Analyzing Context
In this blog post, I will analyze the context of my public debate by answering the questions in
Writing Public Lives.
What are the key perspectives or schools of thought on the debate that you are studying?
I am studying nutrition, obesity, and childhood obesity more specifically. Through nutrition I am able to narrow in more on the causes of obesity, and then the causes of childhood obesity. In order to do this, I will look at the environmental, mental, hormonal, physical, and cultural influences that could have impacted the surge of childhood obesity.
What are the major points of contention or major disagreements among these perspectives?
The major points of contention were listed above. I had mentioned that nutrition is a big part of the content. However, influences, such as, the environment, mental state, hormones, physical activity, and society all play a role in contributing to childhood obesity. There are also some major disagreements because a lot of cultures revolve around food. Therefore, people in these cultures might be harder to convince about how their nutrition is very poor because it is just part of their everyday lives.
What are the possible points of agreement, or the possible common ground between these perspectives?
There needs to be some scientific evidence that denotes these foods as bad or some statistics that show how these groups of people's nutrition impacts the rate of childhood obesity. That being said, the groups of people might be more willing to change their ways in order to decrease the rates of childhood obesity and possible prevent it from continuing to rise.
What are the ideological difference, if any, between the perspectives?
Basically, they are cultural differences. Many people think that food is "healthy" or okay because they were raised to eat it. However, these options are not necessarily healthy. I think that if they were better informed about the wrong choices they make with their food, then they might be willing to change. The health professionals just need to inform these people because some things are not changeable. For example, socioeconomic status impacts the food options these people have available to them because some foods that are healthy are more expensive than fast food.
What specific actions do their perspectives or texts ask their audience to take?
They want the audience to take into consideration the outside influences beyond poor food choice. They want to audience to consider things that some people do not realize is the reason behind their child's obesity. I mentioned these influences previously. However, if someone was to recognize that these influences had negative impacts as they do, people might be more willing to make a bigger effort to fix it.
What perspectives are useful in supporting your own arguments about the issue? Why do you choose these?
I think it is useful to look at the influences that can be controlled in order to support my argument. Therefore, the environment and the actions of parents that implicate the nutrition of children will be the best to support my argument because they can be manipulated in order to change childhood obesity. For example, if parents fed their children less candy on Halloween, it could reduce childhood obesity.
What perspectives do you think will be the greatest threat to your argument? Why so?
The perspectives that could threaten my argument would be culture and socioeconomic status because these aspects cannot be changed. These aspects only hinder my argument because the people that are influenced by these categories could argue that it is their way of life, and it is hard to change. They could argue that many people over time have survived with these methods of theirs they use. However, I would argue back about it is possible to adjust these old habits a bit. Also, I would find ways to prepare cost effective healthy meals.
Reflection
I read
Jovanka Potkonjak's blog post. I noticed that hers was a lot more concise than mine was. I liked how hers was written in a way that was very specific and not too overly detailed. I think I might have overdone examples and detail in mine. However, I think that both of ours adequately meets the blog's requirements and answers the questions properly. I also learned more about fracking arguments.
I read
Lia Ossanna's blog post. I felt like she had a very good grasp of her. She wrote in a way that seemed very educated, professional, and passionate about her topic. Her was a little more detailed than mine. Like mine, she used specific examples, and I noticed others did not do this. I think the more specific this is the easier it is for the reader to understand more about your topic. I also liked how she provided a link to her annotated bibliography. I think that could be very helpful for people very interested into her topic on the environment. I learned that it is possible to write your ideas in a more formal manner because I think I wrote mine more conversationally.
