Precis #5

In his article, "Battling Doubt by Avoiding Practice: The Effect of Stereotype Threat on Self-Handicapping in White Athletes," Jeff Stone discusses how stereotype threat has a negative effect on the performance of white athletes. He conducted an experiment that observed the ways in which white athletes responded to various negative stereotypes. In order to support his claim that stereotype threat has a negative impact on white athletes, Jeff Stone provides all of the results of his various experiments.

Freewrite #4

Sian L Beilock and Allen R. McConnell wrote an article entitled "Stereotype Threat and Sport: Can Athletic Performance be Threatened?." Their article talks about the ways in which stereotypes can have a negative effect on an athletes performance.  They define a stereotype threat as "when knowledge of a negative stereotype about a social group leads to a less-than-optimal performance by members of that group." The authors believe that the less than average academic performance by black student athletes is not due to a lack of intelligence, but is due to the stereotype of black student athletes not being as intelligent as white student athletes. Steele and McConnell coined the phrase stereotype threat and set up a series of experiments to test the phenomenon. Results of their experiments showed that those who were informed of a negative stereotype before performing, performed significantly worse than those who were not informed of the negative stereotype and exponentially worse than those who were informed of a positive stereotype.

Precis #4

The article "Stereotype Threat and Sport: Can Athletic Performance be Threatened?" written by Sian L. Beilock and Allen R. McConnell discusses the negative impacts that stereotypes can have upon an athletes performance. In order to present their argument the authors provide a variety of sources and examples that support their claim of stereotypes having negative effects on athletes.

Freewrite #3

In their article, "White Men Can't Jump," Laura Azzarito and Louis Harrison Jr discuss natural athleticism, race and gender and the roles they play in athletics. They conducted a study on high school aged students in their physical education class. Their study showed that "white boys complied with the notion of blacks' `natural' physical superiority, and black boys occupied an ambiguous position within dominant discourses of race and natural athleticism." The authors believe that if a white student is told that their black classmates are more athletic, then they will perform in a less superior manner than if they believe themselves to be equals in an athletic setting. In order to eliminate this problem Laura Azzarito and Louis Harrison Jr believe that "sport educators' and physical education teachers' should adopt a critical media pedagogy to promote a democratic consciousness among young people in sport and physical education settings"

Precis #3

In their article, "White Men Can't Jump," Laura Azzarito and Louis Harrison Jr discuss natural athleticism, race and gender and the roles they play in athletics. They conducted a study on high school aged students in their physical education class. Their study showed that white students firmly believe that black students have a natural athleticism that the white student simply do now possess. In order to support their research, the authors bring forth a wide variety of information that was collected while conducting their experiment.

Working Thesis

Athletic stereotypes are prevelant within the world of college and proffessional sports and can have an impact on the athletes natural ability.

Freewrite #2

In their article, "'White Man Can't Jump': Evidence for the Perceptual Confirmation of Racial Stereotypes Following a Basketball Game," Jeff Stone, W. Perry, and John M. Darley. Discuss an experiment in which they attempted to determine whether or not stereotypes were a factor within basketball. They conducted an experiment in which they gave all of the participants a photo of a basketball player and then had them listen to a basketball game on the radio. They were instructed to write down how they thought their particular player performed. They were instructed to judge their athlete based upon the “target's athletic abilities, individual performance, and contribution to his team' s performance. “Results showed that particpants believed that an african american athlete had a more athletic game while the white athletes played a more technical game. According to the authors “The results suggest that participants relied on a stereotype of Black and White athletes to guide their evaluations of the target's abilities and performance.”

Freewrite #1

Within in the article, “An Investigation of College Stereotypes: the myth of black athletic superiority and the dumb jock stereotype,” G.A. Sailes conducted a survey at Indiana University in order to determine some common stereotypes regarding student athletes. This survey was designed to gather information regarding “beliefs about intelligence, academic integrity, and academic competitiveness among male college student-athletes, as well as assumptions about intelligence, academic preparation, style of play, competitiveness, physical superiority, athletic ability, and mental temperament in African American athletes.” His survey showed that many students don’t believe student athletes are as intelligent or as academically prepared as nonathlete students. He also determined that white male students believe that the african american athletes are even less prepared for college level academics. G.A. Sailes states within the article that “the findings indicate that white and male students believe that athletes are not as intelligent as the typical college student and that they take easy courses to maintain their eligibility, and that African American athletes are not academically prepared to attend college, are not as intelligent and do not receive grades as high as those received by white athletes.” The article provided the survey results in order to create statistics that supported the claimes of stereotyping among student athletes and nonathlete students.  The article showed that the “dumb jock” stereotype is still alive and is flourishing on college campuses.

Precis #2

In his article "An Investigation of College Stereotypes: the myth of black athletic superiority and the dumb jock stereotype" G.A. Sailes discusses and experiment that he conducted at Indiana University.  His experiment involved surveying college students and asking them about various stereotypes found within the college setting.  It was determined that it is believed that African American athletes are thought to not be as prepared for college as they should be.  The author supports all of his claims with the data found while conducting his experiment.

Precis #1

In their article, "'White Man Can't Jump': Evidence for the Perceptual Confirmation of Racial Stereotypes Following a Basketball Game," Jeff Stone, W. Perry, and John M. Darley discuss an experiment they conducted regarding racial stereotypes in the game of basketball.  The results of their experiment suggested that the participants relied on their knowledge of racial stereotypes in order to make their evaluations of the target's ability and performance. This article demonstrated ways in which racial stereotypes play a big role with in the game of basketball.

Brainstorming

1.  Stereotypical Camper
2. Environmental factors
3. Athlete stereotypes
4. College athletes stereotypes
5. socio-economic perceptions in camping
6. Diversity in sports teams
7. Gym membership diversity
8. Program targeting
9. Nutritional issues
10. Children involved in youth sports
11. Health problems within certain races
12. Socio-economic impact on youth sports
13. Diversity within the major
14. College admission for athletes
15. Healthcare

Outline

Introduction

-Thesis Statement: Childhood obesity has many causes such as lack of proper nutrition in the home and school settings, lack of exercise, and poor nutritional models being set by the parents , in addition to a lack of knowledge about nutrion by parents. All of these causes have a negative impact on the mental and physical health of children.

 -Get audience to care: While childhood obesity can be found around the world it is extrenely common within our own country. Obesity is currently considered to be the most prevalent nutritional disease of children and adolescents in the United States (Etelson).  In order for childhood obesity prevention to be successful it will require participation by the parents.

Definitions:

·         Obesity: Obesity is an abnormal accumulation of body fat, usually 20% or more over an individual's ideal body weight. Obesity is associated with increased risk of illness, disability, and death.

·         Overweight: weighing too much or more than is considered normal or proper.

·         Portion: an amount of food served for one person; serving; helping.

·         Calorie: a unit of food energy.

Review of Literature

·         The article "Childhood obesity: public-health crisis, common sense cure," written by Cara B Ebbeling, PhD, Dorata B Pawlak, PhD, and Dr. David S Ludwig, MD, discusses prevalence of childhood obesity and the potential causes of childhood obesity.  They attribute many of the causes of childhood obesity to environmental factors.  They also discuss the many negative effects that childhood obesity has on the child's life.  In order to present their argument the authors use a wide variety of information that covers and supports all of their claims. The authors also bring up several possible solutions in order to help eliminate the problem of childhood obesity.  The authors present their information in a very clear and concise manner.

·         In their book, Obesity in Childhood and Adolescence,  H. Dele Davies, Hiram E. Fitzgerald, and Vasiliki Mousouli discuss some of the causes of childhood obesity.  They propose that environmental and genetic factors play a large role in the issue of childhood obesity. They discuss how the increase of portion size over the last 40 years has led portions to be of an excessive size that now need to be reduced.  The consequence of these larger portion sizes is that they are leading to a higher caloric intake.  In order to support their claims the authors provide significant data from a variety of sources.

·         In their article, "Childhood Obesity, Prevalence, and Prevention," Mahshid Dehghan, Noori Akhtar-Danesh, and Anwar T. Merchant analyze the ways in which childhood obesity is caused and the ways in which it can be prevented.  They start off strongly in their article, bringing up statistics that show exactly how prevalent childhood obesity is. In the prevention section of the article the authors discuss that there will have to be primary and secondary methods of prevention in order to control and reduce the amount of childhood obesity that is currently prevalent.  In order to support their ideas the authors provide a variety of sources to support their ideas for childhood obesity prevention.

·         Louisa J. Ellis, BSc, PhD wrote an article, entitled "Prevention of Childhood Obesity," that discusses the root causes of childhood obesity and many ways in which it can be prevented.  She suggests that childhood obesity be better monitored in order to prevent it from becoming a problem.  In order to support her ideas she discusses in depth the manners in which this disease is caused, and the variety of ways in which it can prevented.

·         Thomas N. Robinson,  MD, MPH discusses some of the plausible causes of childhood obesity in his article "Does Television Cause Childhood Obesity?". He presents statistics showing the amount of television viewed by children of the current generation, compared to the children of previous generations. He also discusses some techniques for preventing childhood obesity. In order to make his paper effective he presents a variety of statistics from many credible sources.

·         Within their article “Childhood Obesity: Do Parents Recognize this health risk” Debra Etelson, Donald A. Brand, Patricia A. Patrick, and Anushree Shirali evaluate parents understanding of their child’s excess weight as a health risk, and determined whether or not parents were able to recognize obesity within their own child.  They used an anonymous questionaire that was handed out during well-care check ups at pediatric offices. A parent’s perception of their child was considered to be accurate if it deviated from the child’s growth chart by less than 30 points.  It was determined that majority of parents failed to realize that their children were overweight or obese.

Argument/Analysis

Within my research I have determined that there are wide variety of cause of childhood obesity.  However it is evident that the only real solution to the problem will be getting the parents involved and ensuring that they are educated. It is also going to be necessary for the parents to provide their children with positive role models. Every author backed up their claims with statistics and data that demonstrated the ways in which childhood obesity is caused and the ways in which parents are lacking knowledge about childhood obesity.

Conclusion 

In order to bring an end to childhood obesity, educating parents as well as the children will be vital. Parents play an important role if their child's lives up until that child moves out of their home.  Parents need to be providing their children with proper nutrition and setting good nutritional role models. It will be necessary to have a combination of support from the parents, the school districts, and the government in order to put a stop to childhood obesity.

Rough Draft

Childhood obesity has many causes such as lack of proper nutrition in the home and school settings, lack of exercise, and poor nutritional models being set by the parents. All of these causes have a negative impact on the mental and physical health of children. While childhood obesity can be found around the world it is most prevalent within our own country, the United States of America.
       While growing up children consumes most of their meals in the academic setting, cafeterias across the country are not currently providing enough nutritious foods.  Even though there are nutritious foods available there are still a plethora of fatty foods available.  Currently the nutritious options are available but they are not mandatory, as they should be. 
      There is also a lack of exercise found in today’s youth.  This generation is the generation of the television and videogames.  Thomas N. Robinson, MD, MPH discusses this issue within his article, "Does Television Cause Childhood Obesity?.” He presents statistics showing the amount of television viewed by children of the current generation is significantly higher than the children of previous generations.  Recess, within schools,  is a crucial part of a child’s day and is being removed or shortened at many schools across the country, in order to try and keep the child in the classroom and provide them with more hours in the day that are used solely for learning. There is also a lack of exercise present within the high schools across the country; in many schools it is not mandatory to take a gym class.  My high school offered the option of being excused from gym by taking a health class.  While I am capable of seeing the merits that a health class has to offer, I believe that our overweight society would benefit from a mandatory gym class. 
        As a country, the United States is home to millions of obese adults, many of these adults have children.  These obese parents are setting a negative example for their children, simply giving them the false idea that it is socially acceptable, and healthy to live an overweight life.   Our society is filled with obese people and it has skewed our perception as to what is simply overweight and what is considered obese.  Our skewed vision leads us to view people who are medically deemed obese as simply overweight.  There is also a lack of portion control within a child’s meal.  In their book, Obesity in Childhood and Adolescence,  H. Dele Davies, Hiram E. Fitzgerald, and Vasiliki Mousouli discuss some of the causes of childhood obesity. They discuss how the increase of portion size over the last 40 years has led portions to be of an excessive size that now need to be reduced. The portion sizes need to be reduced for several reasons. One of these reasons is that larger portion sizes are leading to a higher caloric intake.  Another reason that portion sizes need to be reduced is that the human stomach is roughly the size of two human fists.  This means that humans should not be consuming entire plates of food that are comparable to the size of the human head.  This is a problem within schools as well as within the homes of America. 
       There are many people currently working on coming up with a solution for childhood obesity.  Due to the prevalence and extreme cases found within our country it is very difficult to come up with a plausible solution to the problem.   If this problem is not solved society will continue to produce overweight and obese children who will grow up to be overweight and obese adults.  Overweight and obese people are found to lead far less healthy and far more unhappy lives than those who are of a healthy weight.

Three more Precis

Thomas N. Robinson,  MD, MPH discusses some of the plausible causes of childhood obesity in his article "Does Television Cause Childhood Obesity?". He presents statistics showing the amount of television viewed by children of the current generation, compared to the children of previous generations. He also discusses some techniques for preventing childhood obesity. In order to make his paper effective he presents a variety of statistics from many credible sources.

Louisa J. Ellis, BSc, PhD wrote an article, entitled "Prevention of Childhood Obesity," that discusses the root causes of childhood obesity and many ways in which it can be prevented.  She suggests that childhood obesity be better monitored in order to prevent it from becoming a problem.  In order to support her ideas she discusses in depth the manners in which this disease is caused, and the variety of ways in which it can prevented.


In their article, "Childhood Obesity, Prevalence, and Prevention," Mahshid Dehghan, Noori Akhtar-Danesh, and Anwar T. Merchant analyze the ways in which childhood obesity is caused and the ways in which it can be prevented.  They start off strongly in their article, bringing up statistics that show exactly how prevalent childhood obesity is. In the prevention section of the article the authors discuss that there will have to be primary and secondary methods of prevention in order to control and reduce the amount of childhood obesity that is currently prevalent.  In order to support their ideas the authors provide a variety of sources to support their ideas for childhood obesity prevention.

In their book, Obesity in Childhood and Adolescence,  H. Dele Davies, Hiram E. Fitzgerald, and Vasiliki Mousouli discuss some of the causes of childhood obesity.  They propose that environmental and genetic factors play a large role in the issue of childhood obesity. They discuss how the increase of portion size over the last 40 years has led portions to be of an excessive size that now need to be reduced.  The consequence of these larger portion sizes is that they are leading to a higher caloric intake.  In order to support their claims the authors provide significant data from a variety of sources.

Working Thesis

Childhood obesity has many causes such as lack of proper nutrition in the home and school settings, lack of exercise, and poor nutritional models being set by the parents. All of these causes have a negative impact on the mental and physical health of children.

Childhood Obesity

The problem that I will be discussing in my paper is the issue of childhood obesity and the negative impacts it has on a child’s physical and mental health.  While childhood obesity can be found around the world it is most prevalent within our own country, the United States of America.  There are many causes more this issue.  Some of these causes are lack of proper nutrition at home and in schools, lack of exercise at school and at home, poor nutrition model set by the parents and a lack of portion control.  While growing up children consumes most of their meals in the academic setting, cafeterias across the country are not currently providing enough nutritious foods.   Even though there are nutritious foods available there are still a plethora of fatty foods available.  Currently the nutritious options are available but they are not mandatory, as they should be.  There is also a lack of exercise found in today’s youth.  This generation is the generation of the television and videogames.  Recess is a crucial part of a child’s day and is being removed or shortened at many schools across the country, in order to try and keep the child in the classroom and provide them with more hours in the day that are used solely for exercising.  I also believe that gym classes should be mandatory all the way through the education system.  My high school offered the option of being excused from gym by taking a health class.  While I am capable of seeing the merits that a health class has to offer, I think that our overweight society would benefit far more from a mandatory gym class.  As a country, the United States is home to millions of obese adults, many of these adults have children.  These obese parents are setting a negative example for their children, simply giving them the false idea that it is socially acceptable, and healthy to live an overweight life.   Our society is filled with obese people and it has skewed our perception as to what is simply overweight and what is considered obese.  Our skewed vision leads us to view people who are medically deemed obese as simply overweight.  There is also a lack of portion control within a child’s meal.  The human stomach is roughly the size of two human fists.  This means that humans should not be consuming entire plates of food that are comparable to the size of the human head.  This is a problem within schools as well as within the homes of America.  There are many people currently working on coming up with a solution for childhood obesity.  Due to the prevalence and extreme cases found within our country it is very difficult to come up with a plausible solution to the problem.   If this problem is not solved society will continue to produce overweight and obese children who will grow up to be overweight and obese adults.  Overweight and obese people are found to lead far less healthy and far more unhappy lives than those who are of a healthy weight.

The article "Childhood obesity: public-health crisis, common sense cure," written by Cara B Ebbeling, PhD, Dorata B Pawlak, PhD, and Dr. David S Ludwig, MD, discusses prevalence of childhood obesity and the potential causes of childhood obesity.  They attribute many of the causes of childhood obesity to environmental factors.  They also discuss the many negative effects that childhood obesity has on the child's life.  In order to present their argument the authors use a wide variety of information that covers and supports all of their claims. The authors also bring up several possible solutions in order to help eliminate the problem of childhood obesity.  The authors present their information in a very clear and concise manner.

Chapter 13 Precis

 In chapter 13 Lester Faigley and Jack Selzer  discuss proposal arguments.  They use the example of "Don't Drink and Drive" to reinforce their point.  In order to form a proposal argument it is necessary to identify a problem and offer a solution. In order for this to be effective you have to identify the problem, show who it affects, and offer a solution to fix the problem. They lay out the method of creating a proposal argument in a way that is very simple to understand.

7 Resources

1. The report entitled "Fish Consumption and Depression: the Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort Study" by Markku Timonen, David Harrobin, Jari Jakelainen, Jaana Laitinin, Anne Herva, and Pirrko Rasanen, covers how the regular consumption of fish throughout a person's life can decrease a risk of depression and suicidality. The authors use a wide variety of sources and data to help prove their point, they even present a chart that shows the difference in the frequency of depression and suicidality between men and women as well as frequent fish consumers and non frequent fish consumers.

Timonen, Markku, David Horrobin, Jari Jokelainen, Jaana Laitinen, Anne Herva, and Pirkko Räsänen. "Fish consumption and depression: the Northern Finland 1966 birth cohort study." Journal of Affective Disorders. 82.3 (2004): 447-452. Web. 16 Feb. 2012.


2. "Early vitamin E supplementation in young but not aged mice reduces Aß levels and amyloid deposition in a transgenic model of Alzheimer’s disease"  is an article, written by Syuan Sung, Yuemang Yao, Kunihiro Uryu, Hengxuan Yang, Virginia M-Y Lee, John Q Trojanowski, Domenico Pratico, that explains the importance of introducing vitamin E into the diet at an early age.  The lab tests done by the researchers demonstrates that if vitamin E is introduced early it can slow the decline of neuro oxidation in Alzheimer patients.  In order to show this to the reader the authors include their graphs and full disclosure of the information they found while conducting research.

Sung, Syuan, Yueman Yao, Kunihiro Uryu, Hengxuan Yang, Virginia M-Y Lee, John Q Trojanowski, and Domenico Pratico. "Early vitamin E supplementation in young but not aged mice reduces Aß levels and amyloid deposition in a transgenic model of Alzheimer’s disease." FASEB Journal. 18.2 (2003): 323-325. Web. 16 Feb. 2012.

3. The article "Food Insufficiency and American School Aged Children's Cognitive, Academic and Psychosocial development" by Katherine Alaimo, PhD, Christine M. Olson PhD, RD, and Edward A. Frongillo Jr, PhD investigates the correlation between insufficient amounts of food and cognitive, academic and psychosocial development in school aged children.  Children were classified as having an insufficient amount of food if the family respondent said that their family often times did not get enough to eat.  In order to conduct their research they used a reduction analysis process to determine the relationship between food insufficiency and cognitive, academic and psychosocial development.

Alaimo, PhD, Katherine, Christine M. Olson PhD, RD, and Edward A. Frongillo Jr, PhD. "Food Insufficiency and American School-Aged Children's Cognitive, Academic, and Psychosocial Development." Online Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. 108.1 (2001): 44-53. Web. 16 Feb. 2012.
4. Within the article "Nutrition and Depression: Implications for Improving Mental Health Among Childbearing-Aged Women" the authors, Lisa M. Bodnar and Katherine L. Wisner, discuss the importance of good nutritional habits while pregnant.  They explain the ways in which certain fatty acids are essential and the susceptibility of pregnant and lactating women to various vitamins and minerals. In order to prove their thesis the authors use a variety of examples and sources to support their ideas.


Bodnar, Lisa M., and Katherine L. Wisner. "Nutrition and Depression: Implications for Improving Mental Health Among Childbearing-Aged Women." Biological Psychiatry. 58.9 (2005): 679-685. Web. 16 Feb. 2012.

5. The article entitled "Fish Consumption and Major Depression" written by Joseph R Hibbeln discusses his test of the hypothesis that a higher consumption of fish will lead to a lower rate of depression. This was accomplished by collecting data from various countries around the world and comparing the amount of fish consumed within these countries with the amount of depression prevalent within the country. In order to accomplish this feat Joseph R. Hibbeln presents a variety of information and cites many sources within his article.

Hibbeln, Joseph R. "Fish Consumption and Major Depression." Lancet. 351.9110 (1998): 1213. Web. 16 Feb. 2012.

6. Michael Grundman's article "Vitamin E and Alzheimer disease: the Basis for Additional Clinical Trials" discusses the impact of Vitamin E on the oxidation damage induced by ß-amyloid in cell culture and delays memory deficits in animal models.  He makes his case by using multiple test groups and using a placebo in one group and vitamin E in the other and then monitoring the results. He performed these tests in order to determine if vitamin E would be able to prevent or delay a clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer disease.

Grundman, Michael. "Vitamin E and Alzheimer disease: the basis for additional clinical trials." American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 71.2 (2000): 630-636. Web. 16 Feb. 2012.

7.  The article "Macronutrients and Mental Performance" by Louise Dye, PhD, Anne Lluch, PhD and John E. Blundell, PhD discusses how the impact of macronutrients on mental performance has become a hot topic in the world of science and nutrition.  The authors discuss how glucose has a beneficial effect on cognitive performance. In order to present their hypothesis in a positive manner the authors discuss the flaws that are contained within similar studies that reside within the same field.

Dye, PhD, Louise, Anne Lluch, PhD, and John E. Blundell, PhD. "Macronutrients and MentalPerformance." Nutrition. 16.10 (2000): 1021-1034. Web. 16 Feb. 2012.