eating disorders in America

For my market place of ideas in my Issues in America class my project was on eating disorders. The information I found was crazy. I was completely shocked by what I found. America has the highest death rates due to eating disorders than anywhere else.  That blew my mind. Many places like Great Britain and Australia only had 2 deaths a year from eating disorders and America had death rates in the hundreds. How can America be known for being obese yet have so many people dying from eating disorders. Only 1 in every 10 people with eating disorders get help. The saddest result I found was that for women between the ages of 14-25 the leading cause of death is eating disorders. That’s crazy! America is a country of extremist. If we have these numbers why isn’t anything being done to fix it? We clearly need help. During my research I visited a “proana” website. That website scared the shit out of me. It was filled with skeletons sending these nasty skinny pictures of themselves and other people commenting on them telling them to “ keep up the good work!” and “you can lose more!” these girls look half dead. How can they possibly see themselves and being attractive when they’re that skinny. The website had these sick commands and tips for losing more weight. They talked about how being sick=life and fat = death. What they don’t understand is that being too skinny OR too fat = death. Why do they have to take it to such extremes? These people need help. I hope these results change soon.

eating disorders in America

I’m study eating disorders for my issues in America class and I am completely shocked by my results. America has by far the largest rates of people with eating disorders and highest deaths from eating disorders than anywhere in the world. That is sick. The fact that there are people in the world who starving because they can’t provide enough food for themselves but we still have people who waste food and don’t take advantage of their privileges is just sick. People around the world are dying from lack of food and in America, one of the wealthiest places we have people choosing not to eat and people who eat just to throw it back up is just wrong. There are 8 million people in America with eating disorders. 7 million women and 1 million men. The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate of ALL causes of death for females 15 – 24 years old. That’s horrible! 1 or 2 out of 100 students will gain an eating disorder. What really upsets me why America has more deaths from eating disorders than anywhere else. I think it’s the media. We are all so obsessed with looking like the people we see on TV and read about in magazines that some people are taking it too far. What so many people don’t realize is that the people we see in magazines and on TV don’t all really look like that. They have professional makeup and hair stylist prepare them before they go out, they have personal trainers and that’s not to mention all the ways we can edit photos to create the perfect person. The standards to be considered beautiful now aren’t obtainable. They are so out of reach. People need to learn to embrace that they are and to work on their health. Working on your health doesn’t mean do whatever it takes to look skinny. It means eat right and work out.

It gets better

Yesterday in my issues class we watched a video by Dan Savage called it gets better. The video is about bullying gay teens. Dan Savage and his partner posted a video about what is was like for them to come out as gay and how their family’s and society treated them afterword. Their video was hopeful because they described their struggles and the all the obstacles they overcame. Their video was hopeful and many other teens also posted their own story to help encourage other gay teens to come out and show them that they aren’t alone. I loved seeing the stories people posted. They were so hopeful and they showed me that if these kids can go through all of this, and still come out of it happy, I should have no problem dealing with the problpems in my life and overcoming them to. Im 100% straight so my struggles are completely different than theirs but the outcome can be the same. I can overcome any struggles in my life and embrace who I am and be happy with who I am.

Report: Black U.S. AIDS rates rival some African nations

"AIDS in America today is a black disease," says Phill Wilson, founder and CEO of the institute. What the hell is this article saying? Im so confused how a disease that affects all races is being called a “black disease.” Maybe more black people have the disease but it is NOT a black disease. Its an AWFUL disease and that should be its only label. Connecting a disease such as this to a specific race is just wrong. This disease effects everyone. Yes its true that this disease effects the black race more often than any other race but I think that we should take that information for what it is and look to find out why? And look for ways to prevent it. Not waste our time thinking it’s a “black disease” . people do see race and people are not color blind but I don’t think people should act on it. Of Corse il admit that I can be bias towards my own race but in this case I think the media is using to on some levels put black people beneath whites. This is an awful disease and should not ever be labeled towards a certain race.

Affirmative Action

Many places like California have banned Affirmative action in colleges and a lot of people have mixed views about it. Although college applications ask your race and gender, you are not required to fill it out. If people don’t agree with the use of affirmative action then they don’t have to participate in it. That goes for any race and any gender. I think its important to have a school that is diverse and that every student has an equal chance and if someone is purely qualified by their grades then it shouldn’t matter what race they are. If a person is qualified then they should be accepted and just by doing that they should still have a diverse school. Its also a lot better that way because then they don’t have people who aren’t able to succeed academically who were just accepted on their race. At the same time a racial quota I think should be almost required because I don’t think its ok to have colleges that are all white or all black if they’re called “public schools”. I guess I have mixed feelings and I am white so it would suck if someone got accepted over me purely based off of their race even if I was more qualified. So I can see why affirmative action is being debated but at the same time we have come so far and we are more accepting now and I think everyone should have an equal shot to go to college and succeed.

Terrill swift

In the beginning of the year my class was told that a man was going to be coming to our school who was wrongfully convicted and spent around 20 years in jail and he was going to give a presentation about his experience. I was so excited to be there for his presentation.  I walked in expecting to see a broken man who was going to talk about how much he hates the police and how awful his experience was. But I was wrong. The second I saw Terrill Swift my heart dropped. He was still young, he had these big gentle eyes that reminded me of my brother. He was so calm and composed. He didn’t say anything putting down the people who wrongfully convicted him. He didn’t even complain about his situation. I just wanted to go up there and bitch about the police for him. After everything he has been through he still has a sense of humor, he has goals, he wants a family and all he cares about is starting his new life and helping people avoid making the same mistake he did. He doesn’t even care if he gets money from the government for everything he was put through. He was just happy to be out of there. He is the strongest person I’ve ever met. I can’t even describe how powerful his presentation was. Even though his presentation was so calm he left me with provoking thoughts that had me thinking and talking about him all day. He had good grades, no criminal history and no involvement what so ever with the rape and murder he was convicted of and yet one small simple mistake took 17 years of his life and everything those 17 years included away from him. I thought that as long as I stayed out of trouble and away from the wrong crowd I would never have anything to worry about. But now I know how important it is to know my rights and to read the fine print. If I was interrogated for a long time by the police and they told me that if I wanted to leave and go home all I would have to do is a sign a piece of paper, I would not hesitate. I wouldn’t even spend time to skim the page looking for the line to sign my name on. I would just sign it. Knowing what happened to Terrill I’ll always read the fine print and make sure I know my rights and that my rights are upheld. I wish there was someone that could have talked to Terrill and told him all the things he just told my class so he would know his rights and wouldn’t have gone to jail for such a horrible crime he did not commit. He is such a good person and he deserves an incredible life full of happiness to make up for the past 17 years of hell he was put through.

"white like me"

I read a chapter in the novel “WHITE LIKE ME” by Tim Wise” called privilege. That chapter was about white privilege and how common it is. I agree with a lot of what Tim is saying. Tim gave an example about how there have been 12 studies that show that white teachers will punish black students more often or more severely than they might punish a white student. I believe that. At my old school where blacks and Mexicans were more dominate, I could see how my teacher would spend less time trying to answer their questions and although my teachers would be nice to all the students, the second a child of color would do the smallest thing wrong they would be punished but at the same time there could be a white child who is the class clown and goofs off and gets away with it every day.

 A personal example of white privilege, I went out to the mall with 3 of my friends (all white girls) and as we were leaving a store beside a black mother and her two children, the alarm went off. We of Corse stopped to go back so the store clerk could check our bags but they stopped us and told us we were fine and they didn’t need to check our bags. But they DID check the mother with her two kids. As we walked out of the store again the sensor went off again so we knew it must have been something in our bags and we were right. The sales clerk forgot to take off one of the sensors from my friend’s shirt that she had just bought. The black women whose bags were checked had a disgusted and disappointed look on her face because she knew that the only reason why they suspected her was because of her race. It was really sad but this sort of stuff happens all the time.

 There was an example given in the book where were told to pretend we are a white man/women and we just got a new job in a billion dollar company and we chose not to pay off a company’s debt because that debt was from before we were hired. I think this is a horrible example of white privilege. That example isn’t an example of white privilege at all and a very unrealistic example. If you are hired to co-own a billion dollar company than you sure as hell know what you’re doing and you know your responsibilities. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would assume that even if they were to inherit a debt that was not originally theirs that they don’t have to pay it off. And I also don’t see how that example is only being applied to whites. That example could be of any race. Il admit that we, the white community still have a lot of apologizes to do for the black community for what our ancestors did 400 years ago and I have to own that. I feel awful for what my race has done to people. I think that even though I don’t want what other people did 400 years ago to be on me, I still need to show that I’m different than them and I do not believe in what they did. At the same time, I didn’t put anyone into slavery, and the blacks who are living today also weren’t in slavery and I have no personal connection to the matter. So no, I don’t think that I have to give an apology to every black person I see as if I had personally put them or their family into slavery but I do think that a public apology should be made from the whites to the blacks. I personally feel terrible about what happened but I do take responsibility for what my race has done. I think that blacks deserved a public apology years ago. Why they haven’t gotten it? No idea. I will do everything I can to treat people equally and not be biased towards one race. I hope that one day the black community gets the apology they deserve.