Trimming Obesity in America Essays - Obesity, Human Weight

Trimming Obesity in America As Lindsey prepares to get on the bus, she prepares herself for the offensive looks and glares, just like when she was a child. Lindsey isn?t a child anymore, yet the stares, snickers and finger pointing has followed her all her life as she has fought to cope with the lethargy, cardiovascular problems and sleep apnea that her doctors have told her stem from one problem in particular: Obesity. Young or old, male or female, dark or light skinned; obesity is one disease that doesn?t discriminate and has become a growing problem worldwide. Stories such as Lindsey?s have become too common as more and more children and adults find themselves not only facing increased health problems and a shorter life span, but are also ridiculed by society. In California, obesity has particularly affected people of color, the poor and those with the least education. Six million adults are classified as obese and an additional 9.3 million are overweight. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, both obesity and being overweight are labels for weight ranges that are greater than what is considered healthy for a given height. For adults, overweight and obesity ranges are determined by using weight and height to calculate a number called the "body mass index" (BMI). BMI is used because, for most people, it correlates with their amount of body fat. The reliability of this measurement has been debated by groups, such as the Center For Consumer Freedom, which challenges that athletes such as boxer Mike Tyson, quarterback Donovan McNabb, and wrestling superstar ?The Rock? would technically be considered obese using the BMI index along with actors Tom Cruise, and Sylvester Stallone. Despite this discrepancy, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute estimates that 97 million adults in the United States are overweight or obese. Obesity is a condition that raises their risk of morbidity from hypertension, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, sleep apnea and respiratory problems. Experts believe that an inactive lifestyle, oversize food portions and other bad habits are at least partially to blame for society?s weight increase. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, many Americans do not have enough physical activity in their lives. We rely on modern technology and conveniences, such as driving cars instead of walking or bicycling. More than 2 hours a day of regular TV viewing time has also been linked to Americans becoming overweight and obese. Choosing to quit smoking and eating food portions that are too large can also influence weight increases. Generally speaking, food portions in gas stations, fast food places, restaurants, and even supermarkets can typically feed two people. People who smoke and decide to quit are also at a higher risk of eating more. One reason is because food tastes better after they quit. Nicotine also increases your body?s ability to burn calories, thus, when nicotine is absent, your body does not burn as many calories. For children, many bad habits are learned from their parents. A child who has overweight parents who eat high-calorie foods and are inactive, for example, will likely become overweight too. Some experts, however, debate whether obesity is the cause of health problems, or a symptom of other diseases. Those with an under active thyroid, for example, can feel tired and weak due to a low metabolism rate which also causes weight gain. Those with Cushing's syndrome can also gain weight due to their body making too much of the hormone cortisol. Those with Cushing?s also have upper-body obesity, a rounded face, fat around the neck, and thin arms and legs. Sleep and advancing age can also play a pivotal part in weight gain. As people age, they tend to lose muscle and gain weight around their middle, especially if they are less active. People who sleep for 5 hours or less a night are also more likely to become obese as opposed to those who sleep for 7-8 hours or more. Whatever the reason, experts are concerned that obesity could not only lead to increased health problems and mortality rate, but also to higher healthcare costs. Experts believe that healthcare costs in the U.S. could double every decade to $860.7?$956.9 billion by 2030 as 86.3% of adults become overweight and

The Writer Unplugged - Freewrite Store

The Writer Unplugged - Freewrite Store This is a guest post by Selena Chambers, who writes in Florida. Selena  is co-author of the Hugo and World-Fantasy nominated THE STEAMPUNK BIBLE (Abrams Image), and is currently writing a travel guide to STEAMPUNK PARIS (Pelekenisis Press) with Arthur Morgan out later this year. You can follow her at:   www.selenachambers.wordpress.com or steampunkparis.com. Distraction is the greatest form of resistance a writer faces on a daily basis. I’ve been struggling with it for years, and have come close to throwing my laptop in the trash and running as far away from the publishing game as possible. What kept me from giving up? Slowly realizing that other writers (especially those who seem like they have their act together in the public eye) and creatives struggle with the same issues. Evading distraction and finding focus is, of course, a personal journey and you have to find what works for you and your environment, but in speaking with my friends and gazing into my own navel, I have realized that distraction comes in two forms:   that which takes you closer to writing, and that which takes you away from it. The former is Life and all its abstracts:   birth, death, health, sickness, economy, employment, politics, friendship, family, solitude, love, sex, hate, education, and travel. True, not much writing is happening while undergoing these experiences, but they all inform it by putting you physically in the world to observe, absorb, and feel. It shapes your perspective, gives you an impulse and ultimately grants you something to say. The other kind of distraction, that which takes you away from your writing, are the activities designed for amusement and instant gratification and while relaxing, do very little to inform the work, even though we may trick ourselves in to thinking so. For some, it may be playing video games, binging on Girls, fingernails that need clipping, or in my case, going online.   By no means is this some kind of Jonathan Franzen rant. I love the internet. It is ubiquitous with all the things, and while that is a modern-day marvel, its pervasiveness can be a modern-day time sink. When I sit down to write, I have no problem ignoring my eyebrows and the cat bunnies blowing by like tumbleweeds under the A/C vents, because I can resist the urge to get up from my desk to go handle them. Not so the online â€Å"to-do† list, which is much harder to disregard because all the tools are right here at my fingertips. More often than not, on days when the writing is like digging into dry Georgia clay, I find myself mulling over this list. With a few clicks, I am out of Scrivener’s composition mode, and am in Safari riding the instant gratification wave of multitasking immediacy. I’ll send out queries, answer e-mails, answer social media direct messages, respond to tags and mentions, make a blog post, share the blog post, console in friends and families tribulations, cheer on peers and colleagues triumphs, read this timely article and discuss that timely article, read this stupid drama and discuss even more, scan recent calls for submissions, research a story idea, seek source texts, and when all of that is done, pay bills. I can kill a whole day checking things like this off and feel pretty good about myself. The next day, however, when I am back with that blank page, I would realize how much was left undone and how much more was now left to do. On on that next day, I try to unplug. To do this, I have to get completely away from the computer. Sure, you can deactivate your Facebook, turn off wi-fi, unplug the router, or install some sort of time management or focus software, all of which can be turned back on, plugged in, or disabled. If I really want to avoid distraction, I scrawl in longhand or peck on a typewriter. Even with these two methods, I inevitably come back to computer when I have to transcribe into Word, which sometimes feels redundant and archaic. Even so, at the end of the day I feel more accomplished and nearer to my true writing goals than all the networking, posting, and chasing I do online. Social media and the writer’s platform is one of the puzzle pieces to gaining and maintaining a successful writing career, but what has become even more bewildering is that unplugging and working with focus and without noise is even harder for the twenty-first century writer to navigate. The Writer Unplugged - Freewrite Store This is a guest post by Selena Chambers, who writes in Florida. Selena  is co-author of the Hugo and World-Fantasy nominated THE STEAMPUNK BIBLE (Abrams Image), and is currently writing a travel guide to STEAMPUNK PARIS (Pelekenisis Press) with Arthur Morgan out later this year. You can follow her at:   www.selenachambers.wordpress.com or steampunkparis.com. Distraction is the greatest form of resistance a writer faces on a daily basis. I’ve been struggling with it for years, and have come close to throwing my laptop in the trash and running as far away from the publishing game as possible. What kept me from giving up? Slowly realizing that other writers (especially those who seem like they have their act together in the public eye) and creatives struggle with the same issues. Evading distraction and finding focus is, of course, a personal journey and you have to find what works for you and your environment, but in speaking with my friends and gazing into my own navel, I have realized that distraction comes in two forms:   that which takes you closer to writing, and that which takes you away from it. The former is Life and all its abstracts:   birth, death, health, sickness, economy, employment, politics, friendship, family, solitude, love, sex, hate, education, and travel. True, not much writing is happening while undergoing these experiences, but they all inform it by putting you physically in the world to observe, absorb, and feel. It shapes your perspective, gives you an impulse and ultimately grants you something to say. The other kind of distraction, that which takes you away from your writing, are the activities designed for amusement and instant gratification and while relaxing, do very little to inform the work, even though we may trick ourselves in to thinking so. For some, it may be playing video games, binging on Girls, fingernails that need clipping, or in my case, going online.   By no means is this some kind of Jonathan Franzen rant. I love the internet. It is ubiquitous with all the things, and while that is a modern-day marvel, its pervasiveness can be a modern-day time sink. When I sit down to write, I have no problem ignoring my eyebrows and the cat bunnies blowing by like tumbleweeds under the A/C vents, because I can resist the urge to get up from my desk to go handle them. Not so the online â€Å"to-do† list, which is much harder to disregard because all the tools are right here at my fingertips. More often than not, on days when the writing is like digging into dry Georgia clay, I find myself mulling over this list. With a few clicks, I am out of Scrivener’s composition mode, and am in Safari riding the instant gratification wave of multitasking immediacy. I’ll send out queries, answer e-mails, answer social media direct messages, respond to tags and mentions, make a blog post, share the blog post, console in friends and families tribulations, cheer on peers and colleagues triumphs, read this timely article and discuss that timely article, read this stupid drama and discuss even more, scan recent calls for submissions, research a story idea, seek source texts, and when all of that is done, pay bills. I can kill a whole day checking things like this off and feel pretty good about myself. The next day, however, when I am back with that blank page, I would realize how much was left undone and how much more was now left to do. On on that next day, I try to unplug. To do this, I have to get completely away from the computer. Sure, you can deactivate your Facebook, turn off wi-fi, unplug the router, or install some sort of time management or focus software, all of which can be turned back on, plugged in, or disabled. If I really want to avoid distraction, I scrawl in longhand or peck on a typewriter. Even with these two methods, I inevitably come back to computer when I have to transcribe into Word, which sometimes feels redundant and archaic. Even so, at the end of the day I feel more accomplished and nearer to my true writing goals than all the networking, posting, and chasing I do online. Social media and the writer’s platform is one of the puzzle pieces to gaining and maintaining a successful writing career, but what has become even more bewildering is that unplugging and working with focus and without noise is even harder for the twenty-first century writer to navigate.

Leading and Managing in Organisations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Leading and Managing in Organisations - Essay Example The theory, exchanged the follower and the leader to take place in achieving the normal performance goals. This form of theoretical exchange involves the following dimensions, contingent rewards, active management through exception, passive management via exception, and Laissez-faire. According to the contingent rewards, the transactional leaders connect the goal of the workers to their rewards, clarify the expectations, and offer the necessary resources (Wood 1992). In active management by exception, the transactional theory actively monitors the subordinates work, and watch for the deviation standards. Another dimension is passive management by exception. Here the theory, interferes when the standards of leadership are not met. Consequently, in Laisses-faire, the leadership theory, offers an environment where the subordinate will get the various opportunities in making the decision. The leaders themselves abdicate the roles and avoid carrying out decision and the group tends to lack the decision. Some of the assumptions underlying the transactional leadership theory include; the workers are motivated by the punishment and rewards, the subordinates need to obey the guidelines from the superior, and the subordinates are not motivated (Valle 1975). They need to be controlled and monitored closely so that their work can be carried out. The implication of the transactional theory is that the leaders tend to overemphasize on the short-term and detailed goals and the standard procedures and goals. They fail to make efforts in enhancing the generation and creativity of new idea (Petri 1991). This form of leadership technique tends to work well where the problems of the organization are clearly defined and simple. The leaders believe in not rewarding or ignoring the ideas that do not confine the existing goals and plan. In this theory, the transactional leaders are effective in directing the effective decisions, which are meant to