Even though I finished writing blog post 8, it was difficult to decide one of five possible design responses. I was considering between 2 design responses as my final proposal. At that time, my peers helped me to choose one of them. They gave me good comments on each design response, and let me go with application service design on the final stage. What is more, the feedback from peers was useful to develop the design because my draft proposal was not enough to understand how the design works properly. They pointed out the things that I missed and suggested to make my design being strong.
Revised Proposition
Project title: Hey mate!
Practice type: Application – Service design
The issue: Being sedentary brings about diverse physical and mental problems such as obesity, lower back pain and depression. People have already recognized how harmful being sedentary is. However, some people need to be sedentary, especially if they do sedentary work. Also, it is hard to change their fixed lifestyle immediately due to the lack of willpower, tired and lazy after work.
The aim: There are no reminders that they need to avoid living sedentary lifestyle for their healthy living. It aims to give not only awareness, but also remind the office workers of caring about their health, and suggest doing some physical actions like simple stretching.
The function and process of application:
Companies can install this application on their employees’ computers to encourage them doing some physical actions during work and after work.
– The application is able to recognize the workers’ computer activities, and interpret that same as sitting hours.
– The application pops up the text with moving images in a window to suggest doing simple physical actions.
– The text is in friendly tone, and the illustration will be humorous to give a little fun during work.
e.g. text: “Hey, mate! I feel so numb! Can you make me feel better?”
Illustration: the butt part with text in speech bubble
– It also shows simple actions how to stretch that part.
Examples of the texts with illustration in windows
The Possible change:
– The office workers can be active during work and after work by reminding them of it.
– They may change their sedentary lifestyle to active lifestyle slowly via this application.
– They may be smile due to the humorous text with the illustration.
After delivering my revised proposition to peers and the tutors, I could recognize what is the strength of my design properly. In addition, I got the idea how I should propose my possible design through the feedback. Therefore, I am going to push the strength on final proposal, and describe the process of using the application by diagram and map.
Blog post. 9 Visual documentation of the brainstorming session
Written by Hyunjoung You
5’W’
I was quite enjoyed doing 5’W’ process. This exercise helped me to narrow down to specific one issue, and it also organized my idea in a logical. It was appropriate approach to draw clear problem statement, and identify what I have to look at more and design for it.
Brainstorming for possible design responsesBrainstorming map after feedback
As you can see two above images, I needed to brainstorming for possible design responses. Our tutors let us divide into three practice types for brainstorming: service design, data visualization and generative system. It made me having diverse types of design response. If it was not divided like that, I came up with limited practice types of design. Other process was sharing ideas to each group member’s brainstorming map. My group members’ issue was also obesity and healthy living, so they all have some knowledge of the subject. They were able to give some more platforms such as magazine and postcard that I could not come up with. However, they do not have deeper understanding of the association between sedentary work and health (my specific issue); hence, it was hard to obtain the contents which would be in design. Overall, it was nice opportunity to draw suitable possible design responses for my issue.
Blog post 8. Brainstorming possibilities for a design response
Written by Hyunjoung You
After finished mapping and further research for my specific issue, I found that sedentary work could cause diverse disease such obesity, physical and mental problem. In week 6’s tutorial, we started to brainstorm the possibilities for a design response to our issue. Our tutor let us brainstorm via 5‘W’ at first to analyze the problem and draw problem statement.
5’W’ Analyzing problem
The problem : Sedentary work linked to physical and mental health such as obesity, backache and depression.
1. WHO does the problem affect?
People who do sedentary work such as office worker, designer, driver and students are affected by this problem. They usually work using computers and need to sit down for a while.
2. WHAT are the boundaries of the problem?
Lack of willpower
In fact, people are aware of how sedentary lifestyle affects their health negatively. However, it is really difficult to change their lifestyle since they used to live sedentary lifestyle. People are already exposed to comfortable lifestyle; thus, they began to prefer driving car rather than taking walk or riding bicycles; using lifts or elevators rather than climbing stairs. Therefore, people need more reminders to act by themselves for their health.
Work Environment
The employees do not really move their body at workplaces because they are able to work sitting down on the chairs. Most workers might move when they have lunch times. Moreover, most offices have lifts or elevators, so the workers do not have chances to even a short walk. The companies have responsibilities for their employees’ health because working hours are not short.
3. WHEN does the problem occur?
When people do not do physical activities at all, the problem occurs.
– Constantly sitting down
4. WHERE does the problem occur?
Companies / Home / School / University
5. WHY is it important? Why we have to look at it, and why we have to design for it?
Healthy living is one of important things to improve people’s life quality. It does not mean not only physically healthy, also mentally healthy. However, being sedentary affect both of physical and mental health negatively that is why we should look at this issue, and design for it.
5 ‘W’, one of brainstorming exercise, helped me to drew the problem statement.
Problem Statement
How do we make / motivate people being active from sedentary ?
Five Possibilities
I divided into three sections. They are service design, generative system, and data visualisation to come up with five possible designs are based on the problem statement.
Physical activities programs and products (Service design)
Company can provide their employees with some physical activities programs such as morning yoga and after-work team sports. Also, they can offer the products that prevent the employees from being sedentary during work: standing desk, massage chair or running machine with desk.
Exhibition (Generative system)
To give awareness how being sedentary lifestyle is harmful, we can hold small exhibition in public / open space. The exhibition would display photography or art works that are caused by a sedentary lifestyle such as the illustration of obesity, photography of person who suffers lower back pain, or express anxiety. The last piece at the exhibition shows sedentary lifestyle: constantly sitting, lying on the bed, and watching TV, etc. People will realize that sedentary lifestyle brings about lots of problem not only physical problems, also mental problems; therefore, it will help them to remind of it.
Postcard in magazine (Service design + generative system + data visualization)
Government or organizations that are related to public health provide the companies with lifestyle magazine to inform how bad sedentary work is and obtain the data from the survey. We can create infographic design to explain about the problems of sedentary work on one page or more. Moreover, we need to put the postcard in the back, which includes the survey is asking about their daily routine. One of the questions would be ‘how long they are sedentary per day?’ Thus, we can use the results of the survey to create data visualization as a further possibility.
App (Service design)
The function of this application is asking the employees to do some physical activities and care about their health. Company can install the application in their employees’ computers to motivate them to move.
Short video (Service design)
We can create the video to promote physical activities. The video shows how to do simple exercise that office workers can do at their workplaces. The length of video is be about 5 minutes, and it plays before quitting time. Therefore, the office workers can refresh by simple work out before leaving the offices, and feel better.
I am still considering between exhibition and app as my final design response at the moment. However, I already explained more detail about exhibition, so I would like to talk about the application.
Through 5 ‘W’, I analyzed that people have already recognized about the negative effects of being sedentary. However, one of the barriers to not being sedentary was the lack of willpower. Especially, the office workers do not have time to do some physical activities. They used to live sedentary lifestyle, so it would be difficult to change their lifestyle immediately. I found that the better way to motivate them being active during work or after work is reminding them of being active.
Draft Proposal
Sedentary lifestyle brings about diverse physical and mental problems such as obesity, lower back pain, and depression. However, some people need to be sedentary, especially, if they do sedentary work.
My issue is “How do we prevent the office workers from being sedentary?” I aim to encourage the office workers to do some physical actions during work or after work via my proposal. The design type is application (service design). Companies can install this application on their employees’ computers. The application will pop up the text in a window, which is asking to do some physical actions for the workers’ health by periods. The text will have friendly tone, so it might give little fun in their tired and repeated working lifestyle.
In week 5, our group shared each thought about obesity, and we created mapping for the actor in controversy, which is related to obesity issue. It was opportunity to expand and obtain the knowledge about controversial issue of obesity. We are divided into 5 sections: people, emotion, behaviour, barrier, and environment. The mapping is shown below:
Mapping for the actor in controversy
After finished the above mapping, I narrowed down the topic to ‘sedentary lifestyle’. I found ‘Active lifestyle’ as opposite side to my topic, and I figured out the controversy between sedentary lifestyle and active lifestyle by classifying into 6 categories: people, emotion, behaviour, barrier, environment, and society / network. While I created this mapping, I recognized there are lots of associates and causes of sedentary lifestyle. Moreover, I discovered the associates were busy modern people, disabled people, and people who have sedentary work. This means that busy lifecycle and their environments bring about sedentary lifestyle except disabled people. Therefore, I would like to do further research about work environment since I have thought it is hard to do physical activities after hard work. I believe that their workplace environment is the most effective solution to people escape from sedentary lifestyle. Hence, I decided to make actor mapping using sedentary work.
Controversy mapping
To create actor mapping, I should think about different aspects of sedentary work: trigger, capacities, associates, politics, value alignments, weak connections, hierarchies, issues and challenges.
Actor mapping
It helped me to organize diverse factors surrounding sedentary work properly: the associates are related to sedentary work, the results by sedentary work, and issues and challenges. Especially, issues and challenges was useful aspect to come up with the possible actions to change. Also, it made me consider the barriers would come along to practice these possible actions. Here are possible solutions to sedentary work:
– The companies provide the employees with some programs or work environment to promote their physical activities such as morning yoga program, team sports activities, and standing desk.
– Creating info graphic poster to help the employees being aware of the importance of physical activities to prevent from being obese.
– Short animation or visual narrative about how sedentary lifecycle affects negatively to people.
Twitter is a popular social networking tool that allows users to send a short, mostly text-based message up to 140 characters long known as a ‘tweet’. These tweets are then published online and can be publicly viewed. Twitter users can post their own tweets, follow the tweets of other users or contribute to a wider online discussion based on a particular topic or event.
Twitter is fast personal communication. People can share personal insights on something with other people. Moreover, they can follow the celebrities and send feedback on any events such as a live television show. It is also commonly referred to as a short web log (blog). Social Media News Australia reported that Twitter becomes Australia’s most popular social media microblogging tool with approximately 2.8 million unique visitors in Australia and over 300 million users worldwide in the early of 2016.
My research process
My specific topic is the association between sedentary lifestyle and obesity. Therefore, I searched using keyword ‘Obesity’, ‘Fat’, ‘Sedentary’, and ‘Lifestyle’ at first.
Twitter Archiver Research 1 – #obesity #fat #sedentary #lifestyle
The data that came out on the list was exactly same as what I though about. However, as you can see the above screen shot, only one tweet showed since I used too specific keywords. I realized that I needed to use more general and suitable words to collect useful data.
Twitter Archiver Research 2 – #obesity #fat
This is the result by researching using keywords of ‘obesity’ and ‘fat’. I could receive lots of personal insights about obesity, but it was hard to find the information what I looked for because keyword was so broad to bring about specific data. Nevertheless, there were few results were related to my topic. After this, I searched using keywords ‘lifestyle’ and ‘office’ as well; however, it was not enough to gather useful data. Hence, I moved on Twitter search engine.
As you can see the above images, I typed three words ‘fat’, ‘sitting’, and ‘office’, which are more related to my topic. Many tweets came out, and they all indicated that sedentary work made them being fat. It shows that many people already recognize sedentary lifestyle is associated with obesity, but all tweets were their feelings about being fat like sad or anger. There were no any solutions or ideas for that issue.
While I scraped data via Twitter Archiver and Twitter search engine, I found how they were useful tool to discover information what I looked at using simple keywords. Twitter Archiver offered the list, which included the keywords I typed. It helped me to recognize what kinds of issues people share and discuss nowadays. Also, it provided wider knowledge that is related to obesity issue. Overall, I could have a look different personal insights and opinions about specific issues. It is really good to know them as a designer because we have responsibility to act for people needs and build the solutions to solve problems. Therefore, it is appropriate tool to scrape data to understand specific issue and personal insights.
Blog Post 5: Approaches to design for change, design-led ethnography
Written by Hyunjoung You
I have conducted the interview about obesity & healthy living to my specific issue to my interviewee in the class. There are five findings from this primary research.
1. Interesting issue about obesity & healthy living
The interviewee was more interested in right diet than other issues that are related to obesity and healthy living. She thought that people do not have enough knowledge what diet is good for their health and preventing from being obese. Therefore, she believed the early education is important so people can use to have proper diets.
Through her answer, I realized people were aware of the importance of right diet. However, there are no opportunities that people learn which diet is better properly. I thought children education would be helpful to solve future problem is being obesity to children.
2. Major contributors of obesity & healthy living
Modern culture & busy life
The interviewee said it is one of major contributors to obesity & healthy living. Many people do not have time to do exercise, and cook at home. Today people prefer eating outside or buying takeaway food due to convenience. Also, some people pursue their convenience too much; even though the distance is short, some people choose driving car rather than taking walk.
Advertisement industry
The interviewee talked about food advertisement as well. She could see lots of soft drink like Coca Cola or junk food ads, but it is hard to find the advertisements for alcohol, soft drink or food by healthy companies.
Education
She pointed out the lack of education about right diet in childhood. Children education is important to prevent from being obesity. She believed that eating habit could make people being healthier or not.
Three contributors that the interviewee came up with obesity & healthy living were all appropriate. Besides, I found three of them are related to my issue. It seems like busy life tend to make people living sedentary lifestyle. In addition, the environment they live in has more unhealthy food shops than healthier food shops. Therefore, it might bring about a limited choice of diets to people.
3. Active urban design prevents obesity or not
My interviewee was not sure if active urban design could prevent obesity. However, she was certain that it could help public health in general; more green spaces and better recreational areas can encourage people to exercise more. She also gave me the example that is dedicated urban bicycle lanes are really helpful for people who are thinking about cycling especially in Australia, as it can be dangerous to cycle on roads. Additional parks and green spaces are also good for promoting the community to do physical activities.
My interview has a broad understanding of the association between our environment and public health. This shows how our environment impacts on our health.
4. The possible opposition to active urban design
The interviewee thought there would probably be opposing views of creating active urban design since everyone would always have different opinions. However, she did not think that the disagreement was based on whether or not they wanted to have health promoting urban design. The disagreement might be going to be about what kinds of urban design in specific that is needed in the area. She said there would be concerns, for example, do we want to build a cool playground for kids or build a public gym? She was sure this was the type of opposing opinion happened all the time.
I realized that I overlooked the thing that my interviewee pointed out. It was nice time to think about other issues about this solution.
5. The ideas for preventing obesity
She mentioned about children education again, but she thought urban design and children education could be connected. For example, growing plants or fruit by children in specific areas to help them have right diets.
I thought it was good idea combining both ideas together. Hence, children can be familiar to eating vegetables and healthy food, and some parts of urban design create by public.
Probe
After the interview, due to my issue that I have looked at so far is about the association between environment and obesity & healthy living. Therefore, I wondered the environment around her in particular to food industry. I asked she usually cook at home or not, and then, she said that she normally ate food outside. Therefore, I asked her to capture the map of her place to see what kinds of food industry are located in.
This image was from my interviewee, and she put the red lines on the place where she normally went to eat. She also mentioned there are some missing shops like KFC, sushi shop, and lots of takeaway food shops between building 6 and central station such as Thai, Chinese, and sandwich shop, and so on. She lives in UTS accommodation that is why she usually has food around there. She added there are not much healthy food shops compares to sugary or junk food shops; therefore, she does not have many choices to choose healthier foods.
Through this probe, even though I looked at the food environment of small area, I could find that many people are already exposed to those kinds of food industry. The way to prevent it is only a change of our environment for people. We need to choose healthier choices easily in our environment, and it can be happened by our acts. It might be one of our responsibilities; everyone should be aware of it, and act now.
After primary research, I could see what is difference between primary research and secondary research. When I used secondary research to write previous blog posts, secondary research includes existing research, and involves analysis or literature reviews. However, primary research, especially conducting interview and probe by one person was personal. Thus, I could get diverse perspectives of the issue by different people; they have different opinions and ideas, so it is really helpful to come up with the thoughts that I could not have.
Group mapping of Obesity & Healthy living in class
Environment we live in (Stakeholders / Values) mapping in class
During the class, our group created the mapping for issue, which is related to obesity and healthy living. Also, we made stakeholders mapping; we divided into 2 sections for stakeholders like human and non-human. This exercise helped to build the knowledge about diverse issues are associated with our topic (obesity and healthy living). In later class, we wrote down the words are linked to our topic. We shared each group words, and checked what they were interested in the words. For our group words, the most interesting word was ‘Active design’, and then, ‘Healthcare professional’, ‘Public health’, ‘Environment’, and ‘Healthy lifestyle’, and so on. I realized most of words are related to my specific issue that is the association between active urban design and obesity. Therefore, if I keep looking at this issue and trying to make better ideas, it would be definitely interesting to many designers and design students. In addition, there are many interesting words from other groups what I could not come up with even few words describe my issue properly. Thus, it was useful exercise to get the point of what I have to go with my issue.
10 Image Archive
Image 1. Put the Smartphone down: social media use and sleep disturbances linked
First image includes the guy who grabs his mobile cannot fall in sleep properly. This describes using smart phone for a long time brings about sleep disturbance. Nowadays, modern people often use social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, etc. They use their mobile to keep checking social media, and it is still happened before people go to bed. Deep sleep is necessary to good health; therefore, this image shows technology is also one of distractions to healthy living.
Image 2. Dove Real Beauty campaign
In post 1, I already have written about the issue, which is related to this image. This image aims to women have the confidence with their natural bodies. However, the article what I read in post 1 insists that ‘real’ from that slogan could be problem because there are no standard for normal and real body. Also, it highlights these kind of campaign might lead to negative effect on public’s lifestyle and eating behavior. Therefore, this image is controversial even the purpose is good.
Image 3. Disease trigger
Right diet is one of significant factor to healthy living. As you can see this image, today many young girls have wrong beauty standard, for example, skinny is prettier. They become being very self-conscious, and they cannot be satisfied with them. It causes eating disorder such as overeating or anorexia; and this image is one of example showing anorexia successfully.
Image 4. Are You Eating Your Feelings?
The person eats the cookies with the different feelings in this poster. It shows people can overeat due to their feelings especially when their feelings are sad, tired, stressed, depressed, lonely, or anxiety. As you can the words in the cookies, all words represent negative feelings. The poster emphasises that people should stop overeating by bad feelings; they should find other appropriate solutions except overeating to make them feel better.
Image 5. How Coca-Cola, Britvic and Innocent are tackling the sugar issue
This image shows how soft drink has lots of sugar successfully. Therefore, it helps people being aware of it, and people can avoid drinking soft drink much. People are easy to addict sugar, so reducing sugar intake is really important thing to be healthy and avoid being obesity. This image is also used to support ‘sugar tax’ that I already mentioned in post 1; 20% tax on sugary drinks and sweets to help people reduce their daily sugar intake.
Image 6. Sedentary Lifestyle is a Health Risk
The potato is on the couch in this image. This points out an increase in sedentary lifestyle today. Many people prefer convenience; therefore, people tend to find easier ways when they travel, go or do something. They do not have enough physical activities, so it would bring about health risk such as heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer, and high blood pressure. Although this image describes sedentary lifestyle, it will lead to awareness to people.
Image 7. Urbanism as a public health issue: Oklahoma City’s battle with obesity
The silhouette of obese person is in front of many junk food shops. This illustration highlights urbanism as a public health issue, and it also says that urban environment should change for public health. I posted the design guidelines about this issue in post 4. This image shows the real environment that affects public health negatively. If there are less unhealthy food shops in our environment, it will definitely helpful to public health. However, there would be many objections by especially junk food and sugary food industry.
Image 8. Killer at Large
This image is a documentary poster. It includes the fries in the cigarette packet. People recognize how smoking cigarettes is harmful for the health. The image uses that common sense to let people realize how junk food is also as bad for our health as smoking.
Image 9. What are you letting your child put in his mouth?
This image is United Way + American Heart Association joint campaign poster. The poster has gun shape of the chocolate with the texts below it. It points out children obesity can be prevented by parent’s right diet education. The visual aspect and the phrase are appropriate to describe how right diet is important to children.
Image 10. Obesity is Suicide
This image is a campaign poster to raise awareness of obesity. This poster might be sensational, but it will make people to think that obesity affects their health negatively. Thus, people try to choose healthier choices, not unhealthy things.
Blog Post 4. Identifying and collecting a design example
Written by Hyunjoung You
While I wrote blog post 2, I could obtain useful information that is related to the association between obesity and food advertising. Blog post 2 gave me opportunity to think how our environment affects our healthy living once again. Therefore, I looked back the issue of obesity and healthy living, and thought what we can do for this issue as a designer. I believed the most effective design for obesity and healthy living is good urban design. Urban design is the closet factor to people today, so urban design might influence public health positively if it is well designed to let people choose healthier choices.
Active Design Guidelines: Promoting Physical Activity and Health in Design
I found ‘The Active Design Guidelines: Promoting Physical Activity and Health in Design’ is introduced by The New York City Departments of Design and Construction (DDC), Health and Mental Hygiene, Transportation (DOT), and City Planning. The Active Design Guidelines (2010) states the problems of obesity and with it type 2 diabetes are getting worse rapidly in New York City. It is caused by population’s over-consumption of calories, which is formed by the built environment in which we live, work, and play. The Guidelines aim to encourage physical activity by providing appropriate design of environment such as promoting stair climbing, walking, bicycling, transit use, active recreation, and healthy eating.
Summer Streets is a program of the NYC Department of Transportation in which designated routes are temporarily closed to motor vehicles and opened to people for walking, bicycling, running, and exercising over multiple weekends. Park AvenueResearch has suggested that greater land use mix is correlated with lower obesity. Partial land use male of New York City, showing the intense mix of land uses in the city.
Blog post 2. Building my expertise using scholarly secondary sources
Written by Hyunjoung You
Outdoor advertising, obesity, and soda consumption: a cross-sectional study
This study is written by Lesser (Department of Health Policy), Zimmerman (of Health Services) and Cohen (RAND Corporation). They stated that obesity is one of the most intractable health problems, and they described food marketing is a major contributor to cause obesity. They looked at not only the association between outdoor food advertising, the consumption and obesity, but also, difference in obesity rates among socioeconomic, racial and ethnic groups. As a result, they discovered interesting result; living in high SES zip code was mostly protecting from exposure to outdoor food ads regardless of race and ethnicity. Thus, they suggested that reducing the amount of food ads in urban areas. Furthermore, they recommended that
innovative strategies such as warning labels, counter-advertising or a tax on obesogenic advertising should be tested as possible public health interventions for reducing the prevalence of obesity.
I think that a tax on obesogenic advertising is better way than sugar tax. I believe that it is more reasonable and effective solution to consumers and companies.
Restricting marketing to children: Consensus on policy interventions to address obesity
This journal is written by Raine (Centre for Health Promotion Studies), Lobstein (International Association for the Study of Obesity), Landon (National Heart Forum) and et al. They points out the seriousness of childhood obesity,
“500,000 children are obese, and child and youth overweight/obesity rates in 2007 – 2009 were double than those of 1981.”
They note that the causes of obesity are multifactorial, but they highlight unhealthy diet and inadequate physical activity as major obesity determinants. Therefore, policies should make environments that help healthy choices easier and create chance to accomplish healthy weights.
They study the political environment, issues, evidence and challenges of placing prohibitions on marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages. Moreover, they suggest:
A Canadian (federal) government-led national regulatory system prohibiting all commercial marketing of foods and beverages to children under 18 years of age, with exceptions for ‘approved public health campaigns promoting healthy diets’.
That regulators set minimum standards, assure monitoring of compliance, and impose penalties for non-compliance.
Recommendations for standards specific to surveillance, monitoring, and enforcement of compliance:
Creation of an independent body responsible for monitoring compliance, investigating consumer complaints, advocating healthier media influence, and working with industry for compliance.
Regular and determined enforcement with clear penalties for non-compliance.
I do agree with this journal. I believe environment should make people to choose healthier choices easier, and it is the most important for public health. In addition, I think that children would lead world in the future, so helping them to live healthy lifestyle is one of our duties. Children are too young to control by themselves properly, so junk food or sugary drinks advertising should restrict to them.
Raine, K, Lobstein, T., Landon, J., Kent, M.P., Pellerin, S., Caulfield, T., Finegood, D., Mongeau, L., Neary, N. & Spence, J.C. 2013. ‘Restricting marketing to children: Consensus on policy interventions to address obesity’, Journal of Public Health Policy, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 239-253, viewed 13 August 2016, <http://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/jphp.2013.9>
Blog post 1. Creating a data set – Obesity & Healthy living
Written by Hyunjoung You
Diets and drugs are not enough to tackle obesity
Anna Salleh, a science journalist at ABC Science, is an author of this article. Salleh has written articles that are related to obesity before writing this article such as ‘Brain’s binge eating circuit revealed’ and ‘Cold climates linked to ‘fat’ gut bacteria’. These articles are all based on secondary sources. She does not voice her opinions on them and this article as well.
She points out that preventing from being obesity cannot solve by just diets and drugs; therefore, we should redo obesity research to discover what ‘obesogenic environment’ is properly. She wrote this article based on the research of Professor Stephen Simpson (Academic Director of the Charles Perkins Centre) as secondary source. Simpson highlights that an unhealthy food supply system produces processed food with low in fibre and other essential nutrients due to our political and economic system.
I agree with this article, diets and drugs are not enough to help people to prevent from being obesity. Also, we should solve the problem an unhealthy food supply system. This means that we need to look at our political and economic system as well.
Sprawling Sydney makes it hard to walk and it’s bad for our health
This article is written by Tim Williams, chief executive of the Committee for Sydney from November 2011, was, before coming to Australia, the senior Special Advisor to a number of UK cabinet ministers in the Department of Communities and Local Government.
He has become interested in urban design and health, so he discusses there are not much walkable areas or places in Sydney. He voices his opinion by using the research of Christopher Leinberger (a land use strategist, researcher and author) and SmartGrowth America (advocacy organization for quality of life, economic sustainability and environment). Leinberger finds (2016, para.9) that ‘the cities with the highest levels of walkable urbanism are the most educated and wealthy, and they are the most socially equitable’. By contrast, “drivable suburban approach dominated real estate development” is called as sprawl. The author states that Western Sydney has become the obesity and diabetes centre of Sydney since the area is sprawling parts served by public transport. Therefore, Western Sydney needs to change like Sydney CBD that gives opportunities to walk and have a healthier population.
I reckon the growth of technology has become harming people health. If urban design can bring about positive effect to people health, I think as a design student the author’s position is quite interesting.
Fat can be healthy, so don’t tell me you’re dieting for health reasons
Bethany Rutter is a journalist and blogger who writes about fay bodies, plus-size fashion and body positivity. She writes this article for who has fat bias or who would like to lose weight due to health reasons. The beginning of this article includes the research by Katherine Flegal with the Centers for Disease Control and prevention. The research described a U-shaped curve where death rates were highest with a very high or very low BMI. As a result, the author insists that there are no relations between being slim and healthy living. However, most people believe that eating low calorie food and working out at the gym are virtuous. This means people would take long time to accept thought is being little bit fatter could be helpful to their health. Rutter voices her opinions as a fat activist, so the article becomes more opinion based. She emphasizes that
“Instead of prioritizing weight loss, it considers wider factors, such as quality of life, sense of wellbeing and the psychological benefits that come with a less punitive approach to diet and exercise.”
I agree with Rutter, especially being thin does not mean healthy. Furthermore, I was quite interested in the research that being fatter properly might be beneficial to be healthier. If it is true, people might change their mind-set about being fatter. However, her article is based on more her opinion and experience; thus, I think the article is not much professional.
Study claims ‘plus-size’ models may contribute to obesity epidemic and unhealthy lifestyle choices
Vanessa Brown, a lifestyle reporter at News.com.au, is an author. Brown writes this article for giving different opinions whether the use of plus-size or ‘realistic’ model in ad brings about an increase of obesity rates and poor health choices among consumers or not. She writes this article by according to the study of Simon Fraser University in Canada and the answers from Australian ‘plus-size’ model Laura Wells about using ‘plus-size’ models has a negative impact on the public’s eating behaviour and lifestyle. Dr Lily Lin (lead author and associate professor of Marketing at California State University) said,
“The reasons for the poor health choices are because of the use of reassuring slogans such as ‘real’ and ‘normal’ next to ‘plus-size’ models.”
On the other hand, Laura disagrees with the result from the study. She does not think the use of ‘plus-size’ model makes consumers being obesity and having poor health choices. However, she admit the problem using the word ‘real’ and ‘normal’ on the ad images, regardless of the model size. She adds,
“Everyone is real. Normal comes with what you choose is normal, so I understand that part of the study.”
I totally agree with Laura. I believe that using of ‘plus-size’ model is much better than using just skinny model in ad because skinny models may make consumers having eating disorders. Moreover, I like the recommendation from the study that the advertisers and marketers should use diverse body types and sizes in their ads. It would help people to think they are all normal.
Doctors would welcome 20% sugar drink tax
Australian Associated Press is the author, and AAP writes for presenting a Greens proposal “sugar tax” on soft drinks and fruit juice to tackle Australia’s obesity crisis.
This article is written based on factual, so it cites the study and few identified associations sources. Therefore, AAP states each associations’ the opinions with the reasons about “sugar tax” proposal. AAP also tends to let readers understanding “sugar tax” proposal more easily by reading this article.
One of the associations who agree with “sugar tax” proposal said,
“Sugary drinks are part of the growing obesity problem, the number one health epidemic facing the country.” – Australian Medical Association president Michael Gannon
AAP gives different opinions about this proposal in the article, but they support this proposal to be accepted for healthy living. They highlights that “sugar tax” proposal is
“An educational, not emotional, approach is the only way to achieve better health outcomes.”
I also believe that sugary drinks can be one of contributor to the obesity crisis; however, I do not think drinking sugary drink is the major reason for that, and I doubt if “sugar tax” proposal works properly or not. I reckon sugar is one of daily addiction to people. Thus, it would be hard to change drastically even the proposal is approved.
My specific topic is the association between sedentary lifestyle and obesity. Therefore, I searched using keyword ‘Obesity’, ‘Fat’, ‘Sedentary’, and ‘Lifestyle’ at first.
Emergent Practices 
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