to good physical and mental health is to avoid excess,” Tracy notes. She explains, “Although you need to be persistent, I’d rather you didn’t become a health freak. In a student environment, you can’t be totally disciplined. Just pay attention to how you lead your life most of the time. A healthy lifestyle is one that doesn’t take the healthy lifestyle to extremes.”
2. Eat well. Tracy says this means paying attention to both what you eat and how. She recommends a varied diet with vegetables and fresh fruits which are good for the brain.  Add “avocados, soya beans, and fish…if you like them and want some extra brain power.”  Also, “You are not just what you eat, you are also how you eat – so take time off for meals.”
3. Exercise. “In my experience,” notes Tracy, “students know the value of exercise…Suffice it to say that exercise plays a vital part in counterbalancing the stress responses produced in our bodies by having to meet deadlines and exams.”
4. Sleep. Calling sleep “a hugely underrated activity,” Tracy notes we’re getting less and less of it. “Although the hours of sleep before midnight are thought to be the most beneficial,” she says, “it’s common for students to burn the midnight oil, to watch TV or meet social or academic demands. An erratic lifestyle like this commonly produces sleep problems.”  Her tips for re-regulating your body clock include “going to bed and getting up at regular times, even if you feel exhausted all day.”
5. Express yourself. “The way you feel about your work and other issues in your life plays a huge part in how you deal with stress,” explains Tracy. “Practice taking a longer view, setting yourself realistic targets, and being forgiving of yourself if you fail to meet your deadlines. Remember to keep disconnecting your self esteem from your grades.”

Tracy emphasizes that “Your studies are important, but never at the cost of your physical and mental well-being… Besides, if you are well, you will perform better in exams. Exams offer you an opportunity to practise facing challenges by building up your strengths, so that when the deadline comes, you meet it alive and kicking.”

Find additional details on each of the Five Pillars of Health plus guidelines for maximizing them in the chapter Healthy body, healthy mind.