Summary and respond to "Conquering Food Deserts With Green Carts"

Summary

In the article "Conquering Food Deserts With Green Carts", the writer provides evidences that the government tries to overcome the problems of "food deserts" , which areas in the U.S. that do not have enough access to healthy food. The writer points out that the government wants to solve the problem by bringing in new vendors to provide more locations for the people in the grocery-deprived zone to buy fresh food. The New York City's Green Cart initiative is one of the program. Despite there are several problems need to be solved,such as the vendors repeatedly being ticketed for minor issues, the vendors are restricted to sell their products in specific places, many vendors are succeeding and providing more choices for the people. The government also tries to tackle the problems by issuing electronic food stamps and coupons which boost the purchasing power in the low-income area to buy fresh produce. The government also subsidizes people who want to start grocery stores in the "food deserts". It enables people to buy fresh food in their local areas.

Response

Even though the writer provides many evidences that government tries to provide low-income areas access to fresh food and produce. He seems to neglect the cost of the government to initiate all these programs. We all know that the U.S. government has already in deep debt. To keep these programs running will create a huge burden to the government. Instead of providing a large amount of  fund to people who want to start up a grocery store in the aforementioned areas, I believe that bring more new vendors is a more applicable way to solve the problem. The cost of running the carts is not as high as running a grocery store. The government can think of grouping  create a bigger market, which sell various stuffs , such as seafood, fresh fruit, poultry, and other daily necessities.

Summary and response to "Soda Tax Battle"

Summary

The article "Soda Tax Battle" discusses about levying tax on soft drinks in America. The beverage industry states that there is no connections between sugary beverages and obesity as well as people will not support taxing of grocery items such as soft drinks. However, other people and researchers claim that there are dozens research and studies point out that sugary drinks significantly increase the risk of obesity, as well as Type 2 diabetes. Taxing on soft drinks can reduce people consumption of sugar and help people to become healthier. Also, U.S. Rep. Delauro proposes a federal tax on sugary drinks called the SWEET Act. The tax revenue will be about $10 billion and will set up a fund to help prevention, treatment and research for diet-related health conditions. Delauro also points out that we should not rely on industry to deal with the problem voluntarily. This implies that people should do something to change the situation.

Response

After reading various articles and studies, I believe that sugar is one of the causes of obesity, diabetes and other chronic diseases. However, the U.S. government does not have enough regulations on controlling people to consume sugary drinks. The government can enact laws to force the soft drinks companies to put warning labels on the sugary drinks to remind the consumer. Also, it is acceptable to levy tax on soft drinks as they are not daily necessities.  Taxes on soft drinks will not bring a huge burden to the general public as there are lots of substitutes in the market.Levying tax on sugary drinks can greatly reduce the sugar intake of America. Government can use the tax revenue to help people rid of obesity and doing research on obesity problems.

Text-based questions

1. Other than sugar, are there any other ingredients in the soft drinks that will lead to obesity?

2. How much tax is suitable to put on the soft drinks?

Summary and response to "Should foods linked to diet-related disease be regulated?"

Summary

The essay "Should foods linked to diet-related disease be regulated?" is an essay which provides the readers different point of views from various professionals towards the topic. First of all, a researcher from a global policy think tank, points out that there is so much food marketing and advertising to convince us to eat, especially junk food. This implies people are consuming too much sugar and leads to a public health crisis because high doses of sugar can be as toxic as high doses of alcohol. As such, some food activists and scholar advocate to put warning labels on junk food, restricting portion sizes and removing candy bars from checkout lines and limit sugar consumption like alcohol and tobacco. However, the food industry representatives argue that it will limit consumers choice if more regulations are being enforced. There is groups of people support the idea that " the less government regulation, the better"and the consumer should take more responsibility for what they eat. Apart from that, there are people from different groups point out that food bans or taxes can do more harm than good to the society.This act will grant the government the right to make choices for consumers and the food taxes will be a huge burden to the lower-income families.

Response

I agree that the government should put warning labels on junk food to remind the consumers that they will have health problems if they continue to consume too much sugar from junk food. The government should also play the leading role to regulate the child food advertisement because the children do not have enough self-awareness to control what messages they want to receive. However, the portion size and variety of food should not be restricted as people have the freedom of choice in their food. Also, food taxes will create a huge burden to the poor families which makes the food not affordable for everyone anymore. Apart from this, the people should put more awareness on choosing their own food. People should change their eating habits in order to avoid obesity.

Text-based questions

1. Why is the consequences if we put regulations on food?

2. Why the government do not more implement incentives programs for people like discount in medical insurance for normal weight people?

Three possible topics for research paper

1.Should the government put more regulations on distribution of internet pornography?

2.Should cyber weapons be regulated?

3.Should prostitution be legal?

Fed Up (2014) Summary, Response and Text-based questions

Summary

Fed Up is a documentary movie directed by Stephanie Soechtig in 2014. The main theme of this movie is obesity. The trend of obesity thorough out the world especially America, is spreading so fast that it is threatening people's health. The argument of this film is that the food industry and government should take responsibilities in controlling people's food intake in order to help people rid of obesity. The movie includes a lot facts, statistics and stories to show that how the food industry as well as the government affecting people's health. The film talks about how the big companies put more concerns on their profits rather than the public health by showing that they reduce the fat in the food, but increase the amount of sugar. The film also shows that the government does not do enough work by putting more regulations on child advertisement as well as promoting its agriculture products to make the obesity problem worse.This movie contains interviews with renowned people such as Bill Clinton and Michael Bloomberg. And they interview the kids who have obesity problems to show the general public concerns on the obesity problem. The last part of the movie shows the estimated statistics that by 2050 about 1/3 of the Americans will have diabetes raise the awareness on this issue. 

Response

Based on the given facts and statistics that obesity problem in America is undoubtedly getting worse. I agree that both the government and food industry do not do enough work to protect the general public from obesity. The government should put more regulations on child food advertisements and the sugar intake of the children. The food industry should put the public health concerns before their own profit. The companies should list the nutrition of their food as well as daily recommended intakes on the food label to prevent giving an illusion of fast food or soft drinks are healthy.  However, the people themselves should put more awareness on choosing the food they eat. The fast food culture is deeply rooted in American's mind. In order to change this situation, education on this issue is needed. The schools should implement programs to help the kids that have obesity problems to lose weight. Also, the schools can organize activities to promote the importance of eating healthy and start offering healthier food in the cafeteria. The people have to show that they have the determination in tackling this problem and urge the government as well as food industry to change this situation.

Text-based questions

1. Is advertisement and regulations on food the main factors that make people consume high amount of unhealthy food?

2. How will the people react if the government put more regulations on food?

Response to my video and my essay

This video gives us insights on how the writers working on their novels or essays. It shows that even the writers need to make lots of drafts before they write. And during writing, they will keep reviewing what they have already written. I used to write essays without having a draft. However, after watching this video and writing this textual analysis essay, I think that writing drafts can really improve the quality of my essay. Also, we should make sure who is going to be our target audience carefully before we write any essay. Otherwise, no matter how good our essays are, we are not responding to the right topic that our readers want and the whole essay will become a failure.

Summary and response to "Stop Googling . Let's Talk."

  The writer of this essay Sherry Turkle is a professor from M.I.T. who is a professional in the field of people's relationship with technology.In essay she introduces several ideas and reasons why people rely on communicate by using technology and provides solution to try to solve the problem generated by the them.

 The first idea that she introduces is that the "rule of three " mentioned in the essay. She explains that this rule can make the people feel they can drop in and out freely and keep the conversation relatively light. She also shares similar idea in her TED talk "Connected, but alone?" by using the term " Goldilocks effect". This explain why the people tend to use their phone while having a conversation because when using their phone, they can feel they they are in their comfort zone: not too close with your friends but also not too distant either. However, I agrees to that over-relying on technology to communicate can bring a huge problem in shaping people's characteristic. She mentioned a few examples and the most profound example is that the loss of empathy among children. As we all know, empathy is one of the most precious values in human being. Imagine what will happen to the world if our empathy gradually disappeared from us, we then have no differences between us and robots and bring huge problems to the society.

The second idea that she implicated that people seldom want to be alone but actually loneliness can help us to find ourselves. She said that "We turn time alone into a problem that needs to be solved with technology." which she think it is not right. We learn to concentrate and listen to ourselves in loneliness and this the skills we also need to involve in a conversation. I strongly agrees to this idea because only during lonely time, we will have the time to sit down and review our mistakes and improve ourselves to be a better person.

  

  

  The third idea she mentions is that human are vulnerable. During the time we are with our phones, we can always choose what we want. However, in conversations, it is harder for us to control the information that we want to receive. So that we tend to stay in our comfort zone and stay tune with the phone which always have similar thoughts and ideas with you.

  I strongly believe that the several ideas above explain why the people tend to use their phones instead of involving a real conversation among their friends and families. I also agrees the writer's view that with the changing the use of technology, it can help us to communicate with each other better. Nonetheless, I think this is improtant for us to take this problem serious and think about the use of technology in the future.