Current Event: “Sitting is Bad For Children, Too”
Have you ever heard of it being bad to sit down for a while? Well in the article “Sitting is Bad for Children, Too” from The New York Times, recent studies of young, healthy girls have proved that if children sit in a single session for a prolonged time it can affect their blood flow and arteries that, in adults, can become the start of serious cardiovascular problems. This series of studies have gone through different types like sitting still for a certain amount of time to riding a bike and then just relaxing for 3 uninterrupted hours on the couch. All the studies came to the same conclusion: their arteries did not function the same way as they did in the beginning. Of course they went back to normal very rapidly, it’s just the fact they weren’t functioning as well as they were before. So, every kid (or really anyone at all) should be encouraged to at least get up every hour to get their blood flow going. This article really caught my attention, because being a student, I’m one of those people that sit around for 8.5 hours a day on average in a classroom or even at home while doing homework. This event showed me that right now, my arteries are slowly functioning worse and worse. It makes me want to get up and move around so I don’t have cardiovascular problems in my future. Sure, every teenager would love to sit around all day and just play on their high-tech-21st-century phones, but now reading this, I’m not so sure having those “lazy days” are worth it when you think about your future health risks. This article puts an impact on the world because, most teenagers are like this, including myself. We’ll get home from a hard volleyball or football practice, and all we want to do is sit down and rest for as long as we can. But the problem with that, is that we are slowly but surely putting health risks in our future. Although the arteries go back to normal, it’s affecting us in a long-term way. The bad thing about this study, is the fact the the young girls they studied on, had no struggle at all to sit still for 3 long hours, just as long as they were entertained by Movies and iPads. With all the new technology, it doesn’t surprise me that teenagers and kids across the globe are sitting down an average of 8.5 hours daily.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/09/23/sitting-is-bad-for-children-too/?ref=health
Current Events: “732,000: Americans Lives Saved by Vaccination”
My article basically explains that all the children that are vaccinated between the years of 1994-2013 have prevented 732,000 early deaths in the United States. “732,000: American Lives Saved by Vaccination” from New York Times gives the percentages of all the main vaccines that children get including DTaP, polio,measles, Haemophilus influenzae Type B, hepatitis B, chickenpox, and pneumococcus. All of the children that got those series of vaccinations are not only being prevented from getting the virus/bacteria, but they’re also preventing early deaths in the U.S. Another great thing about all these high percentages, it shows that all of these parents care for the well being of their own children. I think that the parents taking initiative and getting their kids vaccinated is a fantastic thing on their part. And of course, the parents who are below the poverty line and can’t afford vaccines, I can understand their situation and how they couldn’t get their kids cleared. My mother is a germ-a-phob, if there’s anyway possible my sisters and I won’t get sick, we do it. Germ-x’s in our lunch boxes, vaccines, medicine, vitamin C, ANYTHING. So knowing that all the vaccines I have gotten since I’ve been alive (since 2000), have let me know I’m one of the kids that have prevented one of the 732,000 deaths. This event impacts the world because it’s prevented hundreds of thousands of early deaths. That’s an enormous amount of people that have been saved just by a series of shots. In the article, it states that vaccines alone have prevented around 322 million illnesses and 21,000 hospitalizations over the past two decades, saving health care a net savings or $1.38 trillion. All of these small, sometimes painful shots have saved the lives of many and also our economy by saving our health care tons of money. Just like Dr. Cohn says in the article, “We sometimes forget how much disease we’re preventing” with just vaccines.
Current Events: “Why Do We End Summer So Early?”
This article is mainly just answering the question every teenager thinks: Why is summer already over? The title is “Why Do We End Summer So Early?” written by Aimee Lee Ball from New York Times. My article seems like it’s coming straight from a teenager, listing lyrics to relate to topics, asking and answering all the questions even myself would think of, and just asking why summer has to end that first week of September. In the article there is a source from a local architect in New York City, and he believes that because most Americans love their job and wouldn’t be doing it if they didn’t, there’s a certain urge to want to go back to work after Labor Day. But really, it’s the parents of teenagers and kids who are really benefited from the whole “back to school” thing because they don’t have pesky kids around them 24/7. I believe that the sources the writer has gotten, the voice in the article, and the teenage-like aspects have really made me thought that this article can relate to me, and I agree with nearly all of it. To me, summer is a time full of fun. When it ends, I have football season to cheer for and that makes me excited. Even though we have school, summer ending for me isn’t such a bad thing. School may be boring and a dreadful thing to have to wake up for, but those Friday night make up for it all. The event of Summer ending impacts the lives of students, going back to school, having the responsibility of being on time instead of sleeping all day, and having homework every night. In the summer, for the most part, there’s really none of that to have to worry about. Another thing that the change from Summer to Fall impacts is the fashion industry. All the stores wipe out their summer clothes and put all the latest fall trends in stores as fast as possible. Students and the fashion industries are just two of the many changes that the switch from Summer to Fall has caused.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/05/fashion/why-do-we-end-summer-so-early.html?ref=fashion&_r=0