Obesity

America spends as much as $147 billion annually on the direct and indirect costs of obesity. In the year of the most recent CDC study, 2006, that made up 9.1 percent of medical spending.  That is ridiculous.  Republicans and Democrats fight over what healthcare will save the government the most money but they ignore one of the biggest costs.  Obesity.  Millions of Americans in this country are overweight or obese (66 percent of Americans).  That is ridiculous! Look to your left and right.  Two out of the three of you will be overweight or obese.  The problem is not genetics when 2/3^rd of the population is overweight.  It is a cultural problem.  The government needs to take action to control this epidemic.  If it doesn’t Americans will have shorter lifespans and drown America in medical debt.

The first step needed by the government is the affordability of vegetables and fruits.  A dollar in this country can buy well over 1000 calories in potato chips.  With the same dollar, I could only buy 250 calories of carrots.  I could buy 900 calories in soda for the same price as 250 calories in orange juice.  This is ridiculous.  We are advertising unhealthy food by price.  Poor people as well as average Americans are more likely to buy the cheaper calories, regardless of nutrition.  This is a big reason why Americans are consuming so much fat and calories.  The salad is more expensive than the potato chips.  If the government stoped subsidizing corn, and started subsidizing vegetables, more people could afford healthy, nutritious food.  The greater availability of nutritious food would lower obesity rates, lowering the overall cost in healthcare.

The other problem with our culture is the workplace environment.  Too many Americans are spending 10 + hours a day at the computer!  That is an astronomical amount of time to be sitting.  Your body is meant to stand, move, and exercise.  With little movement or physical activity, your body starts to weaken and require fewer calories.  Your hunger level doesn’t go down at the same rate.  As a result, you gain weight.  This is a harder problem to solve.  The ultimate result for curing workplace laziness is standing and working.  Standing burns twice as many calories as sitting.  Workers who don’t want to stand can try a big rubber ball.  When sitting on a ball, you constantly use muscles to maintain balance.  This burns energy and keeps your body active. 

I will continue this post next week.    

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Respect

          You need to do a lot of different things to gain respect.  Respect comes in many different forms.  It can be physical or mental.  I nod of the head or just a thought. All signs of respect.  Before you get respect though, you have to respect yourself.

          Self respect is how you hold yourself, confidence, and pride.  Don't show shy body language.  If you hunch you shoulders and keep your head down, you look weak, and not worthy of respect.  Dress on how serious you want to be taken.  A suit looks a lot more serious than a t- shirt and shorts.  Looking professional is usually the first step to getting respect.

          If you work hard at what you do, you can gain respect.  You can gain respect by doing your job well.  If  you want respect in a certain area, you must try your hardest in that particular area.  People will see you hard work and determination and give you respect for doing it.  Being lazy shows people you don't care, and that you shouldn't get any respect.

          Helping out can also give you respect.  If you show that you are helpful, and can be trusted, people respect you.  They will come to you more often for things they can need done.  In return for doing it, you get more respect from them, and they put you in higher standing.

          All of these things can give you respect.  None of them are guaranteed to give you respect, but all of them make you more likely to receive respect.  In short; Dress nice, have confidence in yourself, work hard, and help others and your chances for receiving more respect will be very high.  

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Essay for Ap Lang

Humans consistently use wooden-headedness in all affairs.  It is so common, that psychology has coined a term for it: conformational bias.  Conformational bias is defined as looking for evidence to support your claim while spontaneously ignoring evidence that opposes your claim.  In the work place, managers often have wooden-headedness when considering candidates for promotion.  This phenomenon is also prevalent with religion when people refuse to accept any other notion, sticking to their previous beliefs.  Another example of wooden-headedness can be seen in government.  There is a constant flow of affairs that is affected by wooden-headedness.  It plays a huge role in all human affairs.

 

Managers in the work place can definitely be seen using wooden-headedness while making decisions.  Suppose the manager and candidate A are really good friends.  Candidate B is better qualified than candidate A and has also done better things for the company.  These facts do not give candidate B the automatic promotion.  Often times, a manager will give the promotion to his/her friend because the manager sees candidate A in a better light than candidate B.  The manager is seen using wooden-headedness.  Candidate B should have received the promotion but didn’t receive it because the manager didn’t base his decisions on facts and qualifications.  He chose the person for the promotion based on preconceived fixed notions. 

 

People are consistently seen using wooden-headedness in religious affairs.   Wooden-headedness in religion happens often when people of contrasting religions try and communicate their beliefs.   People of all religions are guilty of this.  When a Jehovah’s Witness comes and preaches to people, most people tend to ignore them.  They keep their preconceived fixed notions that their religion is the accurate one and the Jehovah’s Witness are wrong.  These people choose not to listen to evidence that is opposed to that of their preconceived fixed notions.  They would rather keep their beliefs and ideals the same than listen to people who have contrasting opinions.

 

Government officials are seen using wooden-headedness on multiple issues.  There are multiple examples of when government officials have used wooden-headedness.  Republicans often vote no on abortion because of their preconceived fixed notions.  They do not listen to the Democrats opinion on why it is ok to do.  They refuse to accept the concept and stick to their preconceived notions.  Democrats tend spend too much on entitlements.  Republicans do the same thing when gay marriage policy comes up.  They don’t listen to the facts and opinions contrasting their personal views.  They ignore them and vote on their ideals. 

 

Wooden-headedness is seen in all human affairs.  Managers in the workplace use it when choosing someone for a promotion.  People of religious faith can use it when they are talking to someone of a contradictory religion.  Government officials are seen using wooden-headedness when policy that is against core values is brought up.  This common phenomenon is seen in all human affairs.  People want to be right and will ignore facts and opinions of the opposite view to maintain their preconceived fixed notions.    

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