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Module 1 – Case Health Promotion The role of Theory and the Ecological Perspective
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Title: Module 1 – Case Health Promotion: The role of Theory and the Ecological Perspective
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Date: August 16, 2013
Did the study find that walkability of the neighborhood affected obesity in all areas and populations?
The aim of the study was to examine if there is a relationship between walking areas in the neighborhood and the body mass index in lower body. If the environment where one lives and its association with obesity and general overweight.
No, the study found that there were some significant factors which affected the thesis. Normally, it is expected that a person living in a walkable area is less likely to be obese or overweight due to the regular walking. However, several factors prove this wrong; the advantaged populations proved this right, with more walking they had a good BMI. Advantaged groups refer to people with higher education and income and are considered more stable. In disadvantaged groups the walking factor did not eliminate obesity. There are factors which seemed to cause obesity such as food environment.
Which populations benefited from walkable neighborhood?
Advantaged members of the society benefited from a walkable neighborhood than less advantaged groups. The study proved a common idea wrong, that when you walk more you are less likely to be obese. Members of the disadvantaged populations walked more, however their BMI was higher.
Why did the study give these results?
There are other factors that affect the BMI of a person other than regular exercise. In the study, a walkable environment was the mode of exercise being used. Other factors that may lead a person to being obese include diet, stress levels and education level. When a person is well educated, they will lead a healthier lifestyle and will know how to deal with stress unlike uneducated people.
Personal approach to reducing obesity in less advantaged populations
The study is an important reference that I would use in raising awareness of lifestyles and obesity. Personally, I would put up campaigns among less advantaged populations and in their neighborhoods. First is to ensure that they are aware that they should lead a healthy lifestyle, convince them to opt for healthier foods rather than fast foods. Healthy eating is the first step towards fighting obesity, drinking lots of water and eating fruits.
Secondly, ensure that members of this population are well informed on ways of fighting stress. Stress is also a factor that leads to obesity. Fighting stress through regular exercise will help in fighting obesity. Take time to have happy thoughts and dedicating time in your daily schedule to relax.
With these two strategies in place, their walking exercise will result to a guaranteed weight loss and help them avoid being overweight.
What would I try to find out?
First, find out which food they prefer, fast foods or healthy foods. How regular do they consume fast foods? What makes them prefer fast foods to healthy foods? Does the cost of fast foods make them prefer them to healthy foods?
What I would do to change that?
I would ensure that they are well informed on the advantages of leaving a healthy lifestyle eating healthy foods and the disadvantages of fast foods. This is the only way that I would make them change their perception towards fast foods and help them embrace healthy eating.
Would I still consider their environment in the intervention?
No, having given them good information on the advantages of healthy eating and disadvantages of fast foods I would not consider changing their environment. Change of food environment is the only change that is required to fight obesity. A person may change their geographical location to a new environment but still consume fast foods and lead an unhealthy life.
These populations will have the knowledge to make the right choices and well informed decisions regarding their lifestyles. There may be a great concern by critics of my strategy in this intervention. One point from critics that I expect is, if they continue to live in the same environment wont they be tempted to continue leading an unhealthy lifestyle? No they won’t, taking them to a different environment does not eliminate temptation rather they should be left to make healthy decisions for themselves.
The ecological perspective of this intervention
Ensure that the intervention is an outreach to create awareness to the entire community in that environment. When everybody is enlightened in the same way and makes a personal decision to lead a healthy lifestyle and make the right health choices, then the environment will be empowered. Rather than choosing a target group in the population to educate about healthy living and eating, educate the entire population.
In Conclusion
Knowledge is power. When people are well informed they make the right choices and live healthier lifestyles than when they are not. All communities should be well informed, plan regular campaigns to create awareness and emphasize on healthy eating. We can fight obesity by providing the right information.
References
Gina S Lovasi, Kathryn M Neckerman, James W Quinn, Christopher C Weiss, Andrew Rundle. (2009). Effect of Individual or Neighborhood Disadvantage on the Association Between Neighborhood Walkability and Body Mass Index. American Journal of Public Health, 99(2), 279-84.
Pearce, J., & Witten, K. (2010).Geographies of obesity: environmental understandings of the obesity epidemic. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate.
Hinton, P. O., Keenan, W. C., & MacLennan, T. G. (1976). The social factors of obesity in the low income population. London: MacPhee.
Modest Proposal
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Jonathan Swift inscribed Modest Proposal with the perception to better humanity. It is a satirical pamphlet that scrutinizes the outlook of the rich towards the poor starving children in society. It was written in 1729 with the aim to prevent children of the deprived individuals in Ireland from being a burden on their country or parents and for turning them to be beneficial to the public. This proposal consisted of selling, skinning, and purchasing infants at the age of one. Such kind of proposal that he came up with is a very controversial and inhuman one when it comes to being socially accepted. He commences his writing by talking on walking down a street in Ireland. He asserts how someone would see “mendicants of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six kids, all in tatters, and plaguing each commuter for donations.” Jonathan Swift’s thinking behind this proposal is that many ladies were getting kids that they were not able to care for. Jonathan swift uses rhetorical devices of logos and ethos in order to get his message across and make his argument more effective.
Swift asserts that this suggestion would make the babies “advantageous to the public” (Swift 4). It also talks about the terrible situations in which the individuals were dwelling at the time. He blames the politicians for the disgraceful state of affairs as a result of the absence of apathy provided in the decision-making process in dealing with the conditions. In the proposal, he uses sarcasm, rhetorical exaggeration, and insincerity to show his annoyance with poverty-stricken citizens, politicians, and the papists of Ireland at the time. He uses several rhetorical devices effectively as he emphasizes his proposal. He uses humor, logical fallacies, repetition, parallelism, metaphors, in addition to satire and sarcasm to highlight the negative attitudes. He starts by blaming and mocking the kids’ mothers by saying to them that they ought to engage or find themselves working to receive an honest living rather than ambling to beg for alms (Swift, 5). He also forecasts coming hard days for these youngsters that when they mature up, they will become thieves. This is mere because the paternities did not teach them the modest way of life.
When he wrote the Modest Proposal, he attempted to get his audience to perceive the problem by taking it and giving inhumane and unethical solutions using rhetorical devices to bring out individuals’ emotions. One of the devices he used that brings emotions is using constant metaphor whereby he compares children or labels them as bodies of carcasses or stocks. Swift employs the use of logos to assist him throughout his proposal. He makes a very persuasive and logical argument that the Irish should eat their children. Swift makes a situation that by feeding on the deprived babies after they attain one year of age, the nation would be dealing with many significant problems the nation is facing. He asserts that by feeding on the infants, they can reduce the number of kids that the low-income families have to support, the males would not beat their expectant spouses since the infants they are carrying are valuable like a calf or a foal, and by vending the babies as foodstuff, the economy will be enhanced.
Jonathan Swift uses logical fallacies to make his argument in his writing. His thinking and way of argument lacks validity and appear incorrect in what is proposing. It is evident in his booklet on lines 69 to 73. He noted that a young, healthy kid is an enjoyable foodstuff to be roasted, stewed, and boiled to be served and consumed. Besides, he has figured out a large number of children to be reserved for breeding. This dehumanizes the kids to be like animals. He uses emotional plea in his dispute by recommending slaughterhouses to be constructed in appropriate locations and butchers to be put to perform the work of slaughtering the children. He additionally overstresses by asserting that the youngsters will be roasted like pigs. Swift captures his readers’ emotions because no parent will accept his child to be done like this. An additional rhetorical device that he uses in his work is irony. Swift asserts, ‘I estimate there might be approximately two hundred thousand couple whose partners are breeders’ and ‘how this figure shall be raised and provided for.’ (Albert, 10) This proposal is ironic since he equates women to animals. Furthermore, this makes a good argument since human beings do not breed and cannot be reared. Jonathan Swift dehumanizes humankind and makes satire in his account.
Jonathan swift, in his structure of backing up his dispute, he is sarcastic in a way that particular body parts of infants are right to take. He additionally elucidates that in certain circumstances, the parts of the body will be on-demand. He further asserts that healthy and good children will be skinned and be used to make admirable summer boots for men and gloves for women. This perception is ridiculous to a level that kids will be considered food, and their body parts will be used to make ornaments. Jonathan makes fun of children that they will be sold for 10 shillings, whereby their mothers will get an eight shillings profit to use until they are able to give birth to another child.
In conclusion, Jonathan puts into practice a number of rhetorical devices as he highlights his writing. He uses repetition, parallelism, logical fallacies, metaphors, in addition to sarcasm and satire. The Modest Proposal was an effort to convince an Irish Parliament to improve the condition of the poor. The idea of eating children was used as a metaphor since he perceived it as exploiting the poor.
Works Cited
Swift, Jonathan. Irish Political Writings after 1725: A Modest Proposal and Other Works. Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2018.
Power, Albert. “Jonathan Swift (1667-1745).” The Green Book: Writings on Irish Gothic, Supernatural and Fantastic Literature 12 (2018): 9-16.
Monarch Butterfly (Danaus Plexippus)
Monarch Butterfly (Danaus Plexippus)
Abstract
The monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is an inhabitant of North and South America. However, they have spread to other parts of the world such as in South Pacific islands, Australia and New Zealand as well as other countries in central part of Africa. It is a brightly orange colored butterfly with black stripe markings and is beautiful to look at. It is a species of milkweed butterflies of the danaidae family. Two sub-species of the Monarch exist in the Western Hemisphere; Danaus plexippus plexipppus in South Canada, USA, Mexico, South and Central America and Danaus plexippus erippus of Peru, Chile, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay (Bonanno 67). The North American monarch butterfly is known for it’s incredible migration where individuals fly from their summer breeding grounds to overwintering habitat in central Mexico.
The Monarch cannot survive in cold weather hence the migration of as long as three thousand miles to reach warmer climates. It can be found in many habitats for instance fields, urban areas, gardens, trees and many others. Amazingly, each butterfly lives a year hence the migrations made by future generations every year. They lay three hundred to four hundred eggs and have incomplete metamorphosis and it’s larvae are specialized herbivores that consume only leaves of the milkweed family of plants. The milkweed provides them with a good and effective chemical defense against predators (Pringle 5).
Introduction
From its coloration, migration, lifecycle and even mating, this insect is extremely fascinating and interesting in every aspect of its life. There is a lot to learn about it, and the paper will give a good understanding of the monarchs’ classification, it’s lifecycle, it’s habitat, evasive features and migration.
Classification of the monarch butterfly can be traced back from kingdom Animalia. Under this kingdom, it is found under the phylum Arthoropoda and class Insecta. Under the class insecta, Danaus plexippus belongs to the order Lepidoptera which also consists of moths. This order consists of the family nymphalidae in which monarch butterfly is found under the subfamily Danainae, genus Danaus, and finally species plexippus. Monarch butterfly is also known as milkweed butterfly due to the fact that their larva feeds on the milkweed plant (Christensen 58).
Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippu) is mainly found in North America also sometimes it is found in western Europe having flown to western or been transported to western Europe by American ships. It has also been found in other parts of the world such as Australia, India and New Zealand. Monarch butterfly feeds mainly on milkweed plants found in North America which thrive during the spring, summer and, autumn seasons (Bonanno 45). They migrate southwards during winter to the warmer Mexican and Californian highlands. However, the milkweed plants do not grow well in Mexico and southern California. Due to this forces monarch butterflies to fly to the North during spring in search of food.
Life cycle
Mating period for the migrating monarch population occurs in the spring, this just prior to migration from the overwintering sites. Their courtship is quite simple and dependents very little on chemical pheromones if compared to other species in it’s genus. Courtship is composed of two distinct stages that is the aerial phase and the other is known as the ground phase. the first phase if when the male takes down the female by nudgling after which copulation takes place at the ground phase. Here, the male and female remain attached for about 30 to 60 minutes. From the male, a spermatophore is transferred to the female along with sperm. The spermatophore plays the role of offering energy to the female insect during reproduction (Pringle 2).
Monarch butterflies have a very interesting life cycle. There are four different generations of monarch butterflies in approximately every twelve months. The first generation of monarch butterflies starts their life cycle between March and April when the fourth generation of butterflies hibernating in Mexico and south California emerge. This (fourth) generation of monarch butterflies migrates to the North which is beginning to get warmer. They lay their eggs on the leaves of milkweed plants. The egg when in a favorable environment takes about four days to hatch into wormlike larvae. The larvae are the most active and feed on the milkweed plant and grow (Christensen 7).
The larva is most vulnerable to predators because it does not have a hard covering like the pupa. The larval stage lasts for about two weeks when it has stored enough nutrients to take it through the pupa stage then it attaches itself by use of silk to a plant’s leaves or stem. It then transforms itself into pupa. Within the first ten days there seems to be nothing happening in the pupa but this is the most active stage when the caterpillar is being transformed into the beautiful butterfly (Bonanno 12). After at least ten days the butterfly emerges from the cocoon to enjoy the remaining two to six weeks remaining in it’s life cycle, and then they die.
The first generation lay their eggs between May and June which then goes through exactly the same life history as the first generation. When the second generation butterflies are sexually mature, they lay their eggs between July and August then it undergos the same stages as the first and second generations. Sexually mature third generation lay eggs that will develop to the fourth generation in September and august. The fourth generation has the same life history as the first, second, and third generations apart from the time when they become adults. Adult fourth generation butterflies migrate to Mexico and southern California to avoid winter in North America. They stay in these warmer climates for around seven months, and when the temperatures in the North have increased to a bearable limit (during spring in the North), they migrate to the North. They then lay their eggs which mark the start of the first generation and the cycle goes on and on (Pringle 56).
The monarch habitats include fields, meadows, prairie remnants, urban and suburban parks, gardens, trees, and roadsides. Interactions between the monarch and humans is majorly because of its beauty the best way that people catch sight of monarchs is by growing a butterfly gardens and grow specific milkweed species of plants. They have also been used in research, especially due to their migration patterns. Some people enjoy raising them for pleasure or for educational purposes. The migrating flocks have had people create sanctuaries at favorite wintering locations, and this has created areas of tourism attractions and used for revenue generation.
In education, numerous schools have undertaken to growing and attending to monarch butterflies along their lifecycle starting with the caterpillar form. They do this until they mature into adults and then left out to go to the wild (Bonanno 34). The Cape May Bird Observatory, have embarked on monarch identification tagging programs to track the butterflies and hence study their migration patterns, including the far they fly and where they fly to.
Monarch butterfly has various mechanisms of defending themselves against predators. These include methods like production of poisonous and foul tasting cardenolide aglycones. They also prove that they are unpalatable through their bright colors. Some group of birds like jays and orioles have also leaned to just feed selectively on some parts of these butterflies considering that those areas are of less harm as compared to other parts. Monarch butterfly is of great monumental value to humans. This has made most of the people plant a chosen species of milk weed so as to attract these wonderful creatures of the nature (Pringle 34). However, it has been determined to be the most existent form of the monarch butterfly is under threat as a result of some of deleterious human activities such as deforestation and air pollution. Therefore, there are plans underway to protect these species which is feared to be in the list of the extinct organisms in the near future.
Threats to the monarch butterfly are many among them being parasites like the tachinid flies and Lesperia-parasitized larvae. Also, the bacterium micrococcus flacidifex danai infects the larvae and can cause the “black death”. Another bacterium pseudomonas aeruginosa causes secondary infections in weakened butterflies hence considered as one of the most common cause of life of these insects. Besides bacteria, protozoans also attack the monarchs. It infects the subcutaneous tissue and propagates by spores that get formed during its pupal stage (Christensen 23).
Works Cited
Bonanno, SE. Jefferson County Alvar Megasite Conservation. New York: The Nature Conservancy, 1999.
Christensen, T. The ecology and control of Vincetoxicum spp. Rochester, NY: Wildflower, 1998.
Pringle, J. The spread of Vincetoxicum species in Ontario. Ontario: The Canadian Field Naturalist, 1998.