Matthew Silbert
1-15-08
The development of obesity disorders in the
One idea is to measure the amount of time American families spend exercising together. It is possible that walking could be directly correlated to a reduced body mass index. The test performed in this article takes into account the time of year, age of family members, parental education, and insurance. It was found that walking varies seasonally, is increased when the children are younger and also when parents have post high school education. However, walking was not found to be correlated to body mass index because families did not walk with sufficient regularity for statistical evidence to be significant.
I believe this article is very scientific in its method of approach: formulating a hypothesis, testing it, and then producing a conclusion. All of the information was presented in an organized, scientific manner. On the other hand, if this was truly a scientific article it would go into deeper discussion of the effects of exercise pertaining to biological metabolism processes. The article describes family patterns such as parental education and types of insurance to try to explain obesity which is not very scientific. The scientific approach would depict family genetic patterns and talk about genes that present high risks of obesity.
Despite some of its non-scientific qualities, the article does a decent job of appealing to the reader through Aristotle’s pathos, logos, and ethos. Logos is the method of using reason, logic and facts to sway opinion. The author of this article uses a plethora of statistics and charts, supplying factual evidence to support her claims. Pathos is the art of convincing the reader through emotion, a powerful tool that the author failed to use. Aristotle’s last method is ethos, appealing to the author’s credibility. This author is an M.D. and on top of that cited forty one sources at the end of her article! She has clearly done her research and is exceptionally knowledgeable on the subject. A fine article in my opinion.
5 comments:
(Oops... I accidentally logged into my brothers blog account)
From what you wrote, that article sounds like it could be very interesting. While it may not be absolutely apparent that there is an obesity epidemic when you look around in Santa Barbara, outside of Southern California especially in states like Texas, Tennissee, Kentucky, etc. it is clear that obesity is rampant enough to require immediate action. Last quarter when I was in Sociology 1, I wrote a paper about a possible method that has the potential to significantly decrease obesity in America.
First off, I certainly agree with what the article says about how the obesity crisis is most problematic in children. That is why I thought up a plan in which the government could grant certain benefits to families who sufficiently demonstrate that their kids are physically fit and educated on important healthy practices. Aside from fitness tests, BMI tests, and Muscle to Fat ratio tests, I think that a written examination on healthy habits would be also very important to look at how families teach their kids about keeping in shape. These tests would be done semi-annually and the quality of the benefits the family receives would be based on the scores the children receive. The benefits would include income tax reduction and possibly the government paying for part of the family’s health insurance.
Your response to the article seemed thorough, although maybe you could have included more details about some of the scientific and statistical tests from the article in your analysis. I certainly agree with your interpretation of its logos, pathos, and ethos. You seemed to convince me enough that this article is worth reading.
Obesity is a huge epidemic in America and a great topic to discuss. It seems like everyone knows there is a problem but no one is doing anything serious about it. Obesity obviously develops from multiple reasons, depending on each individual person; however, advertising is one of the main reasons why obesity is growing rapidly in America’s youth. Commercials for cereals and junk food are specifically geared towards capturing the attention of young kids. Advertising agents include famous cartoon characters, which also appear on the food packaging. When parents take their kids to the store, the kids beg for all the items displaying their favorite T.V. show characters. Kids, therefore, want the box that looks appealing to them not necessarily the food inside it. Unfortunately this type of advertisement is only used on unhealthy food that adds to the problem of obesity. If this type of advertising was used more on healthy foods like fruit and vegetables instead of junk food, then obesity in kids might start to decrease. Another reason why kids are becoming increasingly overweight is their lack of exercise. This is due to their interest in video games and watching T.V. Instead of running around and playing outside kids that are overweight tend to sit inside and entertain themselves. Parents should get their kids more involved in sports and other activities to keep them from just sitting around inside all day. A good rule to have might be for every hour watching T.V. or playing video games, their child must be active outside for thirty minutes to an hour. Any little steps towards eating healthier foods and exercising more will help towards the problem of obesity.
I would like to comment on Matt's Shitty First Drafts post. It sounds like Matt was deeply inspired by the concept of writing a... not so good first draft. (Just remember its just the first draft though). In hIs second paragraph in the post he basically used the idea and ran with it. He wrote a terrific "shitty first draft." I like how Matt really conveyed the authors remark that authors are just like any one else. It is a more comforting feeling to understand that, so people will not try to push to be a perfectionist. It is better to get something on paper than nothing at all. I'm sure this first draft concept is used widely and now even more so with Matt being so moved. Good post.
Obesity has always been a big subject and epidemic to our nation especially. We are known as the fattest and I think laziest country in the world because of all the temptations and distractions that encounter us which hold us back from enduring in some wholesome physical activity. Coincidentally, most of these temptations and distractions faced involve little or no physical exertion whatsoever. Sitting and watching the television and playing video games rank among the top distractions in our nation. This is an interesting article in that it connects family togetherness with physical well-being. I do think that the closer you are with a family the more likely it is you will live a healthier life. Family walks for example are a sign of good family connections. When closer to a family one feels a greater care for one another therefore health being a subject of care for a loved one. Family directly correlates with ones health. You did a good job explaining this article in a logos, pathos and ethos perspective. Well done.
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