Violence in the Digital Realm does not Lead to Violence in the Physical One.

Controversy over the possible negative effects of violence in video games has been around almost as long as the medium itself. The first game to cause a significant outcry from the public was the arcade cabinet Death Race released in 1976. Despite the morbid name, the content was fairly pedestrian, especially by today’s standards:  an 8-bit car runs over stick figures that turn into a gravestone when hit. Referring to these figures as “Gremlins” did little to assuage the fears of the public, and the game was scathingly reported on in magazines like the National Enquirer and Newsweek. 60 Minutes even did a investigative report on the psychological dangers of video games.

The next major instance of video game controversy happened in 1993, with the release of the game Mortal Kombat. The use of digitized models for the characters meant they looked much more realistic then any previous games, and this combined with more graphic violence then had been seen in a game before did not engender it well to the press. The backlash was so bad against this game that a Congressional Hearing was held to determine whether the video game industry should be regulated. This led to the creation of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, an organization designed to give details on content and restrict the sale of the more objectionable games to minors. In spite of this regulatory agency, the flames of controversy over this subject have not burned out, and every year brings a fresh slew of politicians and news agencies claiming that violence in games is the cause of a wide variety of crime and other tragic occurances.

With such strong feelings on display, it would be logical to assume that these groups had strong studies which proved that violence in games causes definite harmful negative effects. The main theory is that viewing or playing violent video games induces increased aggression in the user, and this increased aggression leads to more violent action. While it is not outside the realm of possibility that this is the case, the studies seeking to prove it have numerous faults. They are plagued by unreliable testing methods, from measurement scales that gather incorrect data to the lack of control over significant variables. Further, the analysis of the data garnered in these studies makes a key assumption based on a theoretical model that has been refuted, and thus makes claims the data does not support. Finally, there is little evidence that violence in games produces a greater effect on aggression then many other common activities. There is also little consensus in this area, with an equal number of studies concluding that violence in video games does not even cause an increase in aggression. Taking these factors into account, it is incorrect to state with any degree of certainty that violence in video games causes negative effects based on current evidence.

Proper testing methods are essential to any field of study. If the initial gathering of data has faults, then any of the results the study draws are tainted by that incorrect data. The hallmarks of a good test are repeatability, accounting for as many variables as is possible, and using the correct testing tools to gather the data. The majority of the studies on the effects of violence in video games fail on the latter two. They employ unreliable methods of gathering data that do not test solely for negative aggression, and fail to account for a major variable directly relating to their tests.

The most common test for increased aggression is the twenty-nine question Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire, which was first published in the sixty-third Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. It tests for physical and verbal aggression, as well as anger and hostility. Physical aggression measures the likelihood of provoked as well as unprovoked violent physical contact between the subject and either people or objects; verbal aggression measures the subjects tendency to argue and disagree with others. Anger measures the subject’s temper and how often they get angry, and hostility tests what the subject thinks of their friends and strangers (Buss-Perry Questionnaire). On the surface, it appears to be very complete; however, by examining the questions themselves, it is clear that they have numerous faults and should not be used as evidence for increase in negative aggression.

The first major problem with the Buss-Perry Questionnaire is that a majority of the questions ask about past actions without giving any context. For example, in the first nine questions relating to physical aggression, 3 of them ask about controlling the urge to strike people, if the subject gets into fights more than the average person, and if they have threatened anyone in the past (Buss-Perry Questionnaire). In a short term study, the answer to these questions changing does not indicate an increase in aggression, because these actions are in the past and thus cannot be changed by any current actions. Rather, it shows a change in perception regarding past actions. While a study over a longer time period could track a change in these questions, the fact that they have no context or timeframe attached to them mean that it is equally possibly that a change in perception is to blame for the changes, not an increase in aggressive actions. The other sections have the same problem, with the questions relating to anger and verbal aggression being composed almost entirely of this type of questions.

The next fault that quickly becomes apparent when reading the questions is that they do not necessarily show an increase in aggression that causes harm. The 5 questions on verbal aggression are a sterling example of this, because responses that are more aggressive can usually be seen as a virtue rather than a fault. For example, question ten reads “I tell my friends openly when I disagree with them” (Buss-Perry Questionnaire).  But being unafraid to voice a personal opinion is highly prized in many individual-oriented cultures, and the question provides no context to help determine if this is a situation that would be better served by remaining silent. The lack of context on this and many other questions necessarily leads to different subjects relating to them in different ways – question 10 can be applied equally to disagreeing about the tastes of food and disagreeing about significant social and moral issues such as gay rights or abortion. All of the verbal aggression questions are in this same ambiguous vein and the section on hostility fares little better. Two questions in the hostility section, “I am suspicious of overly friendly strangers” and “When people are especially nice, I wonder what they want” are taught to children from an early age to avoid them being taken advantage of, and can easily be seen as a virtue as well as a fault.

The second commonly used test is the Hot Sauce Paradigm. In this test, the subject is given a bowl and four different types of hot sauce ranked by spiciness, and to give select the type and amount to be given to a person down the hall who explicitly does not like spicy foods. This test is generally seen as more persuasive because it measures a direct act of aggression rather than simply asking questions and trying to determine the aggression from the subject’s responses. One major issue with this test, as posited by Dominik Ritter and Mike Eslea in the study “Hot Sauce, toy guns, and graffiti: A critical account of current laboratory aggression paradigms” is that there is no alternative to giving hot sauce. Thus responses are not testing if an aggressive response would occur, but rather the severity of a forced aggressive response. There is also a significant disconnect between the subject and their supposed victim. If the subject was considering taking aggressive action that would hurt someone physically or verbally, in almost all situations they would have to take into account the reaction from that person. With this increased distance from the person, it becomes much more likely that the subject will chose a more aggressive response, since they have more emotional distance as well as less danger to self (Ritter). The final problem with this test is one of scope. Giving someone too much hot sauce is a less grievous offence then physically hurting someone or even verbally deriding them. It is incorrect to assume that these two situations are analogous, because the stimuli needed to convince a subject to give someone more hot sauce may be very different then the stimuli needed to move them to more aggressive or violent actions.

Since the two most common tests for aggression fail on any number of levels, this next point is also relevant. When possible, a study should seek to test for aggression using the maximum amount of feasible tests. For example, compare the study in Singapore by Sorick et. al. to the study on German adolescents performed by Moller and Krahe. In the first study, four different measurement scales and questionnaires are used (Skoric). In contrast, not only did the second study only use two methods of measuring aggression, but one of those methods was taken from another of the author’s studies and had not been tested for reliability by an outside source. Both of these experiments used the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire, but the first study used all 29 questions and the second study only uses 7 questions mixed with another 7 questions from a scale used for measuring a completely different type of aggression (Moller). Since the Buss-Perry is already mired in problems with the full 29 questions, choosing only seven of them erodes any potential effectiveness to the point of near uselessness.

Just as vital as using reliable testing tools is controlling for all significant variables. Obtaining an accurate measure of aggression means little if the aggression is caused by a factor other than the violence in a game. One of the most glaring examples of failing to control for all important variables is shown by Paul Adachi and Teena Willoughby, who conducted a two part study to test the effects of violence in a video game versus the effects of competitiveness, difficult, and pace of action.  The first part of the study found that both the violent action game and the nonviolent racing one produced an equal increase in aggression. The second study concluded that between four games, 2 violent and 2 nonviolent, the violent and nonviolent game that were judged to be more competitive showed a much greater increase in aggression than the two less competitive ones (Adachi). Though it may only be one variable, this is of paramount importance. If it is not violence in video games but rather competition that causes adverse effects, then any study that does not take this into account cannot give fully reliable conclusions.

The second major error is in the area of results analysis. Even if the study used reliable testing methods to gather data, incorrect analysis of that data leads to conclusions that the data simply does not support. In the field of violence in video games, the problem lies in a contested theoretical model regarding over what period of time the results of a test can be applied.

In general, studies are split into two timeframes: short-term or long-term. Short-term studies take place anywhere from fifteen minutes to roughly a day; the benefit is that they can conceivably control for all significant variables and thus narrows down any change in results to just the single variable they’re testing. Long term studies take place over anywhere from over a few days to a few years, and while they cannot exercise the control that short-term studies provide, they show effects over a longer timeframe, and are generally regarded as being more accurate in how a variable would affect actual life. Normally there is no problem regarding the timeframes of studies, because the results of short-term studies are used to prove that a certain effect occurs, while the studies over a longer timeframe are used to show what affects that effect has. In video game studies, however, there is a theory called the General Aggression Model (GAM), which breaks this barrier and attempts to allow the results of short-term studies to apply to longer time periods.

The GAM states that “media violence exposure not only leads to an immediate increase in aggression in a particular situation but also contributes to the development of an aggressive personality of the game player over time” (Moller). Following the GAM model would mean that even studies done in only a few hours would be relevant because any increased aggression found there would carry over into a long term effect. The problem is that GAM is not certain to be effective, with one study — “Internet Fantasy Violence: A Test Of Aggression In An Online Game.”  – finding results that directly contradict it. Over a month, the testers found that there was no difference in result between the group who played the same violent game for at least 56 hours and the control group that did not, whereas the GAM method would only be validated if there was a increase in aggression observed over this time (Williams).Another study titled “How long do the short-term violent video game effects last?” tests for aggressive thoughts and feelings after playing a violent video game using the standard questionnaires, as well as employing the hot sauce paradigm at either zero, five, or ten minutes after violent game play has ceased. After 10 minutes the measured levels of aggression spike sharply downward, indicating that the effects of video games only last this amount of time (Harris). While these two studies do not completely disprove the GAM, they cast doubt on studies with results that depend upon it. Without being conclusively proven, this model should not be used to extend the results of a short-term study into a longer time period. This error alone does not invalidate all of the results from any studies that adhere to the GAM, just the conclusions based on it.

The final point against the argument that violence in games causes negative effects in real life is not designed to refute any particular group of studies. A particularly determined individual may not be swayed by the above arguments against many studies being composed of unreliable testing methods and faulty result analysis Regardless of the issues with these studies, this individual may simply assume that more research could solve the problem. However, even if violence in video games is conclusively linked to an increase in aggression, one major problem still remains – a multitude of other things are also believed to increase aggression. Violence in television broadcasts has been linked to increase aggression for years, with many studies, such as one by Paul Haridakis, taking this for granted and instead trying to determine what causes the difference in aggression changes by examining the motivations and backgrounds of the participants (Haridakis). Playing sports has also been linked to increase aggression, as a study published in the Ovidius University Annals showed that 300 secondary school students who were involved in sports generally tested higher on aggression scales than 300 who were not (Arslan). One study even compared the level of aggression between those playing violent video games and those who ascribe to a traditional masculine ideology and found that both correlate with a higher level of aggression (Thomas). This means that just being exposed to the traditional gender roles has the chance to increase aggression, something that is nearly unavoidable. Despite this similarity in effect, many see sports and males conforming to traditional gender roles as healthy for children while simultaneously deriding television and video games for corrupting youth. And while it is certain that sports and television do produce a benefit, not much research has been done on what benefit video games produce nor how much they affect aggression compared to other media and activities. Without this additional research it is difficult to judge video games in relation the great number of other media and activities that also appear to cause increased aggression.

It is evident that there is little support for the claims that violence in video games causes lasting harm through increasing aggression. The two most common tests for measuring aggression are flawed in several major ways; the Buss-Perry measures perception of aggression more than aggression itself and the hot sauce paradigm is ill suited to replicate situations in real life. There is also little evidence that the aggression measured here would only be channeled to negative pursuits. Many studies seeking to find a link between violence in video games and aggression also do not use the full scales for measuring aggression, further skewing the results. At least one very significant variable – the level of competition in each game – is rarely controlled for, so it is not known if it is the violence or the competition that causes any potential increase in aggression. Many of the short-term studies on the effects of video games have their results erroneously  extended to applying over a longer time period by using an theoretical model which has at least two studies that completely refute it. There is also little evidence comparing the effects of video games to the increased aggression caused by a variety of other sources, nor video games potential in positive effects  such as removing aggression gained from other sources. Finally, though this essay focused mostly on studies that did find an increase in aggression, there are an equal number of studies that dispute this claim. In conclusion, there is little solid, reliable evidence that claiming that violence in games causes increased aggression, and even less evidence that the increased aggression leads to harm in life. Thus, it is incorrect to herald video games as contributing to any percieved increase in violence and decline of society,and anyone that does so on this amount of evidence in indulging in fearmongering more then espousing any reputable position.

Works Cited

1. Adachi, Paul J. C., and Teena Willoughby. “The Effect Of Video Game Competition And Violence On Aggressive Behavior: Which Characteristic Has The Greatest Influence?.” Psychology Of Violence 1.4 (2011): 259-274. PsycARTICLES. Web. 2 Apr. 2012.

2. Arslan Fatma, et al. “The Study Of Aggression Level Of Secondary Students Who Play Sports And Do Not Play Sports.” Ovidius University Annals, Series Physical Education & Sport/Science, Movement & Health 9.2 (2009): 202-205. SPORTDiscus with Full Text. Web. 3 Apr. 2012.

3. Buss-Pretty Aggression Test. Link

4. Haridakis, Paul M. “Men, Women, And Televised Violence: Predicting Viewer Aggression In Male And Female Television Viewers.” Communication Quarterly 54.2 (2006): 227-255. Academic Search Premier. Web. 3 Apr. 2012.

5. Harris, Richard, et al. “How Long Do The Short-Term Violent Video Game Effects Last?.” Aggressive Behavior 35.3 (2009): 225-236. Academic Search Premier. Web. 3 Apr. 2012.

6. Möller, Ingrid, and Barbara Krahé. “Exposure To Violent Video Games And Aggression In German Adolescents: A Longitudinal Analysis.” Aggressive Behavior 35.1 (2009): 75-89. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Mar. 2012.

7. Ritter, Dominik, and Mike Eslea. “Hot Sauce, Toy Guns, And Graffiti: A Critical Account Of Current Laboratory Aggression Paradigms.” Aggressive Behavior 31.5 (2005): 407-419. Academic Search Premier. Web. 11 Apr. 2012.

8. Skoric, Marko M. et al. “Grand Theft Auto IV Comes To Singapore: Effects Of Repeated Exposure To Violent Video Games On Aggression.” Cyberpsychology, Behavior & Social Networking 14.10 (2011): 597-602. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Mar. 2012.

9. Thomas, Kimberly D., and Ronald F. Levant. “Does The Endorsement Of Traditional Masculinity Ideology Moderate The Relationship Between Exposure To Violent Video Games And Aggression?.” Journal Of Men’s Studies 20.1 (2012): 47-56. SPORTDiscus with Full Text. Web. 3 Apr. 2012.

10. Williams, Dmitri, and Marko Skoric. “Internet Fantasy Violence: A Test Of Aggression In An Online Game.” Communication Monographs 72.2 (2005): 217-233. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Mar. 2012.

War on Drugs: More Trouble that it’s Worth

The War on Drugs in a long attempt by the American Government to put an end to recreational use of narcotics. The first major legislation for the drug war was “The Harrison Act” which was passed in 1914, mainly justified by panic surrounding of east-Asian opium. In the years to come marijuana will become the primary focus of the “D.E.A.” or Drug Enforcement Agency because of its use by Mexican Immigrants and African American Jazz Artists.  Linking narcotics abuse with the urban crime scene Richard Nixon and later Ronald Reagan would clearly declared a war on drugs and proceeded to increase federal spending on federal agencies associated with narcotics control. Even though recently presidents have been less strict federal spending on this drug war has not lessened and the media is used to keep the panic surrounding drugs prevalent by switching from inner-city crack abuse, inner-city heroin abuse, youth ecstasy use, and rural methamphetamine. The war is a campaign engulfed in controversy; it’s the new prohibition by the U.S. Government and participating countries worldwide. Their initiative includes drug policies put in place by the government intended to put and end to the making, selling, and using off illicit psychoactive substances. Richard Nixon first used the term “War on Drugs” in 1971. In, 1994 it was stated the war had resulting in the imprisonment of 1 Million Americans. 225,000 of these reported arrests were for possession of marijuana, which is the 4^th most common cause of arrest in the U.S.

Allies of this prohibition say that prohibitive drug regulations have a effective track record conquering illegal drug use since they were presented 100 years ago. The legal drug alcohol has an existing user rate as high as 80-90% in people over the age of 14 years old, and tobacco has traditionally had present use rates up to 60% of adult populations, but the amount of people currently abusing illegal substances in countries that are part of “The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development” is usually under 1% of the population, excluding Marijuana where most have between 3% and 10% of people using.

This “War on Drugs” is a major failure. It is using incredible amounts of taxpayer money, and putting people in jail who don’t belong there thus adding to the growing prison overpopulation problem instead of helping these people with there addictions. It has also been extremely racist over the years, along with actually inadvertently helping the drug cartels not stopping them. “The Global Commission on Drug Policy, which contains previous presidents of Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Switzerland”(“Global”), say the decades-long approach of criminalizing drugs and incarcerating users while fighting cartels that regulate the trade has not worked. The commission suggested countries constantly investing in a law enforcement method should put an emphasis on violent organized crime and drug traffickers. Also they say reduced punishments should be endorsed for people at the low-end of the trade, such as cultivators, carriers and minor low-level dealers. The drug war policies have just not worked, the War on Drugs has failed because it is a strongly racist campaign, wrongly criminalizing people, and blowing billions of tax payer dollars even though decriminalization has been shown to work in other places.

The group opposing me is in fear of having a world with drugs fully legalized. They protest that this method is an “absolutely untested proposition” and the only proof offered so far is in small trials in small parts of the world. They make it seam as if a trial in America or possibly other large nations is terrifying with its “unforeseeable consequences”.

The American Drug Commission recently examined the last forty years of the Drug War and has labeled it as a failure. They are observing parts of the world using alternative methods such as Portugal, which said they would not legalize all drugs but were going to decriminalize them. Which means that someone caught in possession of drugs will not send them to prison. The money it would take to put these persons in jail will now be used to help treat their addiction “which is about three-quarters cheaper”. Portugal has seen considerable decrease in people using heroin along with drug-related theft. “Heroin use among 16- to 18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8%. New HIV infections fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003. Deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by half.” (Emine)

My opposition may be doubtful about the figures associated with Portugal because it seams to be a semi-isolated fairly small nation, and is for the most part well off. They say the poverty tormented South American locations wouldn’t react well to this style of approach. “Everything we’ve seen about decriminalization just frees up the drug barons, because they are in a position to continue a substantial market without law-enforcement”. The also say there would still be major black market for drugs, and new drugs would be coming onto the market frequently and a substantial amount of enforcement is the only way to shut this down.

Also the focus is usually on addicts getting treated for their drug habits, but the common drug user has a job and a stable life. “Is it right to criminalize them?” (Emine)

In 1970 there were roughly two hundred thousand people serving time in America’s state and federal prisons. Today there are currently one and a half million people imprisoned in our jails with another seven hundred and fifty thousand prisoners in our local penitentiaries. Even though there is significantly more prisoners locked away today the crime rate is roughly the same as back then. The department of Justice says that thirty to forty percent of present jail admissions are people involved in “victimless”(“Decriminalization”) crimes or crimes with out a targeted victim so the only one affected by the offenses is the culprit. Of the victimless offenders thirty one percent of them were arrested for crimes related to drugs, and around twelve percent of them are offenses related to marijuana. Considering our jails are already overcrowded and offer little help with actually helping fix a person’s drug problem these people should not even be sent to jail in the first place.

In the 1980’s legislatures in America approved stricter sentencing laws dealing with drug offenses. The feds led the way enacting the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988.  Along with other requirements the laws made several mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug related crimes and also affected Sentencing guidelines causing the judge in most drug cases to lose discretion, which is normally an essential part of the sentencing process. This is what increases the amount of people in the court system exposed to jail time. This proves that the War on drugs is a major cause for the severe “prison boom”.

A new cause should hereby be activated. That is ending this war on drugs and decriminalizing these victimless crimes related to drugs to effectively reduce populations in prisons and not send people to prison who don’t necessarily deserve it, while also not “adversely affecting public safety, according to the findings of a study published this week by the JFA institute a Washington, DC criminal-justice think tank.”(“Decriminalization”)

The study also goes into how the Western European countries that have more liberal drug laws don’t see the violence seen in America due to drug trafficking. So not only would ending the war on drugs be the cause of more non-violent offenders out of prison and in treatment where they need to be it will help put an end to the violent offenses from even happening while also reducing prison population.

Not only has the War on Drugs caused problems with prisoners, and taxpayers it is also fueled by racism. It has produced greatly unequal results across races, even though “rates of drug use and selling are comparable across racial lines people of color are far more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, prosecuted, convicted and incarcerated for drug law violations than are whites.” The high arrest and conviction numbers for the Latino and Black races do not reflect an increase in trafficking or usage of drugs in these communities, it’s actually caused by Law enforcement focusing on these inner-city urban communities along with unfair treatment by the criminal justice system. Just as the “Jim Crow laws were in this country until the mid-1960s” the War on Drugs causes a “mass criminalization of people of color, particularly young African American men” the governments newest form of “racial control”(“Race”).

One of the main focuses of the Drug war is to stop people from trafficking drugs into our country such as the very dangerous Mexican cartels. Well how good of a job could our government be doing if a major drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is publicly going on record thanking the War on Drugs for helping him acquire his over one billion dollar net worth. This leader of the Sinaloa Cartel is knowledgeable enough to know that his wealth was only achievable due to the Drug War. He states, “I couldn’t have gotten so stinking rich without George Bush, George Bush Jr., Ronald Reagan, even El Presidente Obama, none of them have the cajones to stand up to all the big money that wants to keep this stuff illegal. From the bottom of my heart, I want to say, Gracias amigos, I owe my whole empire to you.”(“Mexican”) The War has taken prices for these illicit drugs and caused them to skyrocket. Which in turn causes addict who cannot legally acquire money to pay for their drug habits to turn to things like theft or prostitution for a source of income. But even more hazardous than that, it generates a vast revenue opportunity for criminal organizations.

“Delivery drivers, and retailers of beer no longer shoot it out over “turf” disputes. Drug dealers and distributors often do.” The Sinaloa Cartel is know for their violent behavior used in their illegal drug business. They play a big part in the “11,000 cartel related deaths in 2010 alone.” They have gotten so large and widespread that they actually control large portions of the Mexican Government. “It’s important to keep in mind, that they have gained their power due to our choices.” Just as in the end of the alcohol prohibition with Al Capone an end to the prohibition on drugs will cause these criminal organizations to fade away. The government has to choose what is more important punishing drug users who will use regardless if drugs are legal or not or not “sending billions to thugs like “El Chapo” and terrorist organizations like FARC (a Columbia communist terror organization) and the Taliban.”(“Mexican”)

Most simply the common drug user, 225 million people worldwide is a non-violent marijuana user. There are massive amounts of tax revenue waiting to be acquired from widespread legalization and it has been argued that smoking cannabis is safer that alternatives like alcohol and tobacco that are already legalized and taxed. “Because marijuana is the drug of choice of young people, is it right that it should be treated any differently from alcohol?” Along with reforms of prison sentencing and parole this could save taxpayers nationwide $20 billion per year and reduce the prison population from 1.5 million to below 700,000.”(“Richard Branson”). All in all the War on Drugs is a money sucking, racist, and ineffective campaign. It contributes to prison overpopulation and helps the people it is trying to stop. Ending this unwinnable war would be a radical enhancement.

Work Cited

“Richard Branson and Ian Blair debate drug decriminalisation“. the guardian. Emine Saner. Friday 16 March 2012 .

“Decriminalizing Pot Will Reduce Prison Population, Have No Adverse Impact On Public Safety, Study Says“. Norml. Wednesday, 21 November 2007

“Global war on drugs a failure, high-level panel say“. Reuters. Michelle Nichols. Jun 2, 2011

“Race and the Drug War“. We are the drug policy alliance.

“Mexican Drug Cartel Leader Loves the Drug War“. Rational Public Radio

Qnexa and Combatting Obesity

In the modern American society, the prevalence of obesity is rising at a startling rate. At some point, these unfortunate men and women reach a threshold at which diet and exercise may become too difficult and even dangerous. For this reason, pharmaceutical companies have been researching chemicals that can facilitate the transition to optimal weight levels. However, in order to ensure the safety of Americans, the FDA rarely approves these drugs because of the risky negative side effects, specifically heart and artery damage. The most recent of these drugs trying for FDA approval is Vivus’s Qnexa; a combination of the FDA approved drugs, Phentermine and Topiramate. For those unfortunate and sick people plagued by obesity, Qnexa could be the deciding factor between life and death. The difficulty in Qnexa’s approval stems from the misinformation published about the drug and obesity, which must be refuted effectively in order to convince the public and the FDA just how profound the effect of this decision will be. Since obesity’s cause is from complex organic chemical imbalances within the body, Qnexa should be approved to help obese lose weight and prevent deathly illnesses linked to the medical condition.

Qnexa is not the heart hazardous drug the FDA has previously suspected it of being. Phentermine is unlike most previously banned drugs called amphetamines that increased chance of heart attack, caused dangerous increases in blood pressure, and eventually yielded heart valve damage. One of the reasons why Qnexa was originally denied approval by the FDA may be its indirect affiliation with a banned drug, Fen-Phen. Interestingly enough, the reason why Fen-Phen was banned is because of Fenfluramine, which was banned for causing 30% testers to develop very abnormal cardiograms (FDA). Phentermine has not yielded kind of hazardous effects to the heart and is safe to use, and its safety is probably why the FDA approves it. However, the other component of Qnexa, Topiramate, has been found to cause negative side effects for pregnant women. Qnexa shouldn’t be taken by women who are pregnant due to Topiramate’s effect of doubling the likelihood of having a child born with a cleft palate from .7% to 1.4% (Roth). In that circumstance, an operation would have to be performed to correct the abnormality. This effect on pregnant women is the only risk a person would have to weigh before taking Qnexa and this applies to a very small fraction of obese people. Based on the results of its test trials, the drug is very safe and effective.

Being obese is like having a ticking time bomb to one’s chest since it poses so many risks in such a broad spectrum of bodily functions. Within the cardiovascular system, obesity causes plaque to build up in the arteries. This plague leaves an obese person susceptible to high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, and even stroke. For a woman in her childbearing years, an obese woman faces a plethora of long-term complications for both herself and the child. One of the largest issues occurs due to the heightened blood pressure of the mother, which results low birth weights from the restricted blood flow to the fetus. Oppositely, if Gestational Diabetes is developed, the child gains too much weight in development and is born with a predisposition to childhood obesity. Another issue the mother faces is the difficulty to gather fine details on the development of the child during ultrasounds. Since the high amount of fat obstructs the waves, the view of the child is often blurry and chances of picking up problems in fetal development are decreased. Due to the risk of having a child born with a cleft palate, Vivus has excluded pregnant women in its filing for FDA approval. Women in their child bearing years should keep in mind that remaining obese can endanger the life of their child if they should ever conceive and that taking Qnexa would unlikely affect a future child.  Losing weight should be priority for women planning on having a child in the future and pregnancy should be avoided before reaching a healthy BMI.

The only possible way Qnexa could pose a danger to one’s health would be in the case of misuse. As with all drugs, it’s a chemical that should be taken responsibly. Obesity is much more detrimental to the lives of people it has taken hold of than just the heart and pregnancy risks. With enough time, obesity can indirectly cause a variety of issues to arise. Type 2 diabetes is another dangerous risk of having so much excessive weight. In this case, the individual’s body has become unable to produce insulin at sufficient levels or at all. Having diabetes only increases the risk of heart disease and stroke risk, but also predisposes individuals to kidney disease and blindness (National Heart Lung and Blood Institute). The increase weight also has a great toll on the support system for the body, the skeleton, since the bones experiences much more wear and tear. Finally, studies conducted by the National Caner Institute have shown that obesity increases the risk of cancers of the esophagus, pancreas, colon, rectum, breast, endometrium, kidneys, thyroid, and gallbladder (National Cancer Institute).

Despite all the evidence pointing to the safety and benefits of Qnexa, opponents of it still refuse to release “unnecessary” dangers to the public. Even as concern is rising over the staggering obesity trend, many people are under the impression that the epidemic is due to poor dietary choices. News of a drug that could fight obesity, currently under trial by the FDA, doesn’t raise concern because they feel like the choosing foods wisely would be the ultimate solution. With the information they’ve been given, that would logically be correct. However, even though obesity is not actually classified as a disease, it is far from merely being a lifestyle choice and has been proven to be full of dangers. Thanks to public media, many Americans are under the assumption that the obese third of the population have fallen into the depths of their own gluttony. The blame has been put on the accessibility of food and the resulting lack of exercise in this industrial luxurious economy. This correlation has become the icon of the dilemma in many Americans’ eyes because it provides a sense of assurance that obesity can be so simply explained. In order for any progress to truly be made in this battle against American obesity, an understanding must be made that obesity is the result of many different factors. Rather than just being the immediate consequences of lifestyle choices, a person’s body shape and weight are the complex balances of chemical regulations in the body responding to food intake.

Obesity can start before birth. During pregnancy, an obese mother has a high risk of developing gestational diabetes. A child born to a mother with gestational diabetes will have a high birth weight and increased susceptibility to childhood and adult obesity. The unhealthy pregnancy term deprives the fetus of proper metabolic development and its body will have a tendency to retain weight in order to maintain a flawed balance of regulatory chemicals like enzymes. Throughout its lifespan, that child will go on to consume foods and its body will process that energy and conservatively utilize it. A mother’s health prior to the birth of her child plays a key role in its body’s weight permanently.

Humanity has adapted many species and individual survival methods that involve storing fat. Throughout the history of mankind, different populations have survived in the hottest of deserts to the sheerest chills of the subarctic climate. To do so, they had to develop adaptations on a cultural and genetic level. Women have particularly developed skills, genetically, to ensure the survivability of the species. Female buffering is the reason why in a similar environment, a sister of the same age as her brother will tend to be taller, have more fat, and consequently weigh more. This essential ability of the female anatomy is regarded as a nuisance today since it makes it so difficult for women to lose weight. In the event that a woman tries to diet and exercise her way to lose weight, she may encounter extreme difficulty due to the effects of female buffering, which works on the very same hormones that makes a human develop into a female. Estrogen has been proven to have fat-retaining properties, causing it to be stored generally around the hips and thigh area to form a pear shaped body. However, the amount of fat stored and locations of its deposits are genetically inherited.

Heredity is a more direct genetic role in the shaping of a person’s body. While it is true that family values and diets are often a heavy influence on those of a child, parental genetic makeup also plays a crucial role. “Twin and population studies have revealed that both body mass index (BMI) and waist/hip ratio (WHR) are heritable traits, with genetics accounting for 25–70% of the observed variability.” (Gesta) Different genes determine how a person will process energy. For this reason, two people following the same diet and exercise routine may find contrasting results in their bodily reactions. This is because our genes instruct the body how it should spend energy, where it should store energy, how many fat cells to store, and even how quickly the body should resort to using stored energy. Obesity can be passed down via genetic inheritance just like the many diseases that exist today like Alzheimer’s disease and Huntington’s disease. The genes causing someone to have more weight than what is deemed average may code for inadequate or insufficient regulation of bodily chemicals designed to maintain balance. A great example of such imbalance is type 1 diabetes, an inherited disease that can cause people to lose weight because their bodies cannot breakdown glucose. However, genetics play much more of a role in the shaping of the body, even without causing a disease. The complexities of the effects genes have on our weight are still elusive to scientists today, but progress is being made toward associating certain gene types with the production of adipose tissue.

The body’s metabolism, heavily affected by the production of thyroid hormones, plays a crucial role in a person’s weight, fat, and energy. The importance of the thyroid gland and hormone become very apparent when people suffer from hypothyroidism, the term used to describe the condition when the body manufactures inadequate amounts of thyroid hormones. “Symptoms of hypothyroidism include lack of energy, depression, constipation, weight gain, hair loss, dry skin, dry coarse hair…” (PubMed Health) A low metabolism can account for a person feeling too tired to carry out normal tasks because food energy is not being burned at an efficient rate. Studies have shown that variations in the productivity of the thyroid gland are linked with the occurrence of obesity. A study conducted by the Endocrine Society concluded, “Thyroid function (also within the normal range) could be one of several factors acting in concert to determine body weight in a population. Even slightly elevated serum TSH levels are associated with an increase in the occurrence of obesity.” (Knudsen)

As counterintuitive as it may seem, malnutrition is a huge factor of obesity in the United States. Typical Americans associate the availability of cheaply priced foods as the result of obesity simply because there is so much of it. However, there are a ton of complex issues at hand lurking behind this rouse. Not all Americans can afford the luxury of nutrient foods that have been deemed healthy and wholesome. Instead, due to the economical constraints placed upon them, they resort to the food that is available. “A newly appreciated paradox has been described that links poverty, food insecurity, and malnutrition to obesity, or the state of overnutrition.” (Tanumihardjo) Malnutrition caused by “overnutrition” occurs because the readily available food for Americans is very high in calories, yet deficient in essential body nutrients. Furthermore, the deprivation of essential diverse nutrients causes people to be hungry more often. This is the human body’s chemical reaction to being starved, although the outward appearance may falsely show that the person could benefit from eating less or working out. A long period of this deprived state could render a person unable to exercise due to a feeling of lethargy. This too is one of the body’s defense mechanisms against starvation so that it may retain energy for survival purposes. Since the body retains energy by creating fat cells, a person will gain weight from this condition. The inability to afford wholesome foods results in hunger and malnutrition. As a result, it comes of no surprise that a study of the American Dietetic Association has concluded that, “households characterized as food insecure also have the highest body mass index and prevalence of obesity.” (Tanumihardjo) This survival reaction has been imprinted in our genetic blueprint passed down over innumerous generations through the slow powerful process of evolution.

The excuse that drugs shouldn’t be passed for a non-disease is not fair to those suffering from deathly medical conditions. Firstly, the FDA has passed a plethora of drugs targeting many “non-diseases” classified as medical conditions or disorders. Eczema, a skin disorder, is just one of many conditions for which the FDA has already approved drugs to treat. The fact that obesity is a medical condition according to the CDC should not be taken as an excuse to disregard its prevalence and dangers. Furthermore, its linkage to many diseases and other irreversible conditions should be of paramount concern, as these comorbid complications have no cure. Such diseases like coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, and osteoarthritis are just some of many complications that a person becomes susceptible to as they continue their lives as obese.

Opponents argue that most people don’t even die from obesity. While technically true, the same style of thinking would apply to every disease, condition, and injury including heart attack, cancer, gun shot wounds, etc. These are precipitating causes of death, while the immediate cause is always organ failure. While not classified as a disease, obesity is a serious medical condition linked to a plethora of complications, diseases, and other conditions to cause it to be a big concern for the Center of Disease Control (CDC). Its Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity (DNPAO) is attempting to address the issue by combating some of the factors that contribute to nation’s current epidemic. If the situation were left alone, many Americans would die. “Individuals who are obese have a significantly increased risk of death from all causes, compared with healthy weight individuals.” (WIN) Even though obesity cannot technically be deemed as the cause of death, it indirectly takes the lives of the people it has affected in one form or another.

Like any problem with multiple causes, no one solution will be enough for the battle against obesity. “Pharmacotherapy and bariatric surgery have better outcomes when augmented by lifestyle treatment compared with either approach alone.” (Burke) Addressing the contributing causes to obesity and acknowledging its complexity may hold to be the best hope America has at effectively combating the onslaught.

The reason why obesity has become the condition it is in the United States is due to many economical, environmental, and genetic factors. Without proper education on the various stressors that are affecting the obese, progress toward the solution will not be any easier. Obesity and the spectrum of BMI that we have in America are the results of many contributing factors that point out lifestyle choices cannot be the direct cause of such an onslaught. Indeed, many people are born predisposed to becoming obese in their lifetime. Although it may be uncomforting, we may never find out all of the chemical intricacies that play a role in the body’s production of excess fat. Knowing that obesity is not a choice, but a disease, safe measures should be adopted to help the situation, like the adoption of DNPAO programs and approval of safe drugs like Qnexa. These measures can help lower the mortality rates associated with obesity.

Works Cited

Burke, Lora E., and Jing Wang. “Treatment Strategies for Overweight and Obesity.“ Journal of Nursing Scholarship 43.4 (2011): 368-75. Web.

Gesta, Stephane, Matthias Blüher, Yuji Yamamoto, Andrew W. Norris, Janin Berndt, Susan Kralisch, Jeremie Boucher, Choy Lewis, and C. R. Kahn. “Evidence for a Role of Developmental Genes in the Origin of Obesity and Body Fat Distribution.“ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 9 Mar. 2006. Web. 12 Apr. 2012.

Knudsen, Nils, Peter Laurberg, Lone B. Rasmussen, Inge Inge Bülow, Hans Perrild, Lars Ovesen, and Torben Jørgensen. “Small Differences in Thyroid Function May Be Important for Body Mass Index and the Occurrence of Obesity in the Population.“ The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. July 2005. Web. 12 Apr. 2012.

Roth, Jeffrey J. “FDA Warns Against Use of Topamax by Women of Childbearing Age.”Las Vegas Plastic Surgery. Web. 08 Mar. 2012.

Tanumihardjo, Sherry A., Cheryl Anderson, Martha Kaufer-Horwitz, Lars Bode, Nancy J. Emenaker, Andrea M. Haqq, Jessie A. Satia, Heidi J. Silver, and Diane D. Stadler. “Poverty, Obesity, and Malnutrition: An International Perspective Recognizing the Paradox“ Journal of the American Dietetic Association. Web.

“Thyroid.“ PubMed Health. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 18 Dec. -0001. Web. 12 Apr. 2012. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0000689/&gt;.

“What Are the Health Risks of Overweight and Obesity?” – NHLBI, NIH. Web. 08 Mar. 2012.

Needs Title

We have all heard it: America is obese. We are an obese nation; this notion can be attributed to Surgeon General David Satcher. Satcher identified the problem of America having the highest international body mass index (BMI) in 2001. It is widely accepted by medical professionals that a person’s obesity can be calculated through a their BMI, a nearly perfect index that calculates the ratio of a person’s height and weight (Surgeon General). But, this system is proving to be more imperfect than the latter; its perviously minor flaws: the system is gender and age specific in children under 15 and then uses the same criteria across the board for all men and women and beginning to not appear so minor. While these flaws were accepted for over a decade, there has been a spike in the number of medical professionals who are beginning to assert that the ratio should not be used when evaluating a person’s obesity because it is not accurately reflective. The recent notion that medical scientists need to find a better, alternative method to the BMI ratio has lead many people to question weather or not Americans are in fact as over weight as the BMI system claims and weather or not their supposed obesity has lead many people to negatively look at fast food and other sugars.

The Surgeon General and his team defined America’s obesity by the BMI system which measures the amount of fat, the flabby tissue that gives a person their out of shape appearance, a person has in comparison to their height and weight; “BMI is calculated as weight in pounds divided by the square of the height in inches, multiplied by 703. Alternatively, BMI can be calculated as weight in kilograms divided by the square of the hight in meters (The Lancet).” Although the system is faulty in some areas, medical professionals deem it an accurate method of measurement primarily based upon the fact that there is no other system of obesity measurement that has been universally accepted. A BMI over 25 is considered to be overweight, signaling that a person has more fat than he or she is supposed to have. When the Surgeon General made his announcement in 2001, Americans were considered to be overweight with a cumulative BMI of approximately 41.5. But, the BMI system has various limitations that were not taken into account during the Surgeon General’s announcement. In adolescents, obesity is defined as age and gender specific or, as anyone ranking above the 95th percentile range in the CDC BMI-for-age-growth charts. These charts easily assess a child’s BMI by comparing their height and weight growth yearly. A child’s percentile ranking is relative to the ranking of other growing adolescents in the same age and gender grouping. These charts not only help assess growing children who are overweight, but also underweight. Each child is supposed to be measured with the charts by their doctors during their yearly physical. Research has proven that although the BMI measurements claim to measure body fat, it does not do so as directly as people think. For example, the system can overestimate the amount of fat in a person(s) who is muscular and underestimate the amount of a person(s) who have lost muscle mass, such as the elderly. It does not make any difference to the BMI system whether you are a 21 year-old olympic athlete or a 75 year-old, immobile man (BMI Not Accurate). Prime examples of the BMI system mistakenly classifying people are basketball star Kobe Bryant and actor Brad Pitt, none of whom appear to be overweight. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a world class body builder and actor, was categorized into the highest level of obesity (Devlin). With clearly faulty classifications such as these, how can we trust the system?

The blatantly defective evidence that disproves the BMI system leads to the question of whether or not America really was the most obese nation in 2001 as previously stated by the Surgeon General and if it is still on the track towards chronic obesity. The system cannot distinguish the difference between fat and muscle. According to a 2004 study conducted by The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the addition of calculating a persons waist circumference (WC) as opposed to their BMI is a better predictor of obesity risk and the illnesses that come with being overweight than the BMI system alone. LiveStrong.com article Alternatives to BMI confirms this theory by stating that measuring the natural waist can give an almost accurate indication of the amount of abdominal fat a person contains. Women with WC of 35 inches or more and men with a WC of 40 inches or more are considered to be risk factors (Holley, Casey). People who are in the “risky range” are more likely to develop side effects of obesity such as diabetes and heart failure. The WC is not as simple as measuring a person’s belt size; doctors factor in other elements of a patient’s medical history that enable them to find out what diseases each individual person is capable of developing. This system is more effective than the BMI because it calculates a person on an individual scale, not the wide ranged scale that is used for the BMI. Although these studies are not yet widely approved by national medical professionals, they are quickly on their way to being approved and providing a better method of calculating how obese a person is.

Regardless of the actuality of the Surgeon General’s announcement in 2001, there has been a significantly notable change in the American culture to make sure Americans do not remain the world’s fattest nation through government intervention. The government has gotten involved in helping maintain and lower obesity levels in Americans, but there has been a growth in the amount of private intervention being put out by privately owned companies and non-profit organizations. Although the common thought would be that Americans want to be skinny (since being thin is the clear opposite of being obese) the most commonly used point during the fight against obesity has been to do it in a healthy manor. One of the most important factors in fighting obesity is government intervention, or actions taken by the government in order to affect the decisions made by individuals on either economic or social matters. Due to the fact that people highly value their privacy and ability to make their own decisions, government intervention into the personal lives of the public is constantly being called into question: how far can the government go? What this means, is that a majority of people do not like government officials telling them what is good for them, how to enforce good eating habits to their children, and even telling school systems what can or cannot be served for lunch. The government has already intervened into the every day lives of Americans; they have done this so much and so well that people hardly notice it anymore. For example the federal government constantly intervenes in the lives of Americans by installing traffic lights, setting curfew laws, and creating school curriculums. But, when the Surgeon General made his announcement about obesity, the general public rejected the early attempts to regulate the nations obesity levels. Weight, is a personal issue and for a while, a great deal of people felt that it was too personal for government intervention- they do not want to be told that they are too fat for their own good by someone who is not a doctor. However, the public has overtime become accustomed and more aware of the obesity epidemic, primarily to both government and private intervention.

A major issue with the government trying to reduce the and maintain the current levels of obesity in America is the fact that their intervention would have to surpass the economic states of some areas of the countries. People residing in lower income areas tend to maintain higher obesity levels due to the simple fact that eating healthy is expensive. In most low income places, a 12 pack of Cosmic Brownies is equivalent to the price of about two packages of grapes. So, naturally, to save money, people tend to eat more fattening foods.  In places such as this, there is also less money being given to school districts where there are less healthy alternatives for students to eat during lunch and snack time. The government, along with many private companies and non-profit organizations have been pushing for more natural grown foods in schools, such as fruits and vegetables, and healthier options to be provided for students, pretzels as opposed to cookies. Many companies have been donating money to get healthier options for students to eat and providing money for these options to become more accessible and affordable. Leading Medical Journal, The Lancet, states the government should be responsible for making healthy foods cheeper and affordable stating that they should be easily accessible at both private and public schools along with public universities. So, a possibility to increase health the over all health in the general public would be to produce cheeper produce and for the government to fund more home-grown produce, such as establishing new farms and giving money to already existing ones. If fresh produce is more affordable, there is a possibility that they will become more desirable and regularly consumed. An issue with this would be that this idea would be opposing foreign trade and would be slightly more costly.

One of the toughest forms of intervention is trying to influence the private sphere of people. The private sphere is a space known only to the person who possesses it; it contains their thoughts, desires and knowledge. Republicans feel that there should be little to no government involvement into this realm while Democrats feel that there should be a great deal of intervention. But with an issue such as obesity, something needs to be done. Bureaucrats cannot sit down with every family during every meal to make sure good eating habits are being enforced and proper exercise routines are being followed.  One possible way of doing this, according Kersh and Monroe, is to create an even stronger sense of social disapproval. The idea is to alter the current social atmosphere and have fast food chains, and other fattening foods, be thought of as highly unacceptable and even detrimental to the overall health of a person. Supersize Me, a documentary study about McDonald’s and other fast corporations, has already given out a simple form of social disapproval: fast food makes you fat. Since the documentary was released, there has been a dramatic chance in the way the fast food industry was run.

Almost immediately after the documentary was released, men and women were beginning to believe that eating at restaurants such as McDonald’s and Taco Bell were one of the key factors that played a role in American obesity. Contrary to this popular and often substantive belief, not all fast food restaurants are as detrimental to a person’s weight as previously believed. McDonald’s is a prime example of this. Ever since the movie Super Size Me was released in 2004, exposing the dangers of a “super sized (Super Size Me),” or extra large, meal, McDonald’s has moved away from its long, publicly given title of the most unhealthy fast food establishment. While the movie helped change a great deal about McDonald’s and numerous other fast food establishments, they did not do all the work that has ranked McDonald’s 8th out of the top ten healthiest fast food establishments, according to a consensus produced by Health Magazine (Health Mag.). Other fast food chains such as Wendy’s or Taco Bell do not even make the cut. The magazine sent out a team of researchers to survey 100 fast food places, and scored them on factors such as the use of healthy fats and sodium counts, the availability of nutritional facts (which was previously hard to find in fast food chains), and the use of organic and natural produce. The article states that the once thought of as unhealthy restaurant is paving the way for other fast food industries in the currently “heart- and waist-friendly (Health Mag.)” society. One of the establishment’s most popular new techniques that has been incorporated into other establishments is the option to have a side of fruit with every happy meal instead of french fries. And, if you have to have the fries, their french fries are baked in CDA approved heart-healthy canola oil. Also, the chain offers low calorie options such as snack wraps which consist of a mere 260 calories (Health Mag.).

So, they suggest that another positive form of influence to public behavior can be achieved through medical-science which means allowing people to know facts about being overweight and what it means to be physically fit. According to the two, the facts do not have to be entirely accurate; the idea is to convey the true message that being overweight is not good and will soon be socially unacceptable. Also, people should be able to get help outside of the gym, according to the authors, who want there to be group meetings similar to meetings set up for drug addicts. The demon user/ industry effect is to influence Americans to feel like people who eat poorly and industries that promote poor health habits are “demons,” or inherently bad. Surprisingly, it is easier than it seems to put a demonic spin on negative foods. In 2009, leading expert in childhood obesity Robert Lusting’s lecture, “Sugar: the Bitter Truth,” got over 800 thousand views on YouTube with a viewer growth rate rate of approximately 50 thousand views a month. The hour and a half long speech persuasively lists sugar as a toxin and a poison and often refers to it as evil. Toxic sugar is not only the common white household substance, scientifically known as sucrose, but also high-fructose corn syrup, which Lusting calls the “most demonizing addictive known to man (Taubes, Gary).” Not only does sugar provide consumers with empty calories, calories that provide no nutritional value, but can cause numerous health issues such as obesity, hypertension and diabetes. However, this is not to say that people should not be eating positive sugars: the sugars that come from fruits, vegetables and whole grains that provide antioxidants, energy and often enzymes that encourage a natural boost in metabolism, leading to weight loss. Foods that contain toxic sugars, such as anything processed, from a fast food restaurant, and many desserts should be avoided. Since Americans have acknowledged their growing obesity problem, there has been a rapid increase in the over all health of the American Public and a decline in the nations average BMI.

However, most of the sugars that were attacked by Lusting in his lecture are incorporated into fast foods and other processed goods. Yet, it is not useful to place all the blame of weight gain onto one food. While Lusting suggests and enforces the idea of cutting out sugar entirely, the Dietitians Association of Australia does not recommend this at all. In their medical journal entry Sugar: not so toxic,  they state that when it comes to sugar, men and women should try to eat it in moderation and limit their intake of foods high in added sugar and low in nutritional value such as soda and candy (DAA). If you have not seen the commercials proclaiming the goodness of high fructose corn syrup, then you should. Aside from their comical attributes, they are not wrong. What was conventionally known to be bad for your body, and toxic, according to Lusting, is far from it. Promoted by the Corn Refiners Association (CRA), the attempts to get high fructose corn syrup out of the toxic range are surprisingly being supported by the American Medical Association which recently announced that corn syrup does not contribute to obesity (McLaughlin, Lisa).

According to a study conducted by one of the top medical journals, The Lancet, as a follow up to the study produced by the Surgeon General in 2001, when modern international BMIs are compared, America is not even in the top 10 fattest nations. America has lost its perviously held number one spot to the small nation of Nauru. Over the last decade or so, the push for government intervention and personal motivation to get fit, and healthy has paid off. While American men are rated 10th on the international BMI scale, American women are ranked 36th with a BMI of 28.7. This is proof that, obesity can be sustained and maintained at its current levels and even prevented for the future. The truth is, it is very hard to influence the public and personal sphere of America. But, if it is reached, it is possible that obesity can be maintained at its current levels and even possibly decreased and one day stopped.

Although many aspects of American society are getting healthier: McDonald’s has become a considerably healthy establishment, the last fifteen years or so has seen a spike in the organic and natural foods industry and, in part due to First Lady Michelle Obama’s “get fit” programs, it has become increasingly more important for Americans to exercise and consume healthier foods- and yet, in 2011, obesity rates increased in 16 states and the rates did not decline in any state (F as in Fat). According to F as in Fat: How obesity threatens America’s future 2011, a report from Trusts for Americans Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), 12 states  now have obesity rates above 30 percent; merely four years ago, only one state had a percent ranking that high. Shocked by these statistics the report examined exactly how obesity has grown over the  past two decades (F as in Fat). Twenty years ago, no state had an obesity rating of above 15 percent. This year, in contrast, 38 out of the 50 US states produced obesity ratings of over 25 percent. For the 7th year in a row, Mississippi has maintained its leading spot as the number one state with the highest level of adult obesity (F as in Fat). The report noted that the fastest growing obesity levels reside in the south: Alabama and Tennessee have experienced intensified rates; this year, the slowest growing levels occurred in Washington DC, Colorado and Connecticut. The highest obesity rates remain in racial and ethnic minority adults, along with low income families (F as in Fat).

While American’s might be seemingly be increasingly getting fatter , many public health experts are claiming that it might be too soon to see an increase in American obesity levels due to the fact that the nations efforts to slim down have only begun in recent years (Rochman). The fact that obesity rates are not reclining has nothing to do with the fact that public health programs are not promoting healthier diets along with more physical activity. Or, that an individual’s personal goals and efforts to obtain their dream weight are not working. Dr. William Dietz, director of the division of nutrition for the CDC, claims that efforts to ward off obesity are in fact working fine. Comparing the anti obesity efforts to the 1950 anti-smoking efforts when medical professionals released the conclusive evidence about the link between smoking and caner, the doctor asserts that for approximately 15 years, smoking rates remained at a plateau and even increased for sometime (Rochman). It is the same concept with tackling the issue of obesity in America: it needs time and further developed tactics to achieve reduced levels. Ironically, these medical professionals are basing their evidence off of a faulty scale for evaluating a person’s body fat percentage.

If the BMI system is clearly flawed and there are other better and more efficient methods of measuring the percentage of a person’s body fat, why are doctors still using it? If a person cannot accurately measure their actual fat percentage, how can we assume that America was at one time the world’s fattest nation? While it is clear that alternative methods to the BMI system are not yet medically accepted, it is also clear that to keep using the BMI system would not be beneficial towards the medical community in any means. The only absolute proof that has come from the realization that the BMI system is heavily flawed is the notion that America may in fact not be as obese as though of by the world’s populations. It is important that medical professionals continue to test alternative theories so that the public can be provided with a more reliable method of calculating a person’s body fat percentage. Based on the fact that the nation’s current obesity levels were raked based on a system that is not accurate, it is impossible to accurately identify weather or not Americans are actually getting fatter or fitter.

Facebook: Friend or Foe?

It is no secret that social networking websites have become forerunners in the world of communication between colleagues, friends, family, and acquaintances. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, FourSquare, and other similar sites make it easy for us to get in touch with each other quickly and constantly with just the click of a button. They help us connect with new acquaintances and also reconnect with old ones. But while all of this is clearly beneficial to our personal lives, it is becoming apparent that it may be a danger to our professional lives. Since the explosion of new social networking sites began, employers have used information posted on people’s Facebook pages to either prescreen a potential employee or evaluate a current one, making hiring and termination decisions based on posts that they see. Not only is this practice a violation of employees’ rights to freedom of speech, but it also begs the question: can Facebook cause us to be unemployed?

The answer to that question appears to be yes. Numerous cases have been seen by the courts on both a state and federal level regarding the termination of an employee due to posts or comments on their Facebook pages that their employers happened to find. Most commonly it is schoolteachers that find themselves facing a lot of pressure to monitor their online activity on social networking sites. A teacher in Pennsylvania was suspended by her district for posts on her Facebook that referred to her students being “out of control” or “frightfully dim” (Pike). The teacher hadn’t named any students in specific in her post, nor had she named the school at which she taught. The post was also made outside of the workplace, on her own personal computer, using her own personal internet service (Pike).

Her suspension is questionably illegal; she worked for a government entity that has technically violated her right to freedom of speech. But her suspension is also a result that is not uncommon for teachers all over the country. Another teacher from Paterson, New Jersey, Jennifer O’Brien, was suspended from her position after parents of her students saw an unfavorable comment she made saying that she was “the warden of future criminals,” in reference to their children on her Facebook page and reported her to administrators (Townes). The post was questionably racist – the school at which she worked is predominately African-American. But when appearing in court, she defended herself by saying that the students were constantly unruly and that one had even hit her. Her comment, therefore, could technically be considered one that was made more for the purpose of “discussing working conditions,” which is a union-related activity that cannot be denied to members of a working union (Townes).

Although that was not the case that O’Brien argued for herself in court, an EMT from Connecticut that was terminated from her job for remarks on her Facebook about her supervisor did use that defense. She had apparently made an “angry and mocking description of the dispute and her supervisor on her Facebook page,” which had then been commented on by fellow employees who also had snide remarks to add to the post (Pike). When it finally reached the eyes of her supervisor, she lost her job, but not without a fight; she filed a complaint to the National Labor Relations Board through her union, claiming that by terminating her for a comment made about her working conditions while outside of the workplace constituted violating her right to engage in “union-related activity” (Pike).

After settling the case outside of court, the company she worked for agreed to change their policy that they had initially said she violated which prohibited “making disparaging, discriminatory, or defamatory comments when discussing the Company, or the employee’s superiors, co-workers and/or competitors,” which broadly incorporated speaking about working conditions and was therefore illegal (Pike). Closely related to this case is one in which a bus company’s policy prohibited “employees from using social media to ‘target, offend, disparage … customers, passengers or employees’,” which is illegal on the same grounds that speaking about working conditions was illegal for the Connecticut EMT (Pike). The NLRB has been forced to reconsider what is legal for a company to include in their social networking policies.

It is not just comments on Facebook that can get employees in trouble though. Pictures also have the power to cause a termination of a job if it is considered indecent by an employer. One such instance includes a nurse from Northampton General Hospital who was fired after a picture one of her coworkers posted on Facebook was seen by her boss. The picture was taken in the hospital ward and her bra was visible in the picture. Although her employer clearly had a right to deem her conduct while in the hospital inappropriate, another picture that had been uploaded showed her and her two colleagues fully dressed while working in the presence of a patient, and she was eventually reinstated (“Nurse Who Showed Bra On Facebook Reinstated”).

While it can’t be definitively stated that Facebook can cause us to become unemployed, it also can’t be said that it doesn’t. Although we may believe that our personal lives should be completely separated from our professional lives, it is not unfair to say that employers have the right to be in full knowledge of the true demeanor of the people that they trust to do good work for them and represent their company.

But although Internet has diminished the certainty of sustaining a position in the working world during the last decade, it also has changed our job market in a more positive way. Whether it involves finding jobs or advertising open positions, the internet has provided employers and job seekers with an important tool for the expansion of their companies and their professional connections through the use of social networking sites. Although it is obvious that we must be careful about what we post on these sites if our accounts are monitored by our employers, the presence of Facebook and other social media sites in the professional world can also carry a lot of benefits – networking with colleagues or partners, promoting business through advertisements or referrals, etc. But there is still leeway for opposing viewpoints on the matter for those who believe that Facebook and other social networking sites shouldn’t have any connection to the professional world.

One of the most important issues with Facebook being used as a professional tool is the obvious lack of privacy. It is no secret that employers are able to prescreen job candidates through their Facebook pages before an interview even takes place; a study conducted by researchers at the University of Dayton found that “32 percent of students think it is unethical for companies to scan the Facebook profiles of job candidates,” mainly because a prescreen could violate equal opportunity rights in this country (Read). But it is also true that the economy is not presently in its best state, which means that companies are striving to out-do their competition so that they can successfully stay in operation despite the economic downfalls they are experiencing. In order to rise above competition, a company needs to stand out as being the best, and in order to be the best, they must have the best employees, an ideal staff of respectable, hard-working personnel. In order to assemble such a staff, “40 percent of companies say they would at least consider perusing Facebook profiles before making hiring decisions” (Read). Using Facebook to prescreen candidates allows for employers to find the best candidates to enhance their company’s success.

Although not all companies and businesses use Facebook to prescreen or investigate employees, one company that most certainly has the access to do so is Facebook itself. With 3,200 employees and a “headcount rising about 50 percent per year,” Facebook has become one of the fastest growing companies in the nation over the last decade by creating “a new social media universe that supports games, advertising tools, and other applications that didn’t even exist a few years ago” (Newman). And while this sounds as though Facebook has become an asset to the economy by decreasing the unemployment rate, many will argue the obvious point that Facebook’s job market is really only geared towards one demographic: “college graduates under 40” (Newman). The type of skills required to be employed and useful at Facebook generally exist in the forms of “software engineers, product designers, and other personnel with certain technology expertise” (Newman). This decreases the actual value of Facebook’s expanding job market because it only pertains to a certain group of people, rather than the entire nation. However, for those that do not have the kind of skills needed to be a Facebook employee, the site can still be used to look for and find jobs in other job fields with other companies. According to a study done by employee recognition provider, I Love Rewards, and career-services network, Experience, 35% of college students plan to use Facebook or LinkedIn, another networking site geared more toward professional networking, to find a job post-graduation (Laura).

One drawback to using these sites for job hunting, however, is that most of us separate our personalities into different categories depending on the audience that we expect to be viewing each side of us. We have a professional side, which we share in the workplace and with acquaintances; we have an informal side, which we share with friends and family; and we also have a personal side, which we share with only ourselves. All of these separate aspects of our personalities make up who we are as individuals. But these different personalities converge and are shared with a much larger audience when our professional lives and personal lives become intertwined due to the emergence of higher technology and social networking which has made it a lot easier for others to view a glimpse of parts of our lives that we may not want them to see. Even schools use these sites to intervene with student conflicts and law enforcement officials use them to dig up information on certain cases or to find a basis for targeting a group of people in an investigation.

In Ocean Township, New Jersey, during the ’07-’08 and ’08-’09 school years, the township’s police department regularly perused the Facebook pages of high school students in search of pictures that showed the consumption of alcohol by minors. This time period was when Facebook first became available to high school students, having previously only been available to college students with a registered e-mail address from a college or university. Because of the novelty of the website, most students were unaware of the dangers that posting various pictures, status updates, or comments could cause for them. Detectives began making fake Facebook accounts, uploading usually a single picture of a high school aged student for the default picture and then selecting “Ocean Township High School” as the network they wished to join. As they began friend requesting students, most were completely unaware that this student that apparently went to their high school, who they had never heard of before, was actually a police detective scanning their pictures or status updates for signs of past or potential underage drinking. Students seen with alcohol in their pictures were issued underage drinking citations by the police and were forced to participate in the “Student in Good Standing” program set up by the school, in which students were required to complete thirty hours of supervised community service and obtain letters from two different teachers that described their outstanding performance in the classroom before presenting their case to a board of administrators who then decided whether or not the students would face detention or suspension from school. They have since discontinued the practice after an uproar of complaints from parents who claimed that the way in which the department went about invading the Facebooks of their children was illegal and immoral.

The use of social media profiles for purposes such as these may seem to be an invasion of privacy, but that accusation is entirely dependent upon what one defines to be an “invasion of privacy.” Generally, an invasion of privacy is considered to be the act of prying into someone’s private life without their permission or consent; but if someone signs up for a social networking account and provides all their information on a public website, regardless of their “privacy settings,” can it truly be considered an invasion of privacy for an unintended audience to access that information? According to a 2010 article in Computers and Composition, Gina Maranto and Matt Barton report that, “both Facebook and MySpace (and their parent companies) are far more concerned with profits than privacy. Neither site claims to keep user information confidential; indeed, their profits come from exchanging this data with companies who are exploiting these sites” (Maranto and Barton). This means that essentially, no matter what kind of privacy settings or blocks that someone may place on a social networking account, the expected level of privacy is never truly enforced.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that Facebook or MySpace sells out all of their users’ personal information to anyone who wants it; what they do, however, is allow outside advertising agencies to access their users’ basic information and interests in order for these companies to provide targeted advertising to as many people as they can. With the introduction of the Beacon advertising program on the Facebook website in 2007, Facebook essentially has “empower[ed] advertisers to target … ads using the information on the personal profiles that members supply to Facebook. A national advertiser could sell ads to a huge group (all women between 25 and 40), or a local advertiser, like a restaurant, could pay much less to reach a microgroup (Ivy League-educated Indian-food lovers in a specific ZIP code). You could even target people who work for a specific company,” according to Stan Levy in his Newsweek article “Do Real Friends Share Ads?”. The use of these advertising schemes is inversely related to the loss of privacy privileges on the internet; the less privacy we have, the more money advertisers accumulate. However, Facebook’s privacy officer at the time, Chris Kelly, assured users of the site that personal data is never given to the advertising agencies (Levy). As long as personal information is not exposed by Facebook, an advertising agency’s access to a person’s interests or recent web searches doesn’t really affect their lives in any other way other than the fact that agencies are able to deliver more targeted advertising to Facebook users.

Many people don’t even feel as though this access to their interests and activity on the internet is really that detrimental; by entering this information into a public website such as Facebook, users immediately give up their threshold for an expected level of privacy. Acohido Byron reported in his USA Today article, “Frequent users less wary of Facebook” that “only 26% of respondents who use Facebook at least daily said they were ‘very concerned’ about privacy, compared with 35% who use the social network at least once a week, and 39% who use Facebook less often.” Forty-six year old Facebook user Danny Jackson of Maine told Byron, “I really don’t care if people know about the stuff I like.” USA Today partnered with Gallup Poll to survey a group of 2,000 adults, in which they concluded that the more that users actually use Facebook, the less likely they are to be concerned with their privacy. Yet even still, “technologists worry about Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft and others racing to develop businesses based on amassing vast amounts of data about what people do on their PCs and mobile devices” (Byron).

This potential “invasion of privacy” that is imposed on users by Facebook, however, is still not nearly as invasive as the Intercept Modernisation Programme proposed in the Communications Data Bill in the UK in 2008. According to Becky Hogge in her article in New Statesman in 2008, the program’s intent was “to log details about every web page [they] visit, every SMS message [they] text and every e-mail [they] send. And not only that, but to store all this ‘communication traffic’ information in a central database.” While this program is incredibly intrusive in the private lives of all UK citizens, its intent was for the purpose of national security and protection after the 2005 terrorist bombings in London. This program would ultimately “dramatically reduce the cost of mass surveillance, and allow the security services and other law enforcers to trace friendship trees … and thereby to hunt for potential conspirators as yet unknown to the authorities, subjecting them in turn to more intrusive surveillance techniques” (Hogge). The entire concept is a catch-22 because although it invades the private lives of UK citizens tremendously, it also allows for more extreme safety measures to be enforced by the government in order to protect the public.

While the bottom line definition of an “invasion of privacy” will vary from person to person, most will agree that our lives have become significantly less private with the introduction of new technology and social networking. It is unnerving to imagine that all information that we may have ever entered into any online program or website can be available to almost anyone that tries to access it, but if there is a beneficial way to use that information — focused advertising, national security, etc. — the “invasion” isn’t so much a danger as it is a revolutionary tool for social and technological innovation.

It is clear that there are beneficial aspects of Facebook being used in the professional world, allowing companies to hire and maintain the most successful staff and recruit candidates in a much more timely and cost-efficient manner. And perhaps instead of criticizing all the ways in which Facebook is detrimental to our professional world, maybe it is more realistic to accept that the impact exists and discover how we can use it to transform the standards of the workplace.

Works Cited

“Nurse Who Showed Bra On Facebook Reinstated.” Nursing Standard 23.5 (2008): 9. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Apr. 2012.

Byron, Acohido, and TODAY USA. “Frequent users less wary of Facebook.” USA Today n.d.: Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Apr. 2012.

Hogge, Becky. “Facebook For Snoopers.” New Statesman 137.4914 (2008): 48. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Apr. 2012.

Laura, Petrecca. “More grads use social media to job hunt.” USA Today n.d.: Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Apr. 2012.

Levy, Steven. “Do Real Friends Share Ads?.” Newsweek 10 Dec. 2007: 30. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Apr. 2012.

Maranto, Gina, and Matt Barton. “Paradox And Promise: Myspace, Facebook, And The Sociopolitics Of Social Networking In The Writing Classroom.” Computers & Composition 27.1 (2010): 36-47. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Apr. 2012.

Newman, Rick. “The Facebook Economy.” U.S. News Digital Weekly 4.5 (2012): 8. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Apr. 2012.

Pike, George H. “Fired Over Facebook.” Information Today 28.4 (2011): 26. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Apr. 2012.

Read, Brock. “Online.” Chronicle Of Higher Education 53.19 (2007): A31. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Apr. 2012.

Townes, Glenn. “Paterson schoolteacher under fire for racist comment on Facebook.” New York Amsterdam News 10 Nov. 2011: 4. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Apr. 2012.

A Key to Winning

Baseball has always been described as a game of numbers. The numbers in baseball are the statistics that go along with each game, such as ERA (Earned Run Average), OBP (On Base Percentage), and winning percentage. Statisticians have taken the statistics from baseball and developed something called sabermetrics. Sabermetrics is the statistical analysis of baseball, and it is used by scouts to determine if players can help their teams win games based on specific statistics. Almost all teams use some sort of sabermetrics while scouting players, but I do not believe it is the most effective way to scout a player. While scouting a player many other things have to be taken into consideration some include; if the player is injury prone, does he get into slumps often, how clutch is he, and can the player have a “short-term memory” meaning will he still be lingering about prior at -bats or will he focus on the task at hand. I believe that experience has as much to do with if a player will help a team win as statistics do.

Teams have had success with sabermetrics, one team being the Boston Red Sox. They have drafted players such as Dustin Pedroia, Clay Bucholtz, Jonathon Papelbon, and Jacoby Ellsbury using sabermetrics (Simmons 1). Ellsbury’s statistics that caught the Red Sox’s organization were fielding percentage ( amount of putouts divided by the amount of total chances the player has) and also on base percentage ( the percentage that the player will get on base per at bat). The two statistics have been a big part of Ellsbury’s game and success in the major league, in his first three years he had on base percentages of .394, .336, and .355 which is great. his fielding percentage has also been a 1.000 (which is perfect) in 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011. These two statistics have made the Red Sox substantially better having a leadoff hitter that can get on base to be driven in by the power hitters of the lineup, also with a perfect fielding percentage he can go get just about anything in his position which is centerfield, and he has to cover the most ground in the outfield.

One statistic that if a team looks at can really help them win, and that would be the stat RE24. RE24 is defined as “runs above the average by the 24 base/out states,” (Appelman 1). The 24 base/out states are all situations that can happen on a baseball field while up at bat in a given inning. Another way to look at it would be whether there are zero outs and there can be no men on base, a man on first base, there can be a man on second base, a man on third base, men on first and third base, men on first and second , men on second and third base, or bases loaded. Those are eight situations but that was only with one out, there can be one or two outs also so added up all together there are 24 situations. That is just what RE24 means, there is an actual calculation to figure it out too. The RE24 is “the difference in run expectancy (RE) between the start of the play and the end of the play. That difference is then credited/debited to the batter and the pitcher,” (Appelman 1).  RE24 can be considered a “winning statistic” because if the home team has an RE24 percentage greater than the away team the home team is going to win the game. An RE24 of  zero is average, so a negative RE24 would be below and a positive RE24 would be above average. RE24 is calculated by every at bat and situation that a pitcher or batter can be in and over all of the situations in the game they are added together to get their RE24 for the whole game.  Every game has an RE24 for batters and pitchers, the batters have an opportunity to ruin the pitcher’s percentage, and the pitchers have an opportunity to ruin the batter’s percentage. The pitchers can increase their RE24 by getting out of innings when they have men on base, striking a batter out when there is a runner on third base, getting a batter to ground out when there are runners on second and third base with two outs, or having the bases loaded and getting three consecutive outs without letting up any runs. Some ways batters can increase their RE24 by getting runs in from third base with either a fielder’s choice, a sacrifice fly, or base hit and also just by getting hits when runners are in scoring positions.

One specific example of how important RE24 has been would be the 2003 World Series between the Florida Marlins and New York Yankees. Every game was decided by whichever team had a better RE24.  In game one the Marlins defeated the Yankees 3-2, the Marlins had an RE24 of 2.8 while the Yankees had an RE24 of 1.8,  the Yankees did not have anyone pitcher over a 1.0 average in this game while the Marlins had two pitchers with a 1.1 average they were Dontrelle Willis and the Marlins’ closer Uguetha Urbina. In game two the Florida Marlins lost to the Yankees by a score of 1-6, the Marlins had an RE24 of -1.7 while the Yankees had an RE24 of 3.8. The Marlins’ starter Mark Redman had an RE24 of -3.3, while Andy Pettitte  the Yankees’ pitcher had an RE24 of 3.3. In game three the Marlins lost to the Yankees by a score of 1-6. The Marlins had an RE24 of -1.4 while the Yankees had an RE24 of 3.6. The Marlins’ starter Josh Beckett had an RE24 of 2.4, but the closer Braden Looper had an RE24  of -2.5 which happened in the top of the ninth inning where he gave up four runs on two hits. The Yankees starting pitcher Mike Mussina had an RE24 of 2.6. In game four the Marlins defeated the  Yankees by a score of 4-3. The Marlins had an RE24 of 3.1 while the Yankees had an RE24 of 1.6. Contributing to the Marlins’ average were starting pitcher Carl Pavano with an RE24 of 3.1 and closer Braden Looper who had an RE24 of 2.1. In game five the Marlins defeated the Yankees by a score of 6-4. The Marlins had an RE24 of 0.6 while the Yankees had an RE24 of -1.9. In game six the Marlins won the World Series with a score of 2-0. The Marlins had Josh Beckett pitch a complete game shutout and his RE24 was 4.8 while the Yankees had an RE24 of 2.8. In every game the RE24 was an important statistic and directly correlated with who won (“2003 World Series Florida Marlins vs. New York Yankees ” 1)

Sabermetrics are a vital part of baseball, but not all teams have great success with it. While drafting players, getting players in the offseason, and during trades sabermetrics is used, some teams pick players and they do not produce in the major league as they were predicted to. Throughout the major league a system called PECOTA (Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm) has been used to project how many wins a team will have based on three factors major-league equivalencies to allow them to use minor-league statistics to project how a player will perform in the major-league. Baseline forecasts which use weighted averages and regression to the mean to produce an estimate of a player’s true talent level, and a career-path adjustment which incorporates information about how comparable players’ statistics changed over time (Swartz 1).  PECOTA has projected wins for every team, and it showed that teams were either over or under projected. Three examples of teams that were over projected would be the Pittsburg Pirates , Cleveland Indians, and Arizona Diamondbacks. The Pittsburg Pirates were projected to have 72.4 wins, but actually had 57 wins. The Indians were projected to have 87.2 wins, but actually had 69 wins, and the Arizona Diamondbacks were projected to have 84.4 wins, but they had 65 wins. Three examples of teams that were under projected would be the Toronto Blue Jays, Minnesota Twins, and Chicago White Sox. The Blue Jays were projected to have 76.4 wins, but actually had 85 wins. The Twins were projected to have 81.0 wins, but actually had 94 wins. The White Sox were projected to have 77.0 wins, but they had 88 wins (Swartz 1). These examples prove that by simply plugging statistics into a computer can give an estimate of how many wins a team may have, but it is not the greatest form of predicting teams’ records.

One thing Sabermetrics cannot predict is players having breakout seasons and having players mature in the major league. One such example of this happening would be Jose Bautista of the Toronto Blue Jays. He has played in the minor and major leagues since 2005, but even before his minor league statistics showed him to be a pretty good hitter not hitting very many homeruns, and having a low slugging percentage. Going into the 2010 season that was still being talked about when people discussed the play of Jose Bautista. That is until he had 54 homeruns that year and a slugging percentage of .617, and then in the 2011 season he hit 43 homeruns with a .608 slugging percentage (“Jose Bautista Stats” 1). A player getting so much power and then having back to back great seasons is not seen that often in baseball. PECOTA predicted that Bautista would have 18 homeruns not 54 or 43, another way that sabermetrics cannot project an outcome in baseball.

Since sabermetrics cannot be trusted a hundred percent of the time, how can teams determine players that may be able to help them win a championship? One way is to look in free agency, players in free agency are proven players that have been in the major-league and either their contract has expired , they are looking to become a member of a new team, or they are looking for a new contract and the team is not giving it to them.  Free agency is a key part in baseball big name players are taken in free agency every year. Some examples include Jose Reyes who was an all-star for the New York Mets, he was one of their franchise players, but when his contract was up last year the Mets let him go into free agency and he got picked up by the Miami Marlins. Reyes is a threat to steal at anytime, he provides outstanding speed, and his defensive abilities are among the top shortstops in the major-leagues. His is a pickup that will affect the Mets and Marlins. Another notable free agent pickup this year was Albert Pujols, he went from the world champion St. Louis Cardinals to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. This acquisition was amazing for the Angels, Pujols on his career has 445 home runs and a career batting average of .328 ( “Albert Pujols Stats” 1).  The New York Yankees have been signing great free agent players throughout their franchise history which includes 27 World Series titles. They do also have the highest payroll in the major-league every year, but they use that payroll to get players during the off season and during free agency to help their team contend for a championship every year. A couple of players the Yankees have brought in within the last couple years would be C.C. Sabathia and Curtis Granderson. C.C. Sabathia has proven himself to be an elite pitcher in the major leagues with the Cleveland Indians and Milwaukee Brewers, he was an all-star with the Indians in 2004 and  2007 (“C.C. Sabathia Stats” 1).  The Yankees brought him into their organization to become one of their top starters and he was the best pitcher available in free agency , so they signed him and within the year they signed him they won the World Series which was in 2009. Curtis Granderson was brought in to be a defensive player with the ability to be a good number two hitter. He did that and more when the Yankees brought him in, he plays center field and played for the Detroit Tigers prior to the Yankees. Granderson had a breatkout year in 2011 finishing second in homeruns with 41, he was an all-star, he won the Silver Slugger Award, and the MLB Choice American League Outstanding Player Award (“Curtis Granderson Stats” 1).  Free agency is a great aspect of baseball to take advantage of because all the teams have heard of the players that are free agents and have played against them at one point or have seen them play and know how they play.

Players in the major-leagues have all proven themselves worthy talent wise, but when evaluating a player to sign there is also something else to consider, their head. Baseball said to be ninety percent mental and ten percent physical, which I one hundred percent believe is true. There are so many mental aspects of baseball that are overlooked by a fan, announcers, or even major league managers. While playing baseball every pitch a player has to be mentally prepared and know the situations that can possibly happen at every time. If there is a runner on second base and a player is in center field he has to be thinking about if a ground ball is hit to me hard  hit the cutoff man to make sure the run does not score and to make sure the batter does not travel to second base if he throws it all the way home. He also has to think about how if a fly ball comes his way he has to go catch it and make sure he is in position to throw to third base in case the runner on second is going to tag up and go to third base. That is one position on the field, and the batter has to do more thinking than that. The batter has to be able to read the seams of a baseball that can either be coming 95 miles per hour or a pitch that is coming in a 75 miles per hour. Tori Hunter who is an all-star center fielder described hitting as “a matter of precision, adjustment and accuracy, and there’s not much room for error. Miss by a half-inch, and you can top the ball or hit it into the ground. You have to have hand-eye coordination to adjust to the ball’s speed, and you have to see the rotation of the ball” (Mihoces 1). Blinking during a pitch will be catastrophic for a batter, while a batter blinks the ball will already be in the catcher’s glove before he can even decide if he wants to swing or not. A batter also has to know his own strike zone and be able to determine if the pitch will be a ball or a strike and if it will be a strike he has to meet the bat with the ball in the sweet spot of the bat which is not easy whatsoever. It is hard enough hitting a ball off of a tee on the sweet spot let alone a 95 mile per hour fastball.

Going along with a player’s mental stability and strength is something that statistics cannot calculate and that is hot and cold streaks. Players go through stretches where they will hit anything and everything a pitcher will throw at them, and at the same time players will go through stretches where they could not hit a beach ball if it was thrown to them. The mind of a baseball player comes into play at this point, while on a cold streak the player is not confident and if they do not believe they will hit the ball they will not be able to. The player can be caught up on prior at bats where he has left runners in scoring position, and that is where mental stability and strength come into play.  If a player is able to have a “short term memory” meaning they will not focus on prior at bats and they will just focus on the task at hand that is a great attribute to have because those players are able to manage their cold streaks better. When a player is on a hot streak the player will not be thinking about if he can hit the ball he is thinking where he wants to drive the ball. These two characteristics of players cannot be measured by statistics, and statistics cannot calculate the amount of heart a player has in them either. A player that will run out every ground ball hit just in case the fielder bobbles the ball and they can beat it out for a base hit, or that will sacrifice their body while diving for a ball in the outfield. These attributes of players go overlooked and when teams find players that do have heart and mental stability they are happy they did because when players have these characteristics they rub off in the dugout. When teammates see that players are doing whatever they can to win, they are also going to do whatever they can possibly do to win and that contributes to more wins, and a better team.

Sabermetrics will be in baseball forever, it is not going anywhere. Statistics is a part of baseball and will always be, it is how players are ranked throughout the major-league and how to determine who the best homerun hitters are and who the best pitchers are. Statistics in baseball I feel like are used more for after games and for how years have been if players had good or bad years. I do not think that it is the sole tool to draft or evaluate players. Players should be evaluated by their effort put forward every game, their mental stability, physical abilities, and prior statistics. That would round out drafting players and determining which players would be able to help teams win games, win championships, and build dynasties.

Works Cited

“Albert Pujols Stats.” MLB.com. Web. 30 Mar. 2012.

Appelman, David. “Get to Know: RE24.” Web log post. Baseball Statistics and Analysis. 14 Mar. 2008. Web. 23 Mar. 2012.

“C.C. Sabathia Stats” MLB.com. Web. 30 Mar. 2012.

“Curtis Granderson Stats” MLB.com. Web. 30 Mar. 2012.

“Jose Bautista Stats.” Toronto Blue Jays. 2011. Web. 11 Apr. 2012.

Mihoces, Gary. “The Hardest: Getting Bat to Meet Ball.” USA Today. Gannett, 2008. Web. 30 Mar. 2012.

Swartz, Matt. “Ahead in the Count.” Baseball Prospectus. 03 Sept. 2010. Web. 11 Apr.

“2003 World Series Florida Marlins vs. New York Yankees.” Baseball-Reference.com. Web. 01 Mar. 2012.

Music Piracy: The Moral Argument and the Real Victims

Music piracy through file sharing is a problem that is younger than most people in high school or college. In this day and age, it is so easy for anyone to get whatever he or she wants by just clicking a few buttons on the keyboard of his or her computer, but this convenience is  has been taken advantage of by people who steal music from artists and others who are involved in file sharing pirated music. This may not seem like a real crime until one is presented with the important question: is peer-to-peer file sharing of music stealing? The answer is yes, file sharing pirated music is stealing. The definition of music piracy is any form of unauthorized duplication and/or distribution of music including downloading, file sharing, and CD-burning. The fine for music piracy can be up to 5 years in prison or $250,000 in fines (Wikipedia, “File Sharing”). This is obviously a crime, so the question lingers; why do so many people think that it is okay to download music illegally off the internet?

Before the 1990s, computers were not household items, so the internet was not available to everyone till the revolution of the personal computer. Soon after this in June of 1999, the first peer-to-peer file sharing program called Napster was released. Napster was a centralized unstructured peer-to-peer system, requiring a central server for indexing and peer discovery, and many other programs followed it. In July of 2001, Napster was sued by multiple recording companies for unauthorized use of the company’s intellectual property, holding Napster Liable for contributory infringement and vicarious infringement of the plaintiffs’ copyrights (History.com, “Death of Napster”).

The story of how file sharing of pirated music came to be shows that it was first used in innocence’s because the creator of Napster was not fully aware of the effect it would have on the music business. There had never been any situation like it before, so there were no immediate laws that he was aware of that he was breaking. Once he had a lawsuit against him, he changed Napster into a program in which you had to pay for the music. Surely the users of Napster were not fully aware of the effect of file sharing at first either, but present day users of other peer-to-peer programs know the effect and consequences of music piracy and still do it.

Those who are in favor of file sharing and music piracy argue that it is not a bad thing and that it is not stealing. One argument is that CDs are not worth buying due to lack of good songs, price, quality of music in present times, and the fact that they might not buy the CD anyway if they could not get it for free. They say that many college students who have low incomes or not a lot of money to spend are not able to buy as many CDs as they would like, and file sharing allows them to discover more music for free. Another argument is that peer to peer networks are very useful for reasons other than file sharing, such as files that are public domain, so file sharing networks should not be shut down to stop music piracy. People in favor of music piracy also say that it is a good way to preview songs before purchasing them or buying the CD. The boldest argument (in my opinion) is that MP3 files are not physical property, so it is not stealing because there is no value lost in downloading it (Jenci, Keith. “File Sharing: A Debate.”).

Those who are arguing against file sharing and music piracy have many arguments to counter the opposing view. These people argue that music is worth buying and that CDs are not too expensive, but reasonably priced. Also, they say that just because some people think CDs are overpriced does not justify stealing them on the internet. Another argument is that there are many places to buy music legally, such as Napster 2.0, Amazon and iTunes, so the convenience of getting the music off peer to peer networks is not a valid excuse for not buying the music. You can also buy single songs on these online stores, so people don’t even need to buy the entire CD by an artist if they do not wish to. Those opposed to music piracy also argue that file sharing hurts the music industry and all the individual workers involved with producing the artists’ music (Jenci, Keith. “File Sharing: A Debate.”).

The most valuable opinion would be from those who are looked at as the victims of music piracy and file sharing: the artists. Contrary to what most people would think, even the artists who have made a stand on the issue are split by the subject. Some artist, like Metallica, Bob Dylan, U2, Lily Allen, and James Blunt, argue that music piracy impose on their intellectual property, while other artists, like Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, Foo Fighters, and 50 Cent, support or find nothing wrong with file sharing because it allows more people to enjoy their music. Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters said in an interview for dotmusic.com(Napster Inc. “Speak Out”):

“I think it’s a good idea because it’s people trading music. It has nothing to do with industry or finance, it’s just people that want music and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s the same as someone turning on the f****** radio, it’s the same as someone putting a cassette in a cassette deck when the BBC plays a special radio session. I don’t think it’s a crime, it’s been going on for years. It’s the same as people making tapes for each other. The industry is more threatened by it because it’s the worldwide web and it’s a broader scope of trading, but I don’t think it’s such a f******* horrible thing. The first thing we should do is get all the f****** millionaires to shut their mouths, stop bitching about the 25 cents a time they’re losing.”

— Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters), dotmusic.com, 9/15/2000

All these arguments from opposing sides contradict or counter each other, but the bottom line, with all due respect to Dave Grohl, is that it is considered stealing if you download music illegally on the internet regardless of the opinion on either side.

We know that music piracy is illegal and downloading music illegally is a crime, but this does answer the question if file sharing alone is sharing or stealing. The definition of file sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia, documents, or electronic books(Wikipedia, “File Sharing”), so technically there is nothing illegal about file sharing, therefor it is not stealing, only sharing. Although it is not stealing, file sharing is frequently used to share pirated music which is considered stolen, so it is a common misconception to consider file sharing as stealing.

File sharing of multimedia files that are public domain is not stealing, but despite the common knowledge that taking something that is not free without paying for it is stealing, people still download music that they are not paying for. Manyarguments are made by people who are for file sharing of pirated music is that it is not stealing, but only sharing them. These people say that there is no difference between sharing a CD with a friend down the road to burn it onto his or her computer and sharing the same CD with the entire Internet to download. To that, I say no, it is not. There are a large number of differences between these two examples. To start off though, both examples are illegal, so people should not do either. People cannot legally reproduce anything that is someone else’s media production without paying them per song or per cd price for the rights(RIAA, “For Students Doing Reports”). Another reason why there is a difference is that when someone gives a friend a CD to burn onto his or her computer, you know the reason why the person wants the CD. They may just want to hear a new band that the person who is lending the CD told him or her about, and that helps bands make new fans. When people distribute pirated music on the Internet through file sharing, they are making it available for anyone who wants it. Instead of the petty crime of lending music to a friend, file sharing pirated music allows an endless amount of people to steal music, taking the crime to a much larger scale.

Any arguments that are for music piracy and illegal downloads via file sharing are only excuses by people to justify their own bad behavior through twisting their own morals. This is a crime that a large percent of the population is guilty of. The real problem lies in peoples beliefs toward the subject, and peoples’ attitudes on this subject reflects on other aspects in their lives. Anyone at some point in their life has tried to justify doing something they know is wrong. If someone tells a lie to a friend, they usually think, “Hey, I know I’m lying, but it’s probably better that they don’t know the truth.” In some cases, this may be right, but the bottom line is that we know when we are doing something wrong, and making excuses will never make it right.

In life, we all know that when we make an action to anything, there will be a consequence, good or bad, to the decisions and actions we make. You tie your shoes, you will not trip. You study for a test, you will get a better grade. You eat a meal, you will not be hungry, and so on. For the most part, the effects of our actions are generally pretty obvious, and this is no different with file sharing of pirated music, and when a song is stolen, it is going to cost someone. One of most common misconception by people who use file sharing to illegally download pirated music is not that they don’t think anyone is losing profit from their actions, but focus on the wrong people who are losing profits.

“Artists are not even losing that much money from file sharing.” This is an argument that pops up a lot when looking into debates on file sharing and pirated music. Musicians have hard times making money through album sales, but the people who are for file sharing of pirated music still say that musicians don’t get paid “that much” through record sales anyway. Although this may be true, it does not justify letting hundreds of thousands of people steal the artists music because it DOES take away some of the artist revenue, even if it is “not that much.” The record industry in the past decade has been on a steady decline. The combined impact of the Internet, the record companies’ slow response, the availability of single tracks instead of albums, more access to music listening online and unlicensed copying have put a 50% dent in music sales (Clifton, “How Much Musicians Get”).  When an album is made, the record companies pay for the band to make the album. They pay for the recording studio time, production, distribution after the albums completion, and many more cost that go into making an album. The Record companies pay the artist in advance to make the album, but majority of their pay comes from royalties through album sale. Royalties are what the artists get paid as a percentage of each album sold. During the time recording companies pay for the making of the album, they charge the band an advance against royalties. The record company may pay the band a set amount of money during the album’s development in order to have the members of a band have a source of income ahead of time so they can pay for their own living standard. That advance will be recouped before any royalties are paid (Brain, “How Recording Contracts Work”). So when someone posts music illegally on the Internet, they are showing no regard for the artists’ hard work. So to refute those who use the excuse that artists don’t make that much from record sales, I will not say that they are wrong necessarily, but saying this does not justify ripping off the artists’ of their deserved pay. On a high end royalty deal with a record company a band will make about one dollar for every CD sale(Clifton,  “How Much Musicians Get”). By downloading a CD and not spending money on it to buy it legally, you are depriving that artist of a one dollar profit. If you take in account for ever CD that is downloaded illegal, the band or artist is deprived one dollar from every fan that doesn’t pay for their intellectual property.

Although the artist is losing money because of the immorality of those who steal it, it is true that this is a small percent of the artist income. Artists make the largest percent of their income from going on tour and selling merchandise. The real people who are at risk of losing their income are the various workers that go into CD production. Those who are in the music production workforce like record producers bookings and studio managers, studio technicians, record and mastering engineers, and many others are at risk of losing their jobs now more than ever because of the amount of people that do not pay for their music (RecordProduction.com , “Jobs Available in a Recording Studio”).

The secondary claim in regards to who should get how much from CD sales by those who defend file sharing is that record labels profit too much from CD sales, which is not necessarily true. The record labels do make more money than the artist, but all around not that much more. On standard CD sales, record labels only make two dollars per ten dollar CD sold. Although they are making double what the artist makes, that leaves eight dollars to pay for the salaries of those who were involve in the production of the album that are listed in the previous paragraph and to the store that is selling the album (Cumberland, “Record Companies and Labels”). Record labels help artists’ names get out into the world, and into our wallets. Without the record labels, a lot of great bands, maybe even some of your favorite bands, would still be no names or have a much harder time making it to mainstream success. The only recordings they would have would be garage quality recordings, unless they were wealthy enough to pay for their own recording time in a studio and produce their own music, which would be unheard of with so many starving artists. Every band or artist starts out small, and with a record company who discovers them will start out with a low royalty deal. But the artists that do make it onto the Billboard Top 100 don’t complain about record companies because they know that the record companies helped them get where they are today. With the loss of revenues to the record companies through illegal downloading of music on the Internet, record labels will not be able to sign as many bands as they did in the past. This will harm up and coming artists because they may never have a chance to be signed to the companies as easily as in the past.

Because people are illegally downloading pirated music without real regard to who is being harmed and cheated, there is a negative economic result. An entire industry is failing because they are not able to enforce laws easily on those who willing commit a crime. From 1975 and 1999, US shipments of recorded music increased at a steady rate from $5.8 to $12.8 billion. But between 1999 and 2008, around when Napster and illegal file sharing of music first came onto the scene, the annual US revenue of physical CD sales fell from $12.8 billion back to $5.5 billion (Cumberland, “Record Companies and Labels”). Because of these kind of dramatic losses in revenue, many people have lost their jobs in the industry from cutbacks in spending.

“Nothing in this world is free.”

This is something my parents told me when I was growing up, and I am sure I am not the only person who has heard this saying. If something is free, there is always a catch or a reason for it. Being able to download music for free and not hurt anyone is obviously not achievable because someone is losing money that should be made. But what most people don’t realize is that when they are downloading their favorite artist’s pirated music, they are also hurting themselves and the other fans. When a major artist loses sales on CD sales, they need to make up for that loss in some way. Over the past decade, concert ticket prices have skyrocketed. Each year it costs more and more to see your favorite bands because of the loss of CD sales and revenue from their actual music. This is also why merchandise for bands is at ridiculous prices.

When I saw Blink-182 and Weezer for the first time in the summer of 2009, ticket prices were about $50 a person for lawn seats after additional fees and charges. On top of that, a sweatshirt I bought (which was destroyed when shrunk in the wash) was another $50. When I saw Blink 182 again this past summer, ticket prices were even higher for the same venue, and the merchandise was also at a similar price to the concert two years prior. By going to the event with my girlfriend, who I paid for her ticket and bought her a shirt, I surely burnt a hole in my pocket. I bought my Blink 182 CDs legally, some on iTunes and others on hard copy from different stores, but I was still punished by outrageous ticket prices because of the loss in profit from those who illegally downloaded it. There are also other factors that go into ticket prices, such as the ten dollar “convenience fees” on websites like Ticketmaster and Livenation and the rise venue charges from companies like Clear Channel, but pirated music and its effect on the economic status of artists and record labels is a main cause in this rise in prices.

There will always be freeloaders in the world, but saying that stealing music “isn’t a big deal” is only setting a bad example for young people who are now stealing and thinking nothing of it. Those who are against file sharing and pirated music should not try to just fight against those who are stealing music, but educate others on the real problems with file sharing. People must be aware of the effects of their actions when they steal other’s intellectual property and kn0w the consequences.

References

Clifton, Sam. ”How Much the Musicians Get from Album Sales“ 2010. Web. 02 Apr. 2012.

Cumberland, Rob. ”Record Companies and Labels“ Bemuso.com. 2002-2012. Web. 02 Apr. 2012.

Brain, Marshal. “How Recording Contracts Work“ 22 May 2003.  HowStuffWorks.com. Web. 02 April 2012.

“Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)“  RIAA, 2012. Web. 02 Apr. 2012.

Schroeder, Stan. “Featured in Social Media.” Mashable. Mashable Inc., 2005-2012. Web. 19 Apr. 2012.

Waldfogel, Joel. “Music Piracy and Its Effects on Demand, Supply, and Welfare.” IDEAS: Economics and Finance Research. 5 Apr. 2011. Web. 19 Apr. 2012.

“Jobs in Recording Studios – What Are the Jobs Available?” What Are the Jobs Available in a Recording Studio? RecordProduction.com. Web. 19 Apr. 2012.

ABC News, 20/20. “Why Are Concert Ticket Prices So High?” ABC News. ABC News Network, 13 Mar. 0000. Web. 19 Apr. 2012

“File Sharing.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Apr. 2012. Web. 19 Apr. 2012    (Only for brief information and definition on File Sharing)

Janssens, Jelle, Stijn Vandaele, and Tom V. Beken. “The Music Industry on (the) Line? Surviving Music Piracy in a Digital Era.” EBSCOhost. 2009. Web. 18 Apr. 2012.

Pollock, Rufus. “P2P, Online File-Sharing, and the Music Industry” P2P, Online File-Sharing, and the Music Industry. CC Attribution License, 31 Mar. 2006. Web. 19 Apr. 2012.

The Killer Supplement

Dietary supplements kill, and you may not even know how, or be warned that the product is doing so too. People go on large diets, workout for hours, and take different supplements to get a better looking body that they prefer, and feel looks good to them. imagine a person walks into GNC looking for something to help them get thinner and lose weight. They see tons of dietary supplements that say, Huge weight loss, best weight loss supplement out there, lose weight in eight weeks on our product, and etcetera. They all sound completely wonderful and just what they need, but with further research the person finds these “amazing” supplements actually cause terrible health issues such as high blood pressure, heart attacks, seizures, death, and more. This gets them to wondering how these products get out on the market like that and causes them to ponder, what is a dietary supplement?

A dietary supplement is an herbal based product made to help one with a healthy benefit, which is followed along by a bunch of loose and seemingly dangerous regulations that causes it to be a danger to the user, but Congress defines it a little differently. According to Congress under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, it says a dietary supplement is “a product (other than tobacco) that is intended to supplement the diet;contains one or more of each dietary ingredients (including vitamins; minerals; herbs or other botanicals; amino acids; and other substances) or their constituents;is intended to be taken by mouth as a pill, capsule, tablet, or liquid; and is labeled on the front panel as being a dietary supplement,”(“Dietary Supplements”). Now according to all these rules set by the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, this is what you need to create a dietary supplement. The question that comes up now is how does an Ephedra based product, Ephedra being banned by the FDA for use because of its highly catastrophic side effects and cause of death, such as Metabolife356 meet these requirements?

Metabolife 356 was a very popular Ephedra based product. The ingredients of the product is as follows: Vitamin E (as di-alpha tocopheryl acetate) (6 i.u.), Magnesium (as Magnesium Chelate) (75 mg), Zinc (as Zinc Chelate) (5 mg), Chromium (as Chromium Piccolinate) (75 mcg), and a proprietary blend (728 mg total) of the following: Guarana (seed), Ephedra (Ma Huang) extract (ephedrine group alkaloids) (aerial part), Bee Pollen, Eleuthero (Siberian Ginseng) (root), Ginger (root), Lecithin, Bovine Complex, Damiana (leaf), Sarsaparilla (root), Goldenseal (aerial part), Nettle (leaf), Gotu Kola (aerial part), Spirulina, Royal Jelly. Other ingredients: Citric acid, glycine, caffeine, croscarmellose sodium, protein hydrolysate, silica, modified cellulose, magnesium stearate, dextrin, dextrose, sodium carboxymethylcellulose, sodium citrate, ascorbic acid (“Browsing Store″). Now all these ingredients are great, but what is the classification importance of some and which are just fillers and blends of components. Taking a look at each important requirement lets see how Metabolife 356 follows the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. Was it even a supplement, or just some hazard that fell through the cracks.

A dietary supplement is intended to supplement the diet, and this product claims to do exactly that and help with weight loss. Having vitamins in a dietary supplement is essential and we know it has at least one with Vitamin E. Along with Vitamins, minerals are just as important to be included in the product, which the Metabolife has with zinc being included in its ingredients. The main banned component of the Metabolife 356 completes the criteria for a herb or botanical component. Ephedra being a herb coming from the plant also named Ephedra is what makes this requirement met(“What is Ephedrine?”). The plant is a shrub located in desert region areas such as Asia, which they extract and create into the Ephedra component found in the Metabolife356(“What is Ephedrine?”). After that you must have an amino acid component in the mix of a dietary supplement. One of the amino acid compounds found in this product is glycine which completes the requirement of at least one amino acid being included in the dietary supplement. Based on the qualifications for ingredients the Metabolife 356 has met all the needed requirements set. When looking at the website on the product it clearly states to take the product dosage and calls the product “caplets,” which checks off another restriction on what dietary supplements must be taken as (“Browsing Store″). The product is also clearly labeled as a dietary supplement too. It was definitely a dietary supplement, but also a terrible hazard as well.

When looking over the Metabolife product, the first solution you come upon is to eliminate the Ephedra herb, so that you don’t have the terrible side effects. Add a different herb what’s the big deal with this one if it kills? The thing is it also gives everything the user wants when they buy the product. They want the loss of weight and they want it fast. That’s exactly what the Ephedra does. It highly stimulants your body and gets you going and helps burn off the fat much faster, along with giving you a huge dose of energy to use to help burn off the fat. Mixing it with the Caffeine component in the Metabolife 356 causes an even higher boost of energy along with a very dangerous health risk to the user. The combination gives too much high stimulation on your body and heart. Ephedra gives all the benefits that the user bought the product for, while killing them internally at the same time. Without the ephedra the Metabolife 356 is nothing. The ephedra makes and breaks the product into what it is, but it’s the regulations and loose qualifications that really created the dangers in this product to be out there.

It was easily shown how this dangerous life risking product became an easy to buy supplement on the shelf for anyone to purchase. This is caused by the terrible qualifications of a dietary supplement. The rules are quite easy to follow and there are no restrictions to the ingredients you can add. Where is the part that says you can’t have people’s hands as part of the ingredients in your product, or any dangerous component. Besides the Ephedra that was recently banned, I don’t see any where it says what you can’t put into a dietary supplement. There are no rules for testing for safety before the product is put on the market, or providing evidence that it does what it states. It just says it needs to do what the label says, but the manufacturer doesn’t have to show prove. That’s very contradicting because how does the user knows it does what it says without evidence? Easy answer, they don’t and they never will until it is tested. The testing for safety is done after sale, and complaints of the product. It can cause large complications and possible dangers to the user. The possibilities for the dietary supplement to cause any number of outcomes harmful or helpful is endless. they have no real tight rules or restrictions. Once you meet the very basic ingredients and claims you can do whatever to the product and sell millions of the supplement before it’s even questioned what is in the product and how safe it is? It’s a very open-ended topic with such a broad way to go with the product, that the manufacturers have gone with the leash they’ve been given so far that it’s not really certain if the FDA has any control, sight, or idea that they could pull back on the dietary supplement industry and it even be there or stopped.

The  Metabolife356 product was so easily checked out to definitely be a dietary supplement in every way and form, from ingredients, to labeling, and claims. It puts a real question mark to the regulations and requirements that are set up on supplements as to how they are manufactured, regulated, and determined a good dietary supplement. If people could easily have made products such as the Metabolife 356 with the Ephedra component being included, that had caused death to some users, then why wouldn’t someone be able to put a worse and more dangerous herb or other component in the mix. The classifications of a dietary supplement is very weak and set around many rules with loop holes in them. A dietary supplement may be what it is as the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act defines it as, which the Ephedra product Metabolife 356 meets, but A dietary supplement is also a very poorly regulated, quite frightening, and dangerous health risk to any user that does not know what they are really paying for in the end.

This misconception that the dietary supplements aren’t that bad and the only reason people have terrible side effects is wrong usage is a very blinded view on the subject. someone looking at a substance that is a large risk factor and killer and thinking there shouldn’t be some change in the product, or the way it is handled is ridiculous.Regulation and construction of the Ephedra product has to be addressed. Some people may feel that there is no reason to waste time and money on supplement regulation, but the risk of losing one’s life seems to be a very important thing to consider when dealing with anything, let alone a dietary supplement.

The main point in the argument against improving regulation of the dietary supplements will be that the better regulation, safety precautions, and change in rules will not stop all dangerous supplements from being put on sale. That is true and I agree highly with that. There are plenty of drugs out there that have slipped through FDA regulation and been put on sale, but turned out to be very dangerous to people’s health. For example the drug Darvocet was recently banned by the FDA for causing bad heart side effects (“Pharmaceutical Industry”). Drugs just like this happen to sneak by the regulations, but the regulations have also stopped tons of terrible drugs from being put out on the shelves to be sold too. Just because better regulations won’t stop all of the terrible supplements from being sold on the market doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be fixed and tightened up. It’s like saying well people still rob banks, so lets stop having laws against it and security precautions to stop it. The security and laws clearly stop the acts from happening more frequently and lessen the number of robberies. If you tighten the regulations up on the supplements, and make the safety testing be done before and after sale, the chances that harmful supplements will be on the market will clearly become fewer in number.

The tight regulations and safety precautions would help the supplement manufactures find more issues with their product, and could cause them to be less deceitful in their claims, and ingredient information. If there are more regulations that ask for proof of safety testing before being sold, then it would create a more honest producer. If the manufacturers can’t get their product out on sale until it is proven safe with clear evidence, then they are more likely to make sure of the safety in their product, and create a better product for the user and a more honest supplier in the manufacturers. As of now they can sell a product as long as they say it does what they say their product does. They don’t have to worry about what happens to the user later because they could sell millions of their supplement before testing shows its risks, but when they must have proof of safety before sale this changes things completely. If the manufacturers are losing out on making money they will make sure their product is on the up and up with regulations. Everything changes when people’s wallets are threatened.

The combination of caffeine with the Ephedra is what causes such excessive dangers to occur to the user, not just the stimulant. This is a very misconstrued thought by some people believing the problem is not the plant being used, but the other combination of ingredients inside the product. These kind of people will feel like Metabolife 356 is dangerous because of the mixture in the caffeine, but the use of just the Ephedra in itself is safe for them. The combination of the caffeine may make the supplement more dangerous, but the key point in that is it will make it “more” dangerous. The Ephedra has been tested and proved to be a high stimulant that causes the heart to race quickly. It affects the central nervous system along with causing the heart to race because of the very lethal stimulants in Ephedra (“What is Ephedrine?”). The combination may cause a more severe effect on the user, but the mixture is not the start of the problem. The Ephedra is just a high amphetamine like stimulant that alone causes the damage to the body and heart, and is increased when the caffeine is added.

The main basis of the disagreement with the change of the regulations and dangers of such Ephedra based supplements as Metabolife 356 is quite weak. The regulatory system becoming tightly ran would create a more careful examination of supplements, and a safer way of controlling dangerous substances to be sold. It also creates a more honest and loyal manufacturer that must now follow the rules before selling his product, which hurts his profit, making him more likely to make sure his product is safe, so it will be allowed to be sold. The combination of caffeine and Ephedra does create a very dangerous concoction and increases the risk to the supplement causing damage to the heart, but it does not create this problem(“Ingredients — Ephedrine”). That is made up in the Ephedra itself with its high stimulant ingredients that just alone has been proven dangerous to someone. The tighter regulations and safety precautions that could be set up for dietary supplements may not stop all the dangerous substances that try to get sold, but as long as it catches at least one, isn’t that better than letting them be unregulated safely to prey upon uninformed users looking for a little weight loss? These regulation issues can be helped with tighter rules such as ones that drugs follow.

The FDA regulates drugs a lot and puts very specific rules and regulations on them that you don’t see on dietary supplements. They may not catch all of the problematic drugs trying to be put on the market, but they sure do catch a whole lot more than they would if they just sat there and let everything be put on the market before being checked out. “  In order to satisfy safety and benefit considerations of the FDA, pharmaceutical companies conduct on average ten to fifteen years of research on a new medication. Approval of a new drug is a rigorous process and for every 5,000 to 10,000 compounds tested, only one receives FDA approval and becomes a new or improved treatment. The entire U.S. pharmaceutical industry spent an estimated $51.3 billion on research and development in 2005″ (“Pharmaceutical Industry”). this quote gives a clear explanation as to why dietary supplements need tighter regulation. Drug companies have such a hard time passing their products that they spend ten to fifteen years on research, and for all the ones that are tested only one gets approved. If dietary supplements had to follow this kind of regulation there would be a whole lot less dangerous supplements out there. If you don’t have to pass tests before sale then you are going to get your product out there as quick as possible and test safety later. That’s what the supplement industry does, and to be honest I would to if I thought I had a good product and could make millions right away. Who wouldn’t?

A certain type of Ephedra is the main problem with the drug being so dangerous anyway. The Ma Huang form of the Ephedra causes the severe problems and is the main type banned by the FDA(“Is Ephedra Legal”). In this case the actual Ephedra drug is not as harmful as talked about. It has a bad rap as a whole because of the one type produced out there. If the benefit of Ephedra could be harnessed and used as good, not in the Ma Huang form, it could be a very beneficial product to be used. The FDA may not just want to look into better safety measures and regulations, but research and development too of the supplements. They may need to study more on them in not just safety, but more into the herbal ingredients that they allow to be put in so easily. It all comes down to better regulating and studying into the industry. They act like it’s the red-headed step child of the family the way they regulate it.

A dietary supplement is just too dangerous of a product to not have these tighter regulations on it as drugs do. If drugs and supplements can both cause severe health risks and death, then shouldn’t both have to follow strict rules of safety to be passed before sale? Of course they should, and shown above the rules and safety testing after supplements have been put on sale is too risky. Dietary supplements are just ticking time bombs ready to explode unless we get a better grip on their regulation and production. The effects of putting out the time and work to regulate these products better greatly out weigh the risk of users losing their lives. The Metabolife 356 easily met the standards set today for dietary supplements and just as easily killed while out on the market. There is no argument against this tighter regulation and better safety protocol. Drugs have been greatly affected by tight rules, and even though it doesn’t catch all of the bad ones it stops most of them. That’s all the supplements need is something trying to stop bad products before sale to make it a safer industry. Before this industry goes out of control and every product is out there hurting the user, the FDA must nip this in the bud and make it more of the industry it’s suppose to be. Dietary supplements are a healthy benefit industry, not a healthy death industry as their regulation leaves them to become today.

Work Cited 

“Browsing Store.” Netnutri.com. Netnutri, 2009. Web. 16 Apr. 2012.

“Dietary Supplements.” Background Information: — Health Professional Fact Sheet. National Institutes of Health, 24 June 2011. Web. 16 Apr. 2012.

“Ingredients — Ephedrine.” Ingredients. Web. 16 Apr. 2012.

“Is Ephedra Legal?” Ephedra Diet Pills, Ephedra Weight Loss Products, Buy Ephedrine! Web. 16 Apr. 2012.

“Pharmaceutical Industry.” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 2008. Retrieved April 16, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com:

“What Is Ephedrine?” Ephedrine (Ephedra) Legal Advice: Speak to Lawyers Handling Injuries Associated Ephedra. Web. 16 Apr. 2012.