Research Essay FINAL

Kelly Kobberstad
Professor Anne Marie Yerks
Composition 106
23 April 2010
Who/What is to Blame?
I will start by stating the obvious; there are more overweight and obese people in the United States today than in the past. So what is going on? Is it each individual’s own fault due to their inability to exhibit any self control in their lives? Many people believe so. It is not uncommon for people to think, “Well you eat too much so you deserve to be fat,” but this can be an unfair assessment. Notions like this do not take into consideration the way American society has evolved in the last few decades, and its enormous significance in people’s daily lives. In reality, trying to stay healthy and fit in today’s world can feel like fighting an endless battle, with adversaries in every direction. Things are not as black and white as they were a few generations ago; there are even multiple shades of gray. Kids used to be accustomed to filling home made meals their stay at home mothers prepared, but today this is a rarity. No longer is it completely accurate to blame the individual when the structural basis of American society is heavily contributing to the increasing levels of obesity.
Perhaps one of the best examples of change in the United States has been the development and expansion of the huge fast food industry. McDonalds, Wendy’s, KFC, Arby’s just to name a few; these are the main sources of nourishment for many people nowadays. Prepackaged and frozen foods that are often high in calories and lacking in the fruits and vegetables department tend to be the cuisine of choice for fast food corporations. Another problem is the ever increasing portion sizes. Even without “super sizing” a meal, the amount provided is usually already more than the suggested size, and Americans tend to have trouble with the concept of ceasing to eat when one is no longer hungry. Also, unfortunately, fewer people in today’s fast paced world have the luxury of healthy, home cooked meals. On the run substitutes are becoming more and more frequent due to the convenience they provide. As a result, today Americans spend approximately $150 billion per year at fast food restaurants and these corporations keep multiplying due to their increasing popularity, especially to younger people (Slegel 12).
What makes everything worse is that it is not just the United States that is being affected. Effects of industrialization and Americanization are felt all around the globe, and are penetrating societies far from our own. Countries like England, France, and Japan all have fast food restaurants like McDonald’s, and the iconic American hamburger can now be found in numerous countries. Projected statistics for the World Health Organization are that by 2015 there will be approximately 700 million obese and 2.3 billion overweight adults around the globe (World Health Organization). With these kinds of health traps populating the globe it will be increasingly difficult for future generations to maintain healthy diets and weights.
Further complicating matters is the fact that fast food corporations target young people specifically in their marketing campaigns as a way to increase sales. As a matter of fact, in 2000 advertising to children was over a $2 billion investment (Marketing and Consumerism). Tactics like the McDonalds Happy Meal are designed to use kids parental pestering to bring in more customers. Everything from colorfully animated TV commercials to plastic toys lures them, and believe me; they are not going to buy a salad. By starting young, these companies establish a lifelong clientele, and in return the customers get heart attacks and diabetes. The scheming even flourishes in schools where contests or awards are given to individual students or the school for things like collecting Campbell’s Labels for Education or Pizza Hut’s Book It! System (Marketing and Consumerism). This is a popular way of getting the brand name out there and into the minds of children, for example by offering incentives like free pizzas for reading, which encourages loyal consumers.
Other factors that are contributing to obesity, particularly in American children, are schools. One of the biggest problems with these institutions are types of cafeteria food they provide. Pizza, bosco sticks, slushies; these are the kinds of foods that are closely associated with a typical school lunch, and with fewer kids packing lunches from home these also end up being the most appealing option. Also, with each year, the pressure put on students to succeed and do well in school increases, as does their homework loads, especially if they are in advanced classes. This leaves less time for physical activities like playing sports, which helps students stay in shape while they attend school. Similarly, even students who are lucky enough to have the time for sports sometimes lose out because of the rising levels of commitment and dedication required to participate. In addition, according to Mrs. Haftel’s opinion, a teacher at Cabrini Elementary School in Allen Park, MI, students spend too much time stationary during the school day (Haftel). As a former nurse, Mrs. Haftel knows that prolonged periods of sitting are not only detrimental to the physical health of students, but it can also make it harder to think and concentrate on school work (Haftel). Opportunities like recess are even more limited in most high schools where supplementary time is dedicated to studying purposes. Basically, the whole institution channels students to spend great amounts of time stationary while being fed greasy food, and tempted with pop vending machines at every corner.
Finally, new inventions and technology are contributing to rising obesity in ways their creators did not foresee. Look, for example, at the infamous television remote. A simple device created to make life easier, but if it allows an individual to sit in front of the television for hours on end without ever having to get up to change the channel, who is it helping really? From simplistic devices like this to complexities like the Internet, a new wave of technology is threatening the health of individuals of this generation. It seems like everything today is done online. Teachers assign homework to be done online. Instead of going out and playing baseball with the neighborhood kids, young people sit inside and watch youtube clips together. People do not even have to leave their house to go shopping anymore! Oh, and sites like Facebook, not only do they keep kids from finding more active things to do when they are bored, but they are a huge distraction while doing homework, and even the cause of sleep deprivation. In a way these inventions have lived up to their full potential as labor saving devices, but with the increasing levels of inactivity they are not necessarily a good thing.
Now at the beginning of this argument I stated that it is not every obese individual’s own fault for their condition, but this is not always true. Even though society is making it increasingly difficult to live a healthy lifestyle that does not mean it is impossible. If someone is just really lazy, or refuses to try to eat the proper foods, then whatever their problem, it rests mostly on their shoulders. All I am trying to argue is that the fast paced lifestyle patterns that accompany living in today’s society tend to push people into unhealthier habits than previous generations had formed. It is more difficult today to make the healthy choices that our parents took for granted, like healthy home cooked meals as opposed to Taco Bell. Obesity has become the common side effect of survival in today’s world; so I guess, in a way, we have inadvertently done it to ourselves.


Works Cited
Haftel, Christine. Personal Interview. 7 March 2010.
“How Marketers Target Kids.” Marketing and Consumerism. Media Awareness Network, 2010. Web. 10 April 2010. .
Obesity and Overweight. World Health Organization, 2006. Web. 23 April 2010. .
Slegel, Donald. “Children, Schools, and Fast Food.” Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance 78.4 (2007): 12. Web. 8 March 2010.

I found this whole survey process quite easy. Setting it up was simple and effortless and Facebook was a great help in distributing it.
In my results, I was interested to find that most students are pretty health conscious. A fair majority is not completely satisfied with their school’s current food options, and they seem to be pretty knowledgeable about what they should be eating like natural sugars, fiber, fruits, vegetables, ect. However one of the main things that kept coming up was the fact that even though some schools do have healthy options available, they are never as appealing because they 1) don’t look fresh at all 2) are way overpriced. Clearly it is easier and more appealing to go with the unhealthy/greasy cafeteria route even though students are trying to improve their lives. The most disappointing part was realizing how much time students spend on their computers. This is even worse because most claim a huge chunk of that time is doing school work that is keeping them sedentary.
If I had to do this survey process all over again I would alter the way some of my questions are set up. I made a few questions mandatory to answer but it didn’t make sense because it was aimed at only a certain group of people. Also I would have expanded the variety of questions I asked since most of mine are similar in content.

Interview
Christine Haftel: Nurse and Teacher
Mrs. Christine Haftel, a former Registered Nurse, and today an Elementary schoolteacher, has a unique perspective on obesity related health issues, and their ties to the traditional school system. Mrs. Haftel grew up in Detroit, MI, and like all children, thought she knew what she wanted to be. After High School, she received a one year full scholarship to the University of Detroit where she hoped to become a doctor. Unfortunately, her parents would have been unable to pay tuition for the remaining years and so instead she attended the School for Radiological Technology at Mr. Carmel Mercy Hospital in Detroit where she received a stipend and, “a chance to work in a hospital which is something I always wanted to do.” However it was not until working as a Nuclear Medicine Technologist at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit a couple years later that she started considering the nursing field as opposed to becoming a doctor. With her new goal, Mrs. Haftel went back to school and took classes first at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and then transferred to Henry Ford Community College for her Associates Degree before finally attending the University of Detroit where she received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Since then, she has worked for the Veteran’s Administration in Allen Park, the Visiting Nurse Association of Southeastern Michigan, the Visiting Nurse Association of Cleveland, and Henry Ford Community College as a Clinical Nurse Instructor.
Having been in the medical field for as long as she has, Mrs. Haftel has seen her fair share of obesity related health issues. “Diabetes management played a significant role in the care of patients. Wound care was a major concern for people with diabetes. These patients were always at risk for developing infections and had slower rates of healing.” Obesity, a huge risk factor for Type 2 Diabetes, was a concern back when Mrs. Haftel was working as a RN, and continues to be today she says. Obese, “patients are at risk of stroke, peripheral vascular disease, heart disease, elevated cholesterol, and hypertension.” These are only a few of the negative affects of obesity Mrs. Haftel has dealt with. I also asked her if she had any ideas about how to correct the obesity problems of American and she had some excellent ideas, the very first of which is to remove pop machines. Her other ideas included reassessing price values in grocery stores so that the healthier foods are discounted, and the low nutritional foods are more expensive. In addition, Mrs. Haftel believes smaller portions and prices in restaurants would also help set America back on track.
Ready for another change, Mrs. Haftel left the nursing field behind and decided to become a teacher. Currently employed at Cabrini Elementary School in Allen Park, she was able to give me an account of a schooling institution through the eyes of a medical practitioner. “I believe that the lunch choices for students are poor to fair,” she remarked, going on to list off some examples of unhealthy cafeteria foods like hot dogs and bosco sticks. She notes the lack of a, “healthy alternative to bagged lunches from home,” yet the convenience of buying lunch lures many parents as well as students to simply buy. However Mrs. Haftel does notice that her fellow teachers tend to bring healthier lunches from home instead of eating the schools food. One reason why is because, as adults, the teachers are much more aware their health and nutritional habits, which is why Mrs. Haftel thinks schools should provide health classes for both parents and students in the low elementary grades that focus on nutrition, obesity, and diabetes. In addition, schools should also provide, “healthier lunch choices for students and teachers,” and only sell water in vending machines.
On the subjects of sports and homework, Mrs. Haftel has some interesting, new ideas. After informing her of reports that some schools are cutting down on recess in favor of more studying time, she responded, “I believe that the opposite should occur. Activity needs to increase in school. Recess is important. It gets the blood flowing to the brain and stimulates thinking.” She even suggests that if there is no opportunity for physical activity throughout the day, “then simple exercise routines should be established in the classroom,” like, “stretching after long periods of sitting at the desk.” As for increasing homework loads, Mrs. Haftel believes it is having a negative affect on people’s health for the same reason, prolonged inactivity, which in turn hurts concentration. To make it worse, “Some people choose to snack while studying for long periods, which increases the chance of obesity and blood sugar problems.” Basically, Mrs. Haftel points out that there needs to be changes made in school systems current operations, if the obesity pandemic, which she has first hand knowledge of, has hope of being fixed.

Sorry guys, I was having an unbelievable amount of trouble uploading photo's and the only way I found that worked (involved scanning, resaving, then fixing..... it was just really messy) turned out really fuzzy so I'll retranslate the captions. (I interview a former nurse and current schoolteacher, Mrs. Christine Haftel)

The first picture is Mrs. Haftel at the Veterans Administration in Allen Park on her last day working there.

The midde pic was taken this year at her new job as a Elementary School teacher at Cabrini with her class.

The bottom is a picture of Cabrini, the location of her current employment.

Reading Response #2

Chapter 4

#1
AGREE
Paragraph 16: “The challenge, as college professor Ned Laff has put it, ‘is not simply to exploit students’ nonacademic interests, but to get them to see those interests through academic eyes.’”

DISAGREE
Paragraph 3: “The trouble with this assumption is that…”
Paragraph 11: “Only much later did it dawn on me that the sports world was more compelling than school because it was more intellectual than school, not less.”
Paragraph 13: “…the real intellectual world, the one that exists in the big world beyond school, is organized very much like the world of team sports…”
Paragraph 17: “To say that students need to see their interests ‘through academic eyes’ is to say that street smarts are not enough.”
Paragraph 18: “If I am right, then schools and colleges are missing an opportunity when they do not encourage students to take their nonacademic interests as objects of academic study.”

AGREE/DISAGREE
Paragraph 4: “Students do need to read models of intellectually challenging writing—and Orwell is a great one—if they are to become intellectuals themselves. But they would be more prone to take on intellectual identities if we encourage them to do so at first on subjects that interest them rather than ones that interest us.”
Paragraphs 14&15: “To be sure, school contained plenty of competition, which became more invidious as one moved up the ladder…” / “And in distancing themselves from anything as enjoyable and absorbing as sports, my schools missed the opportunity to capitalize on an element of drama and conflict that the intellectual world shares with sports.”

{some examples would have to be read in context}

#2
In the recent essay “Hidden Intellectualism”, Gerald Graff points out that, “schools and colleges are missing an opportunity when they do not encourage students to take their nonacademic interests as objects of academic study”. I agree with Mr. Graff because my experience in school has confirmed it. Students are less likely to write persuasively and passionately about topics that are so outdated or beyond them that they do not know how to begin. If only teachers realized that by allowing students to write about a wider range of topics the students can achieve better composition and analytical skills. As Mr. Graff perfectly exemplifies, “it was in reading and arguing about sports and toughness that I experienced what it felt like to propose a generalization, restate and respond to a counterargument, and perform other intellectualizing operations…”.

Reading Response #1

Chapter 2

1. It is a commonly accepted notion that parents know what is best for their children. Possessing the wisdom and experience that comes with age, parents naturally have a better understanding of the world and how to exist in it. There are also cultural and social rules by which life in a certain area must adhere to, and children should seek the guidance of their elders who will have a better understanding of these customs due to their experience. Parents just want what is best for their kids, and they do not want them to have to learn the hard way like may have had to. Finally, adults already know the ways of the world, and by advising their children from their own familiarity, they can help their children get the most out of life.

Parents may want what is best for their children, but it is hardly fair to say that they know what is best for them. Considering they are two completely different individuals, how can parents possibly know what will make kids happy in life, especially if it is something other than what the parents strived for to attain happiness. As for parents being more in tune with the workings of the world, oftentimes it is the child teaching the parent about the newest technology and cultural trends of the day. With all the rapid and recent advances in today’s world, the world is no longer the same place the last generation knew, and it would be folly for them to think that they have a greater understanding of what it takes to live and be happy than the generation of today.


2. In David Zinczenko’s “Don’t Blame the Eater” he observes that it is difficult for people to find healthy sources of nutrition in today’s world, but the irrefutable fact remains that it is not impossible. For a resourceful individual, the reality that even though there are a plethora of fast-food restaurants in every town in America as Zinczenko claims does not negate the fact that it is still possible to eat healthy. Any town of considerable size has to have a grocery store where fruits and vegetables are sold. Now, it may not be as easy to find or access as the local McDonald’s, but it is still there. Even gas stations sometimes have that little basket hidden in the corner behind all the cappuccinos and nachos that has apples, oranges, or bananas. If worst comes to worst a fast-food establishment is really the only choice, you can always order water, a salad, and choose not to top it with all the extra’s like croutons, cheese, and three times the suggested serving of dressing. Truthfully, it is easier to be unhealthy in today’s world, but that does not make the opposite impossible, just potentially more time-consuming.

It is a sad commentary on our times that the cultural stereotype of being overweight includes anyone who does not look like a stick figure. Many people who think or feel that they are overweight may be completely off, simply because they are comparing themselves to an unnatural, imperfect stereotype. However, just because most people would probably be considered overweight comparatively does not mean that obesity is not a legitimate concern. With unhealthy fast-food chains at every corner it is more difficult than ever to maintain a healthy lifestyle, and people are indeed reaping the consequences. True obesity is a genuine concern, especially for children who are the main market for such unhealthy establishments, and who are spending more and more time stationary in front of the television or computer. If the current trends continue, this generation will have major health problems due to their current lifestyle.

There is something oddly frustrating about seeing one of my own compositions as a picture, and in a format I can no longer alter. While the image on the left is presented in a digital space, as a JPG file it lacks the freedom and flexibility that usually adheres to digital composition.

Today, technology has made it easier than ever to rearrange, edit, and write down thoughts in order to make one cohesive composition. The age of writing with pen and paper is coming to an end, and quickly being replaced by digital spaces with programs like Microsoft Word. Personally, as a member of the younger generation, I find this liberating. So often it was the case that I would come up with excellent ideas and creative sentences, but my slow hand could not move fast enough to get my thoughts down on paper before I lost them. However, I can type a great deal faster than I can write, and losing my ideas are no longer a problem. It is also easier and less sloppy to cut and past or rearrange the elements of a paper in the editing process in digital spaces.

There are many other advantages to composing in digital spaces, many of which are unknown to most people. An excellent way to understand how best to take advantage of digital composition would be to take a computer class about Microsoft Word or some other composition program to learn everything it has to offer. This is how I learned all that I know about digital composition and I would pick it over pen and paper composition any day!