research paper

Today the United States faces a very big problem that is not only affecting adults, but also a large number of children. It has become obvious that a large number of Americans today are overweight or obese. Adults are considered to be overweight if their body mass index is between 25 and 29.9. They are considered to be obese if their body mass index is 30 or higher. Body mass index (BMI) is used to estimate the healthy body weight based on one’s height. For children BMI is used as a screening tool to identify possible weight issues for children. Obesity can bring a very large variety of other health issues to both adults and children. One of those health and most common issues is type 2 diabetes.
Type 2 diabetes develops when the body does not produce enough insulin in the blood or cells just ignore the insulin that has been produced. Insulin is a polypeptide hormone that regulates the metabolism of glucose and other nutrients. Obesity makes insulin lose the ability to control the blood sugar levels in the body, overtime this inability to produce insulin leads to type 2 diabetes. According to ObesityInAmerica.Org, an organization that serves as the one-stop clearinghouse for the general public, more than 80 percent of people have type 2 diabetes due to being overweight or obese. Overweight and obese people also have a higher risk of experiencing a heart attack, congestive heart failure, sudden cardiac death, angina, and abnormal heart rhythm more often than those that maintain a healthy body weight. The reason why obesity can cause all these heart dieses is because if their negative effect on blood lipid levels, when one is obese blood lipid levels increase, causing triglyceride (fat found in your blood and the food you eat) also to increase and the good cholesterol to decrease. High blood pressure raises the risks of kidney failure, strokes and heart attacks. Being overweight cause’s high blood pressure and the same way the weight continues to increase the blood pressure continues to rise. The lost of weight reduces the high blood pressure. Now obesity among children can cause this and many other issues such as liver, lung and musculoskeletal complications as well as psychological ones.
It has been estimated that one third of children born in the year 2000 will develop obesity related diseases. Today one out of three kids is either overweight or obese, that’s almost three times the rate in the early 1960’s. Children with weight issues often have a low self-esteem and sometimes even fall into depression. Maria Caprino, an obese fourteen year old, was interviewed by CNN reporter Randi Kaye. During the interview Maria explain how she is now used to people often staring at her. People have been staring at her ever since she was a little girl. At four years old she was weighing 79 pounds, as much as a seven year old. When she was actually seven she was weighing 168 pounds, that’s more than what I personally weight now at 19 years old. By nine years old she was weighing 250 pounds and now at 14 years old she has topped out at 445 pounds. During the interview Maria explained how the first thing people think when they see her is “why is she so fat?” and she often hears comments such as “oh my god, why is she so fat?” and things like “she should step on a treadmill.” Maria’s parents are also overweight and don’t deny that their eating habits are not healthy at all. Maria explains that she has always been a junk food fan, and that dieting for her never worked. Maria begged her mother to find a doctor who completes weigh loss surgery on children. Their search ended when they came across the Children’s National Medical Center and Dr. Evan Nadler in Washington D.C. Dr. Nadler who felt the need of having to help Maria, because she was 445 pounds and saw her going nowhere besides gaining more weight. During the interview Dr. Nadler explains that Maria’s BMI put her in the highest risk category. She is not only considered obese but actually two categories higher than that. Dr. Nadler says that 25% of all high school aged students are overweight or obese and he believes that those most obese face health risks such as high blood pressure, diabetes and depression that far outweigh the risks of any weight lost surgery. Before Maria went into surgery she has to meet with a nutritionist, pediatric cardiologist and a psychologist for approval. She also had to write a letter to her insurance seeking for coverage in which she explains that she needs this surgery to make it to her 15th birthday. Doctors have told her for years now that is she kept gaining weight she will not live to see her 18th birthday. She then explains how this as terrified her and is what has made her come to the decision of going into surgery. Maria had a gastrectomy completed, 80% of her stomach was removed including the area that makes her appetite hormones. She explains that after surgery she wasn’t as hungry as before and has already lost 45 pounds, she is no longer eating junk food and it is getting regular exercise. At the end of the interview she explains that she is not looking to be an specific weight, but to simply be a healthy teenager, she mentions who she hasn’t been able to run since she was five and would love to be able to do so again and she also wants to be able to wear a bathing suit without feeling embarrassed. Last she states that she just wants to be able to be normal. With this one interview you can see how much being obese can affect a child. Maria hasn’t been able to run since she was five years old, imagine one out of every three kids with the same issue. Obesity has become a very serious issue for kids.
Obesity can be caused by various things. One of them is genes. Obesity often runs in the family and can be genetic, the same way it could take place because of the family member’s lifestyle. Another way one can end up obese is because of their emotions. People often over eat when they are depressed or feel hopeless, angry, bored, and many other reasons that really have nothing to do with hunger. This doesn’t mean that people who are obese suffer from emotional issues more than others, it just means that their feeling influence their eating habits. Environmental factors also have a lot to do with the way someone eats. People are influenced by does around them so their eating and inactive habits run a major role in obesity development. The gender of a person also has some factors when becoming obese. Men burn more calories than women even at rest therefore women will gain more weight than men although they have the same intake of calories. The reason why men burn more calories is because they have more muscle than women and muscles help burn calories faster.
Although America is considered to be one of the most advanced nations in the world, we have not yet seem able to figure out how to eat a balanced diet. Americans today only seem to focus on what we like to call, pleasure food. Food that is often high in calories, sugar, and fat. People don’t seem to be concern about the health issues that their food choice may bring; they just care about the fact that they are hungry and that stopping by a McDonald’s they will get a meal for cheap, fast, and tasty. The standard American diet often consists of beef and potatoes, although these don’t sound too bad constantly eating them can cause serious health issues. Americans don’t really eat fruits and vegetables and when they do, it’s because they have been dipped in butter or are accompanied with a high in fat and calorie sauce. In the movie, Fast food Inc. Maria Andrea Gonzalez and her family were interviewed, she explains how before she used to think that everything they ate was healthy, but now that they are aware that they are not she feels guilty giving it to her kids. She explains that although she feels guilty they really have no time to cook; they leave the house at 6am and don’t return until 9pm sometimes even 10pm. She also explains that when there is only a dollar available and there are two kids that are hungry she is really left with no option but to go thru a drive thru. She states that going to the market with little money is not going to fill her kids up the way a burger from a fast food restaurant will. During the interview she also explains how going to the supermarket she also finds it easier to buy junk food rather than vegetable, since the junk food is always at affordable price. For her is more convenient to buy a large amount of junk food, rather than buying a single healthy item. At the end of the interview Maria explains how her husband is diabetic and how she is often concern about his well being. She explains how he often gets shaky and could even end up losing his sight, causing for him to lose his job, cutting the largest source of income this family depends on. Since her husband is diabetic a major part of the house income goes towards his medication, causing the family to be tight when it comes to making the decision of whether to buy food or the medicine the husband needs. With this interview you can see that a lot of American follow the standard diet, not because they choose to but because it’s what fits their pockets best. This family is one of does many who often have no choice.
Today we can blame not only the food industry for this serious health epidemic but also ourselves for going along with it, and not trying hard enough to keep ourselves healthy. I can say that the food industry is responsible for a major part since they produce the junk food and sale it at a price that affordable for the public, oppose to vegetables that are often ridiculously expensive and often go to waste because people simply can afford them. The reason why I blame the public is because although we often can’t afford healthy food we often have many alternatives. One of them is drinking water rather than having a large soda with each meal. According to the national soft drink association, the average American drinks over 600 12oz servings of soda a year. If people instead of having all this soda would drink water they will most definitely lose weight. Most people only keep track of calories that they eat, and forget all about the fact that what they drink also have calories. In fact the most amount of calories we intake come from what we drink. Another way to avoid gaining extra weight is to constantly keep yourself physically active. The human body is suppose to intake 2500 calories a day, if one is aware that their intake is greater than 2500 calories, they should take the time to work out for a few hours each day. If someone is constantly eating unhealthy because of money related issues, they should try cropping their own vegetable and avoid as much as possible the fast food that contains the most calories.
With that being said you can see how many issues obesity has brought to the U.S and some of the reasons why this has been taking place. Hopefully with time we can all find an effective way to stop this epidemic and live healthy long lives. For now let’s try our best to keep ourselves healthy.

Chapter 9

I found it to be very disturbing that cattle are being feed other animals. These animals were born to eat grass and maybe grain not other animals. What’s more upsetting is that the FDA approves these practices and even allow for the practice to run vice versa. Poultry being fed dead cattle, and cattle being fed dead poultry just sounds absurd. The FDA banned feeding the cattle cats and dogs that come from shelters, because it was found that this was linked to an outbreak of mad cow disease, But yet they are okay with feeding them other types of meat such as horses, pigs, and poultry without knowing what other outbreak these could bring. On page 202, Bjerklie states that “…they are not designed to eat other animals”. As I first stated cows were born to eat grass, if they are fed something that they might have issues digesting, bigger issues will develop in the long run. I believe that no animal should be fed something that is not designed to eat. I would prefer to pay twice the price for a piece of stake, than get the same stake at a cheaper price but be at risk of ending up in the ER.

prospectus

1. Introduce your topic and discuss its importance.

For my project I will be talking about obesity in the United States. My main focus will be how obesity is now affecting the youth of this country, but I will also talk about how is affecting the United States as a whole. The reason why I choose to write about this is because I find it amazing that although many issues linked to obesity have been reported, nothing seems to be taking place to decrease the rates of obesity, especially among children. I am aiming to not only discuss about the things that have lead our society to these serious health issue, but also to find out if there will ever be a stop to it.

2. Introduce your questions and a working thesis

Some of the questions I could come across are the following: how different are the rates of obesity among children ten years ago compared to today? How much higher/lower are the obesity rates among children compared to adults? Do these rates surprise you? What other health issues that could come along with obesity? What are some things that could be done to decrease these rates? Is children and adult obesity something everyone should be concern about?

Thesis- the standard American diet has become so poor that now the United States is suffering serious weight issues among both children and adults.

3. Discuss specific tools and sources that you will be using to conduct your research.

For this project I will be using subscription databases, the internet, news paper articles, and books. One of the books that I know can be very helpful is the Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. I will be looking into new paper articles in news papers such as the New York Times. The internet could also be of great help but for this particular project I will mainly be using books, newspaper and useful databases.

Independent Project.

For my independent project I would be talking about the development of the great McDonald’s restaurants, and how it became what it has come to be today. Each week for the rest of the semester I will be giving you something new that McDonald’s developed through the course of the years.

           

For this first post, I will begin with the names of the founders of this “great success”.  Maurice “Mac” and Richard “Dick” McDonald, also known as the McDonald brothers, soon after finishing high school left their home town New Hampshire and headed off to California. There they started of their first business, a small movie theater. This project did not go well and four years later, 1940 they opened up a McDonald’s Bar-B- Que restaurant on Fourteenth and E streets in San Bernardino, California. Within 5 years they were one of the richest families in the area. Between the two the two they were making more than $100,000 every year. In 1954 the McDonald brothers turned over the franchising rights of McDonald’s to Ray Kroc, paying .5% of the gross income McDonald’s was completely paid off by Ray Kroc by 1961. The McDonald brother soon sold their properties in California and moved back to New Hampshire.

1955 Ray Kroc opened his very first McDonald’s in Des Plaines, Illinois. Ray Kroc believed that advertising was something that would pay off in the long run and by 1962 McDonald’s introduced their now world known Golden Arches logo.

This year in Denver, Colorado becomes the home of the first McDonald’s with inside seating.  A year later with the company’s billionth hamburger sold, the red haired clown known as Ronald McDonald’s was introduce. By 1964 the great Filet-o-Fish sandwich was introduced and by 1965 McDonald’s corporation went public. 

Come read more facts about the McDonald’s development next week and see what else you didn’t know about this well known company.

Problem posing

1.      Problem:  The fast food industries desire to make more faster and cheaper, has caused commercial kitchens to turn into small factories, and have change familiar foods into manufactured commodities.

2.      Give a quotation – “just add hot water”.  The reason why I picked that quote is because, I feel like it describes the problem in four simple terms.  It shows how what we as consumers now days consider anything a great meal.  The quote also gives us a general idea on how everything is made at a fast food restaurant.  And how easy it has become to train employees to make food that looks and tastes the same.

3.      When reading this I remembered the time when I was working at Chuck E. Chesses.  Back then I didn’t see the kitchen s a small factory like the book describes the fast food industries kitchen, I simply saw it as a routine job I had at the time.  Now that I think about it I see why all the instructions on how to make something as simple as a cheese pizza.  Everything had to be measured, it couldn’t be less or any extra, everything had to look and taste the same.  Even when preparing the salad, the lettuce had to be cut a certain size and set on the salad bar as the head director instructed.  It wasn’t just a salad bar, it was the “Chuck E. salad bar” that meant nothing to me but for them was a very big deal.

4.      The food industry does not see this as a problem.  In contrary they find this to be very easy and less time consuming way to meet the customer demands.  The book does not explain ways that this has tried to change.

5.      Although kitchen’s turning into small factories has been beneficial for the industry, I highly believe this has to change.  A frozen everything and just add hot water meal is in no way healthy.  I think it would be of a good idea instead of all the food being frozen for god knows how long; there should be a law that requires all food to be prepared on site.  No food should be precooked and frozen to make the process faster.  If the amount of food being cook is not enough, more workers should be hired.

Our Trip to McDonald's. 2

We took about an eight minute walked to what most call, a cheap and tasty bite at McDonald's. As we finally reached the fast food restaurant's heavy glass doors, my roommate pulled one open and waited for me to walked through it. As I stepped in the first thing I noticed was the unpleasant cold smelly air that hit my face. It smelled like old over burnt grease, it reminded me why I don't eat fast food. As my roommate got in line I took a look around and noticed the variety of people at the place. A little boy at the beverage bar getting a quick refill. Teenagers overcrowded at a table laughing and eating their buggers as if they have never ate before. A couple of families scattered around the location chatting and enjoying their meal. As the line moved up I noticed where the horrible smell was coming from, two large deep fryers on the other side of the counter. The oil was bubbling and it had reached such a dark color, it didn't even look like oil anymore. Finally just two people ahead of us so we can place our order. I asked my roommate if he knew what he was having. He said he was not yet sure. He explained he was still unsure if he should go with a number 1 and a shake or with a number 10 as a meal. I had to take a look at the colorful menu to find out he was talking about a big mac or an order of chicken nuggets with a soda and some fries. It was finally our turn, a young lady smiles at us and says hi, can I have your order?. My roommate quickly blurs out yes, can I have a number 1 just the sandwich and a large chocolate shake. She asked if that was all, she repeats the order and after the order was paid for she hands over a receipt. We step a side and wait for the other to be out. As we wait by the beverage bar I noticed that the little boy is once again refilling his cup, this time he looks confused about what it is he wants to drink this time. He glanced over at me I smile he smiled back, and I hear a young man yelling order 251. My roommate yells back "its me", he grabs the paper bag and his large cup and we take off for our walk back home. I was happy to smell the fresh hot air from outside after being at that stinky McDonald's.

Our Trip to McDonald's.

Believe it or not, I don't really eat fast food- unless I really really have no other choice. For this assignment i decided to accompanied my roommate for a quick bite at the nearest McDonald's. We took a walk there, is about a 10 min walk. when we finally reached the restaurant I was a bit surprise to find so many people at 9:35pm at a fast food place. There was about seven people forming a line while a couple of families and group of teenagers were scattered around the location. I noticed a little boy stood up twice to refill his cup (a medium sized cup) while my roommate and I stood waiting for our turn to order.  Finally a young lady smiles at us and say "Can I have your order?". My roommate orders a number one just the sandwich with a large chocolate milkshake. We step aside to wait for the food, in about three minutes my roommate had a bag with his Big Mac and his milk shake and we were back on our way back to the house..... and that my trip to McDonald's.