Fitness in VideoGames

In this article they discuss the emergence of the wii fit and its significance toward the unification of gaming and exercise. Along with this they also talk about how while Nintendo has the only system out now that incorporates exercise both Sony and Microsoft are working on creating their own motion sensitive joysticks along with other technologies to try and pry into that area of sales. Also they talk about a new technology being developed by Nintendo called My Shape "The game utilizes a digital camera plugged into the Wii which scans players' bodies. Many of the "Your Shape" exercises can also incorporate real-life workout equipment, such as free weights and balance balls."(Dereck J. Lang, Msnbc). This shows how much Nintendo is working toward a fitness system in the format of a video game.


Although the wii fit is the first game to incorporate exercise into it so thoroughly it is not the first game nor was it on the first console to incorporate exercise into it. DDR became a popular game in the 1990s. According to research by the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina "21 of 28 children completed Week 12 assessments. Eighty-six percent (18/21) were categorized as high home utilizers of DDR. Physical fitness increased by 6.6%±9.8 of baseline VO2max"(T. Carter Bethea, Ann E. Maloney UNC).

Works Cited

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34381072 Dereck J. Lang "Fitness Video Games are Reshaping Medium" MSNBC updated updated 10:15 a.m. PT, Fri., Dec . 11, 2009

http://apha.confex.com/apha/134am/techprogram/paper_130735.htm T. Carter Bethea, Ann E. Maloney "DANCER: Videogame-based physical activity intervention improves fitness of school-age youth" Published November 8, 2006

Norman Borlaug and Hunger Facts

In this article by Norman Borlaug he illustrates the growing problem of the green movement and its negative effects on science and the pursuit of larger yielding crops to feed our population. This process he goes on to explain, took many years to achieve and a lot of hard work by people to try and help the world by helping to create more sustainable and better yielding crops. He also talks about how the world could sustain 10 billion people by 2025 if the scientific improvements that have been made are allowed to be implemented on farms. He also talks about how that this is still a problem because if human population keeps growing then their will be problems sustaining our race.

This article is significant because it emphasizes the fact that humans have the capacity to feed our entire population, but if the environmentalists succeed in their plot then it will cause a lot of harm to the poor countries and their populations. The movements by the environmentalists to try and stop scientists from genetically engineer foods that can keep more people alive is a ridiculous goal. However I don't believe they will be successful anyway. The closest example of this I can think of is how at first many people didn't feel that medicine was morally right and while there are still those kind of people who exist they are extremists and the majority of the population accepts it as being beneficial.

In the other article I chose an article put out by the USDA http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/FoodSecurity/ Food Security in the US by Mark Nord and Alisha Coleman-Jensen. This article is about the prevalence of food insecurity in 2007 and 2008. The article states that in 2008 the food insecurity levels in the US were at the highest recorded levels since they started conducting the survey in 1995. This is relevant because it points out that its not just third world countries that are prone to starvation,there is hunger here in the united states. I plan to use this article in paper three by emphasizing the point that food needs to be industrialized the way it is for our population to survive. Along with this i plan to use the statistics that our government has put out as evidence that the lack of food in the world should be an important issue and that convincing less developed countries not to is only causing death and suffering as the smelly hippies live unaffected by the problems they are causing. If they were to really consider the mortality rates of people starving compared to the mortality rates of diseases caused by the foods we eat maybe they would see things differently.

Chapters 18, 19, and 20

In these Chapters Pollan explores the most natural way of acquiring food to eat. He goes out to hunt for a pig in the woods and then picks mushrooms out in the Forrest and acquires each part of the meal with people who know whats safe to eat and what is not. His doing this represents the way man survived before industrialization. Throughout his experiences in collecting the food he feels the satisfying feelings of hunting and gathering and the euphoric feeling of hunting that pollan describes as a marijuana like high. The main point of this being the opposite extreme of the fast food meal. After enjoying the hard earned meal he compares it to the one that he and his family ate for "14 bucks for the three of us that was consumed in ten minutes at sixty-five miles per hour"(Pollan 410). This statement shows the extreme industrialization that our country has grown through and compares it to the roots of human survival which was hunting and gathering.

Looking back at the book it shows you what industrialization has done to our food and how it is bad for the animals and the farms there on. However at the end of all of this it is this that has allowed America to adequately feed the large majority of our citizens and at the same time, the convenience of being able to eat that meal in ten minutes at 60 miles per hour.

chapters 16 & 17

In this reading Pollan talks to us about how the slaughterhouses try and hide the killing of their animals. He goes on to talk about how it has become easier as Americans to eat animals without thinking about it because it is delivered to us as meat and we never have to see the animal. After this He talks about a meal he shares with Peter Singer an animal rights advocate and his experience during that meal. Singers argument is that as Americans we are taught to believe that all people are created equal, and that is meant metaphorically and that it should extend to animals.

Although Singer says that animals should share rights with humans I believe that it is inevitable for people to kill and eat animals. The basic circle of life is that bigger animals eat smaller animals which eventually die and in turn provide fertilizer or food for the smaller animals. To try and stop eating animals would be trying to change basic human nature and would be counter productive toward the evolution which has lead our species to be the dominant life form on the planet. Killing and eating animals is only natural and if you observe the natural order of things in nature then you see time and time again that animals kill and eat each other to survive.

Chapters 8, 10, 11

In chapter 8 of "The Omnivores Dilemma" pollan describes his experience on the Polyface farm and compares it to the Naylor farm. In this comparison he goes over the differences in the two farms, such as the sources of energy the type of crop along with each farms intended market. While doing so he reveals to us that there are many similarities between farms that are organic and farms that aren't organic. He then goes on to say "Polyface Farm is technically not an organic farm"(131). Upon reading about how the Polyface farm is almost self reliable and uses different animals along with their waste product to produce a small scale ecosystem of his own I was shocked upon reading that it isn't an organic farm when the farmer himself says "it is exactly the model God used in building nature"(215). His farm is what I would have pictured as an organic farm before reading this book, and this leads me to the conclusion that organic farming was a marketing scam created to steal our money. When people expect that their food is grown naturally when buying a product they expect a farm similar to the Polyface farm. The fact that farms like that can't even label themselves as such is ridiculous and has convinced me even further that buying organic products is a waste of my time.

Reading Response #1

So far in the readings of the Omnivores Dilemma Michael Pollan describes to us the domestication and industrialization of corn. He starts by telling us about the origin of corn and maize and how it came to be a part of American Agriculture. He then goes on to talk about how it affects the farmers that grow the corn. To illustrate this Pollan talks about a farmer from Iowa who grows corn and his personal story, along with this he shares with us the effects that advancing technology has on the industry. He points out that technology allows more corn to be grown then ever before, and because of this farmers produce to much which only decreases the price of corn. In the following chapters Pollan begins to discuss the consumers and how we are effected by the rise of corn. He explains that corn is a very energy dense food and that it is very cheap, due to it's very low price it made it's way into soft drinks and all of our food. Pollan suggests that it is because of this rise of corn that fast food and calories have become so cheap that America has gotten fat. By examining these two chapters together I have drawn the conclusion that because it is developing technology that has pushed corn to such a cheap price and because of that cheap price that is causing America to get fat, that ultimately it is technology that is causing America to get fat. It is because of this and the fact that technology is constantly improving and therefore making corn cheaper that I believe that America will continuously gain weight until type 2 diabetes achieves a higher mortality rate than lung cancer.