The Power Team

This article by Sharon Mazer has to do with a bunch of guys who go around preaching the word of God. They are referred to as the "Power Team" and they do things such as breaking through handcuffs, ripping apart phonebooks and other strong man like characterisitics. One thing I found interesting was that in the story it said when John Jacobs broke through the handcuffs, the chains of the devil had been broken. The strength that he had is a sign of his faith in Christ. The Power Team are referred to as muscular christians and they represent the strength necessary to resist the lure of drugs, alcohol, premarital sex, gang violence, and generalized despiar. They are seen as "bait" and what I mean by this is that they are the bait and they hook people who never come to a regular church service, so they want to bring the word of God to everyone.

I particularly enjoyed this article because I am also a Christian and I am very into my religion. I understand how important it is for people to listen to God's word because it is well worth it. They will learn a lot about themselves and they will have the ability to change things about themselves that they don't particularly enjoy. However, there are people out there who either don't want to go to church or some physically can't. So I found it quite amazing that they are people out there who are actually willing to speak about something that is very true to their hearts, in hopes that they will change the lives of others.

A Plague of Tics

This story has to do with a guy that has tics and it discusses his struggles of everyday life. He follows the same routine everyday and has difficulty breaking the habits. It doesn't help that his parents are unsupportive and his teachers are not of much help either. The one part of this story that I found quite interesting was whenever the boy was riding in the car with his dad, and the boy went to press his nose up against the winshield and his dad slammed on the brakes. The boy's nose was bleeding, but the odd thing was that he actually enjoyed this kind of pain. In the story he said that "touching objects satisifed a mental itch, but the task involved a great deal of movement: run upstairs, cross the room, remove a shoe. I soon found those same urges could be fulfilled within the confines of my own body". I just found this remarkable because I never would have thought that someone would actually enjoy the sensation of pain. Most people would think quite the opposite so I found it interesting to see that this boy with tics actually felt a different way. He likes this feeling because it's something that he can not seem to get rid of. This same pain went on for a while, until he reached his freshman year of college. At this point in his life, he started discovering drugs, drinking, and smoking. He says "I'm unsure of the scientific aspects, but for some reason, my nervous habits faded about the same time I took up cigarettes". He was using this as a sort of medication to rid himself of the tics. It was honestly kind of hard to read this story because I felt bad for this boy. First of all, its sad enough that he had to deal with these constant struggles, but then his parents not supporting him was just making his life go even more in a downhill direction. The worst part about the entire thing was that he had to resort to smoking in order to get rid of the pain he felt inside. He shouldn't have had to do that, I mean he can't help how his behavior was. So, his parents should have been there supporting him the whole time, in order for him to make it through life a lot happier, instead of having to resort to these drugs to make him feel a little better about himself.

Thoughts on Research Topic

1) The specific question I plan on answering is "does improper prenatal and neonatal nutrition have a direct correlation with birth defects in children?

2) A working thesis statement could be that birth defects occur in all children if proper nutrition is not administered by the mother.  

3) There are a few things that I know about this topic already. In specific I know that things such as overconsumption or not consuming enough iron can actually erupt into iron-deficiency anemia. Also, if not enough folate is taken in, the child could be at risk for neural tube defects.

4) There are also a few things I would like to find out about this topic. I would like to find a possible number of how many recent outbreaks there have been on birth defects in possibly a years time period. I would then like to compare it to studies done in the past. Also, another thing I would like to find out is if there are specific reasons to why women might not follow a specific diet plan that is recommended to them. By doing this, it might be able to tell me why there has been an increase in birth defects in infants.

5) One way I could oppose my argument would be to do a compare and contrast situation. I could talk to someone whose child had a birth defect and someone whose child turned out completely healthy and see if they followed the same eating habits. If there was no change in their eating habits, then this would be able to oppose the argument by saying that nutrition is not the only factor that contributes to birth defects in children.

6) One source that I have found through my research is a video clip from thebabycorner.com and it mainly discusses the physiological aspects of what a child should eat in order to promote proper growth. Another source that I found through my research is an article that I found from the EBSCOhost database. It says that there is conflicting research on maternal nutrition and birth outcomes.

Plagiarism

A topic that most students do not like hearing about is plagiarism. It gets very redundant because every teacher discusses it in order to get the point across of how important it is not to take credit for other people's information. Plagiarism is when you pass off someone else's work as your own. This is becoming a bigger issue nowadays since information is laid out there for anyone to take because it is readily available to them.  In the article, "Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age", a woman by the name of Ms. Wilensky, who is a senior at Indiana University said that "students leave high school unprepared for intellectual rigors of college writing". She continues to say that if you are taught to read sources more carefully in middle school and high school, you won't be as tempted to do it in college. I totally agree with what she says in this article. When students have to do research, they tend to use the internet to find their information. Most students feel like they can copy and paste the information that is provided for them. So they do it because they are too lazy to take the extra time to paraphrase the information. It is important for students to learn this because in the end it will make them a better writer.

Research Topics

I am considering doing my paper on the importance of nutrition during pregnancy, but mainly how it will affect the child when it comes to breastfeeding. I am currently taking a class called nutrition through the lifecycle and I thoroughly enjoy learning about it. I think it is very interesting that the way a mother eats throughout her pregnancy can have an effect on the mothers breastmilk. This could ultimately affect the life of the child. So it is important for mothers to know the proper nutrition before and during pregnancy that way both the mother and the child is healthy. I want to learn more about this topic now though so I can adapt this to my life whenever the time comes for me to have a child. The only concern that I have is that I might not be able to find enough information on this topic. Other topics that I am considering would deal with either obesity or diabetes, maybe even how they both relate to one another. The concern I have with these topics though is that they are too broad and I am not really sure how to narrow them down in order to make them easier to research. Picking a topic is extremely difficult because I'm not sure which one would provide me with the most information when it comes to researching them.

Annotated Bibliography

Weisenberg, Jill. "Counseling Patients about Functional Foods." Modified Foods with Special Functions: Impact on Diabetes. 31. (2010): 29-31. Print.
This journal displays a collection of stories about one aspect within the Dietetic field. The journal was designed for patients so they could relate to current information and expose themselves to a new way of looking at life, and making drastic changes to their lifestyle in order to make it better. The one specific article my advisor recommended had to do with functional foods for diabetic patients which basically states how to do proper shopping around the grocery store. Jill Weisenberg states that these patients should consume foods with heathful carbohydrates, fat, and protein while limiting their consumption of high sodium and excess sucrose containing foods. By doing this, it will help in modulating critical end-points associated with  insulin resistance and hypertension. For a patient to be satisfied with what kind of foods they are actually consuming, they should follow the advice that Jill Weisenberg has provided for them.

This article will be very helpful to me throughout my career as a Dietitian. Everything that Jill stated in this article made sense. Diabetes is something that a lot of people nowadays are dealing with, so I feel that once I get into this field I could use every bit of information from Jill to help struggling patients with their problems. For now I will refer to this journal further my knowledge on this subject and use it as part of my research.

downward spiral on technology

I was told in class that I had to read an article called "Attached to Technology and paying a price" from the New York Times. This article had to do with how technology is affecting one family's life. It mainly discusses how obsessed a husband is to technology and how it is affecting both his wife and children. Their children started becoming extremely attached to their devices as well, and the whole family seemed to be disconnecting from one another. I am not fully against technology but I do feel that it is having a negative effect on people's lives. Everyone learns about respect at a very young age but it seems that with all the technological advances in society, people are becoming less engaged with one another. When in conversation with someone, people aren't fully aware of what is being said by the other person because they are too busy texting or are talking on the phone. Also, I think one of the worst things that is going on right now with technology is Facebook. I do use Facebook quite a bit but I think that its having a negative toll on society. Instead of interacting with people face to face, now people just go on-line and chat with friends. Meeting people seems to get harder because people know that they can just automatically turn to Facebook or any other social networking website and meet people there, instead of doing the proper thing by actually having good social interactions with others. I feel that people need to get rid of the electronic devices for a while and see how much your life changes for the better once you're unplugged.