Diego's Blog

This source mainly goes over all the fact based content related to obesity. Almost all of the health problems relate to one another. Meaning that one of them leads to another or vice versa. This would be a good source to use for all the fact based parts of my essay and trying to persuade the audience why obesity and losing weight is a serious topic.

This article goes over the effects of declaring obesity as a disease. I don’t know if this article will do much for me with my essay. It has some good content on obesity but i don’t think i could use it in my argument. 

I believe local governments should build gyms that the community can use for free, make low income areas safer so they feel better about going out more, and have more access to grocery stores. I also believe it is the own persons responsibility that if these things do happen to take advantage of them. Even if they don’t happen to try and lose weight somehow. In Arizona almost one in three adults are obese. People need to realize the long term health effects it has on them and the effects it has on society.

Emotional Fallacies- Scare Tactic- If you don’t lose weight immediately, you will die from all the health problems related to obesity like diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc.

Ethical Fallacies- Stack The Deck- Obesity is all the persons fault, they could easily run or go to the gym. There are grocery stores everywhere.

Logical Fallacies- Faulty Causality- People are obese because people have been obese since the beginning of time.

This article goes over some facts about obesity that pertain to Arizona specifically. The article mentions programs that can help with obesity. The author says that almost one in three adults is obese and nearly 16 percent of children age 10 to 17 years are obese. The author says that people often know they need to lose weight but that in low income areas they have barriers. Barriers such as “unsafe neighborhoods, lack of quality recreational facilities, and grocery stores that are not nearby.”

This article confirms one of the facts from the article before saying that almost one in three adults are obese. Another fact in both are that Arizona is 30th in the nation for obesity. These articles obviously have some of the same sources. This article goes more in depth about the programs combating obesity, listing them and giving a general definition.

Christ, Cara, et al. “Arizona’s State of Obesity 2018.” AZ Dept. of Health Services Director’s Blog, 21 Sept. 2018, https://directorsblog.health.azdhs.gov/arizonas-state-of-obesity-2018/.

Cline, Kathy. “Obesity Still a Major Problem in Arizona, New Report Finds.” KTAR.com, 14 Sept. 2018, https://ktar.com/story/2217430/obesity-still-a-major-problem-in-arizona-new-report-finds/.

“Health Risks of Overweight & Obesity.” National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1 Feb. 2018, https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/weight-management/adult-overweight-obesity/health-risks.

Nutter, Sarah, et al. “Framing Obesity a Disease: Indirect Effects of Affect and Controllability Beliefs on Weight Bias.” International Journal Of Obesity (2005), vol. 42, no. 10, Oct. 2018, pp. 1804–1811. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1038/s41366-018-0110-5.

The issue that I chose is obesity in the United States. Obesity affects everyone, either they are the ones obese, their family member, or friends. According to https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html, in 2015-2016 obesity affected 93.3 million of US adults. Obesity effects every community. Unlike gun control or racism, obesity does discriminate, it affects everyone somehow or another. Obesity has a negative affect on lower income homes due to the fact that fast food is easier to access and cheaper than a grocery store. With fast food it’s already ready to eat, on every street and corner, and fairly cheap. I do emphasize with people fighting with extra weight because I use to have some extra weight. I wouldn’t say obese but I would say it was a problem for me. Other peoples opinions on this topic is that it is their fault they are obese on one side and that they are costing this country more money on health care due to their eating habits. The other side says that they are only partly to blame and that we need to change fast food to healthier options or make it less accessible. This issue is important to me because like I said before I struggled with my weight in the past. This issue should also be important to my classmates because they either know someone who struggles with obesity or they themselves struggle with obesity.

One issue I’m interested in doing is obesity. It affects almost every community. On a national level you could talk about the health issues that come with it, the government spending money for obesity research, childhood obesity, etc. Possible solutions are making healthy food cheaper, increase pricing of fast food, working out, etc. There is a million things you could do to fight obesity you just have to have a little self control and discipline.

My experience with writing Essay 2 was easier than my experience with writing Essay 1. Since the story was about myself, it was a lot easier to make a story out of it since I’m the one that experienced it. I think I learned how to describe things in more detail. I also haven’t written since high school over 2 years ago so this is all kind of new to me. I prefer writing narratives because I like telling stories. Plus most of the time narratives are about yourself which makes it even easier. I enjoy topics on traveling, childhood, or success stories. I enjoyed writing this one because for most people it was a really personal story.

I learned that everyone is going through something even though it may not always show. I discovered that I can’t do everything myself and I need to be able to have the ability to confide in someone else. I learned the world is a strange place and I really thought I was ready to take it on but I was wrong.

Diego Miranda

Janel Spencer

WRT101S 12157

Oct. 7, 2019

            Mental health is one of the topics that no one really wants to talk about; there is a certain stigma around it that pushes people from wanting to get help. But every year, about 1 in 5 U.S. adults struggle with some form of mental health issues (NAMI). No one is immune to mental health issues, including me. This is my struggle with mental health.

            I grew up in a military orientated family. My father was in the Air Force and we moved around a lot. When my family was in one place, my father’s job usually took him away, either on deployments, tdy trips, or something else related to his job. After my father retired from the Air Force, he was gone for over a year for his new job. It wasn’t that my father didn’t want to be there, he just worked so much so my family could have everything that he didn’t have when he was younger. My father being gone most of the time was stressful for my family. My mom was working a job and was watching my two younger brothers who were around one and nine. My oldest sister was in her first year of college and so my mom had less help around the house and relied on my other sister and I a lot more.

Growing up I got used to my father being gone a lot and moving around all the time. Most of the times we moved it was just another thing. Except my sophomore year of high school, we moved halfway through the year all the way from Nebraska to England for my dad’s contracting job. Nebraska was the place I stayed at the longest. I felt as if I actually had a reason to stay at this place. I made a lot of friends, did good in school, and I had been dating someone for around two years at the time. It felt like I was being ripped away from all those things just to move and start all over again. After being in England for a little bit, my girlfriend at the time ended up cheating on me and it really took a toll on me. We ended up breaking up and I just took all those feelings and pushed them deep down and ignored them. Then whenever they wanted to come up, I just pushed them down more and distracted myself with something else. Throughout the last four years this was a common thing for me.

            After high school I ended up joining the military myself because it was what my grandfather did, and my father also. I was going for a really physically demanding job that a lot of people had tried but failed out of due to injury, quitting, or just not meeting the standards. After trying out for this job for about three months I ended up getting injured, I had tears in my patella and quadriceps tendon. They ended up taking me out of the program and said I wouldn’t be able to try out anymore and was being forced to do a different job. This hit me pretty deep. I had spent around a year getting ready physically and mentally for this job and just like that it was over. Just like back in high school I took these feelings and pushed them down till they weren’t there. After getting injured, it wasn’t until 4 months later that I could move since I had to be completely healed up before I could start this other job that was chosen for me. Every day it was the same things, physical therapy, stretching, and sitting around in a room waiting for my injury to get better. Being there alone felt really depressing. I felt like I was doing nothing with my life and that I was a disappointment for getting injured and I blamed everything on myself. I ended up pushing my family and friends away, which ended up being worse because I felt even more alone. 

            After finally recovering from my injury, I was able to move on. I was excited and also sad. Excited because I was finally able to move on and do something, but at the same time sad because it wasn’t what I joined the military to do. I spent the next four months in North Texas training for my new job, C-130 Crew Chief. Which basically was a mechanic on C-130 aircraft. Being there training for my new job and meeting new people, it kind of got my mind off of everything. But every so often I would think about getting injured and not being good enough, or something would remind me of it which would lead me to thinking about it also, and just like before, I would push all these feelings down.

            After leaving North Texas, I went to Tucson for my first duty station. Here they have people that are in the career field that I was got taken out of because of my injury and seeing them was bittersweet. It was nice and cool to see them and interact with them, but at the same time it sucked because all I could think about is how that could be me. After being in Tucson for a little while my command here said I had to go see Mental Health. After seeing Mental Health they said I needed to go to a behavioral health institute because I was a danger to myself because I was depressed. I was in the behavioral health institute for over a week and every day we had to go to group talks and learn coping skills and do things to release stress. 

            Throughout most of my life I avoided my emotions and just pushed them away instead of facing them. I felt like I should be able to deal with my emotions by myself, which was pushing how I felt away, so I didn’t talk to anybody about what I was feeling, This just let things build up on me and I didn’t even notice it. It was obvious to the point where my command noticed I needed help. 

            Today my physiatrist teaches me how to express how I’m feeling and how to deal with stress and depression. She said that even though I don’t always know how to express how I’m feeling it is still good to try to talk about it and to rely on someone for a good support system instead of pushing away everything and letting it build up. I used to think that talking about your feelings made you weak and that you should be able to deal with things by yourself. I realized it is good to talk with someone about how your feeling. So that you’re not holding on to unsolved or confusing feelings. This way you can solve problems with other people better, including relationship issues. Everyone’s struggle with mental health issues is different, whether it be from abuse, stress, or many other reasons but no one should be scared to get help in the healthy and right way.

Works Cited

“NAMI.” NAMI, https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health-by-the-numbers.