Counterintuitive Spring 2023

The minimum drinking age has caused young adults to, for lack of a better phrase, go crazy when they turn 21. They drink excessively and do not know their limits with alcohol, and in turn go out for a night of drinks and then get behind the wheel to go home, most times not making it there. This shows us that the minimum drinking age results in a higher number of drunk driving incidents once people turn 21. If people are let loose into the world once they turn 21 and have free rein to consume any type and any amount of alcohol they wish they are bound to face a less than favorable outcome. The causes of teen drinking are unknown. There are many factors that can contribute to the need to consume alcohol whether it’s social, mental, or a reaction to environments.

Alcohol causes people to drink, and people drinking causes drunk driving fatalities. This is an inarguable fact. There is not one intelligent person who can confidently say that alcohol does not cause drunk driving. There are many other things that need to be taken into consideration, though. What causes people to drink, what causes people to drink too much, and what causes people to be so irresponsible when it comes to drinking and driving. These questions can be answered by the restrictions put into place by a corrupt system. In this country young adults are prohibited from drinking alcohol until they reach the age that “their brains are fully developed”. Their brains that carry the burdens of constant stress at a time where mental illness is as common as a cold. Is that really the best time to release kids into the world of drinking?

What are the causes for people to believe that having a drinking age of 21 is beneficial? The answer is experience. They know what kind of kids they were. Parents want to protect their children and keep them from experiencing any negative thing that they might’ve experienced themselves. Many adults with children have experienced college, high school, and the downsides that come with them. What these adults forget is that teens will find whatever means possible to reach their goal. Adolescent years are a hard time for many. They can cause depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, substance abuse, and a number of different things, but for now the one that should be focused on is substance abuse. As a result of immense stress people look for ways to relieve that stress and for many college aged students this comes in the form of drinking. Since it can be a lot harder to achieve this while under the age of 21 (but certainly not impossible) many college students abuse alcohol. It is a simple statement because it is a simple fact. Many college students consume more alcohol than they should as a result of stress or different anxieties. When faced with so much trouble that these students are turned to drink, they cannot be expected to make good decisions, especially when under the influence of alcohol. This is the cause of so many young adults making the terrible decisions to drink and drive. When all of these factors are mixed together it produces a recipe for immediate disaster and destruction. As people age and mature they are able to make better decisions when it comes to drinking alcohol and in turn driving under the influence, rather making the decision to not drive even remotely under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Alcohol causes people to drink, and people drinking causes drunk driving fatalities. This is an inarguable fact. There is not one intelligent person who can confidently say that alcohol does not cause drunk driving. There are many other things that need to be taken into consideration, though. What causes people to drink, what causes people to drink too much, and what causes people to be so irresponsible when it comes to drinking and driving. These questions can be answered by the restrictions put into place by a corrupt system. In this country young adults are prohibited from drinking alcohol until they reach the age that “their brains are fully developed”. Their brains that carry the burdens of constant stress at a time where mental illness is as common as a cold. Is that really the best time to release kids into the world of drinking?

This is what I have as a starting point for my causal argument: Puppets view the real world through a unique lens which allows them to communicate to real-world audiences about relatable topics. Since I am researching the connection between puppets and communication in a theatrical setting, I know I need to discuss how puppet’s unique presence on stage connects with a human audience. If you have any suggestions on how to beef up this idea that would be great! Also, if you think I should try using a different form of causal claim, let me know! This is the causal chain because I liked how it sounded best out of all of my claim examples. Thank you and I am eager to start writing this!

Peter Pan and Wendy are Terrible Influences

Bad influences result in more terrible solutions. Poor childhood influences are to blame for Western society’s inability to condemn systematic female oppression. An ongoing crisis, systemic female oppression has led to a fight for power— power available only to men. A childish way of handling differences in opinion, fighting has led women to take the objectification of female virginity men have created and use that objectification as a weapon. In the name of power, women continue to allow misogynistic behavior— romanticizing female virginity in order to fight back and/or to hold power, a behavior learned from men.

            Peter Pan teaches boys that narcissism is an acceptable trait to have in society. Protagonist of the classic play, Peter and Wendy, written and produced by James Matthew Barrier, Peter Pan is a prime example of an exaggerated stereotype— a self-centered, absent-minded boy. Peter Pan inspires young boys alike who watch in awe, lacking a sophisticated mindset to make level-headed judgement. Like sponges, young boys’ minds are weak and absorbent, only able to “pick up” material presented without a second thought. Being so influential, the Peter Pan Syndrome is a metaphor psychologists use to describe adults who have characteristics similar to Peter Pan. Authors Melek Kalkan, Meryem Vural Batik, Leyla Kaya, and Merve Turan of “Peter Pan Syndrome ‘Men Who Don’t Grow’: Developing a Scale” define and outline the Peter Pan Syndrome— a spectrum. Adult males who meet the standards to be placed on the spectrum are often described as: lacking responsibility, immature, lacking sophistication, having the inability to express and process complex human emotion, and most commonly, narcissistic.

Egoistic men take authoritative positions in society which ruin the chance of allowing for  complexity to be a norm in Western societies. Simplicity is the best solution for men that lack the intellectual ability to process such complexities. Female virginity is an umbrella term—ambiguous and multilayered. Understanding female virginity is an individual process, unique to every woman. But often times, women and ideas of what is female virginity are limited to a one line sentence— an over exaggerated stereotype. The deep-rooted patriarchal system in the West is plagued by “Peter Pans—” adult men who refuse to grow up. These power-hungry men achieve simplicity in ambiguous terms such as female virginity by limiting the agency women have in making decisions. Barbara L. Fredrickson and Tomi-Ann Roberts, authors of “OBJECTIFICATION THEORY: Toward Understanding Women’s Lived Experiences and Mental Health Risks,” stresses objectification is used as a tool to degrade women in culture— leading to poor self-worth and anxiety. Objectification is used strategically to place women inferior to men, allowing men to keep and hold power, therefore limiting a woman’s agency. As women are objectified by men, the understanding of female virginity becomes shallow, simple, and misrepresented.

Women allow “Peter Pans” to be accepted in greater society— as women are taught. Another metaphor psychologists use is The Wendy Dilemma— used to describe women who take on a mother’s role in a relationship or marriage, instead of being an affective partner. Wendy is mature, caring, and attentive unlike Peter Pan who is immature and self-centered. Like boys, young girls also watch and absorb characters’ actions. Wendy teaches girls to be accepting of boys’ immaturity and inability to reason. Finally growing up, girls, now women learn to simply shrug off a man’s crudity. Women pacify men, continuing to cater to a man’s every need— as Wendy teaches girls. This process results in an unhealthy dynamic between men and women. A societal game of tug-of-war, this cycle creates a ripple effect. Neil Davidson, author of “Oh Boys! Sex Education and Young Men,” claims that men and women are born with the same emotions. Though, as both men and women grow and progress in life, men are taught to be more masculine while women are taught to be more feminine, Davidson continues. By masculine men are taught to be tougher, stronger, and rougher. In juxtaposition, women are taught to be more feminine which means to be soft spoken, gentle, and attending. As young girls grow into these stereotypical ideas of what a woman should be, girls learn to accept that boys will be Peter Pans— as Wendy teaches girls alike.  

Accepting the nature of men and misogynistic views, women lose power and respect. Desperate, women romanticize female virginity, allowing for continuous objectification and oppression of women alike— all to hold any ounce of power and use that claimed power against men. Laura M. Carpenter, author of “Gender and the Meaning and Experience of Virginity Loss in the Contemporary United States,” details that women consider female virginity to be sacred. This idealized concept of female virginity creates an uncomfortable distance between women and men—a terrible solution. By considering the concept of virginity to be sacred, women ultimately allow for objectification— objectification that men perseverate on. By treating the concept of female virginity as something of holy value, men then believe that female virginity is an object worth collecting, an object of high value. The Wendy Dilemma comes back to bite women in the end since women stay accepting of oppression and objectification.

Terrible solutions alleviate nothing. Systemic oppression and the objectification of women is an ongoing crisis in the West. Men continue to oppress women by objectifying female virginity while women simply accept these terms— then using objectification as a weapon. Instead of handling this crisis like adults, women and men look at childhood influences, such as Peter Pan and Wendy for guidance. A ripple effect, this vicious cycle continues as men pursue simplicity— a quality that solves nothing — and women pursue mere blindsided acceptance— a quality that also solves nothing. The Peter Pan Syndrome and Wendy Dilemma are a counterintuitive Ying and Yang that creates a ripple effect in the West. In order to solve this ongoing debate, women must stop catering to a man’s every need while letting go of the idea that female virginity is sacred. Men, on the other hand, must learn to grow up and leave Neverland. Peter Pan and Wendy solved nothing; children do not solve adult problems.

References

CARPENTER, LAURA M. “Gender and the Meaning and Experience of Virginity Loss in the Contemporary United States.” Gender & Society, vol. 16, no. 3, 2002, pp. 345–365., https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243202016003005.   

Davidson, Neil. “Promoting Public Health through Public Art in the – Proquest.” Oh Boys! Sex Education and Young Men, ProQuest, 1996, https://www.proquest.com/docview/1560670647?accountid=13605.

Fredrickson, Barbara L., and Tomi-Ann Roberts. “Objectification Theory: Toward Understanding Women’s Lived Experiences and Mental Health Risks.” Psychology of Women Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 2, 1997, pp. 173–206., https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1997.tb00108.x.

Kalkan, Melek, et al. “Peter Pan Syndrome ‘Men Who Don’t Grow’: Developing a Scale.” Men and Masculinities, vol. 24, no. 2, 2019, pp. 245–257., https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184×19874854.

Performance After Stress and Anxiety

Stress and anxiety are prevalent in every human beings daily life. Since terms like stress and anxiety can be used varied on the metrics they are given. The definition of stress we are going to use is noted by Miguel Humara to be “a state that results form the demands that are placed on the individual which require that person to engage in some coping behavior.” Also by Humara, anxiety is defined “as results when the individual doubts his or her ability to cope with the situation that causes him or her stress.” Stress and anxiety stems from uncertainties, deadlines, emotions of frustration, and much more. Having these feelings of anxiousness and having the weight of the world on your shoulders typically result in negative outcomes. These negative outcomes hinder the ability we as humans have to finish our daily tasks with efficiency or even finish these tasks at all.

In order to grasp the damage that stress and anxiety can cause, we must first assess where stress and anxiety comes from. Hans Selye, the father of stress research, proposed that stress was present in any situation that an individual was exposed to a demand. A proposal like this, leaves us with an interesting thought. Everything causes stress. Worry will bring upon stress, a change in scenery will bring upon stress, the thought of a change in scenery will bring upon stress. The tension that we feel during events of pressure brings on stress as we know it.

With this notion, we have to delve a little deeper into types of stress. If any situation where an individual is exposed to a demand results in stress, that means positive association as well as negative association both result in stress although there is a massive negative connotation around the word stress. The most common type of stress that every individual encounters is known as acute stress. Acute stress, according to VerywellMind.com, is a short-term reaction after an event occurs that may be considered overwhelming. If this acute stress does not leave and rather persists, the stress will not only translate to a chronic variety of stress which happens to be the next type of stress, but also will certainly bring along stress’ strongest companion, anxiety. Chronic stress is a repetitive sensation that is seemingly never ending. Chronic stress is seen commonly as a result of very traumatic experiences. Chronic stress can transpire from childhood trauma and prolonged stressful situations, resulting in the most serious type of stress. All these negative issues over and over, but stress is not always negative. The positive stress we all feel is known as eustress. Eustress is typically associated with adrenaline based situations such as sports and competitive activities.

Anxiety is a relative to stress. And by relative, I mean sibling. Anxiety results from typical negative types of stress like acute stress and chronic stress. Anxiety is a feeling of restlessness that is very intense. Typically not experienced from present moments, but rather a moment in anticipation, as noted by K. W. Estes and F. B. Skinner. Anxiety is a normal feeling that majority of people encounter. Anxiety becomes a true issue when it does not relent, this is when disorders and further issues are brought onto the stage. An emotional state is a massive dictator on how strong anxiety will stay relevant.

Stress and anxiety directly effect performance in any scenario, especially on-the-ball activities like athletics. These situations are where true athletes separate themselves from the average player. Athletes are influenced by stressful situations and anxiety in every match that they compete in. Competitive anxiety is higher for individual sport athletes than team athletes. Individual sport athletes do not have the ability to rely on others for assistance in their job. As well as knowing that only one person can be of blame for a bad performance, this only results in more weight on the athlete’s shoulders. Through numerous studies, there is proof that cognitive anxiety holds a strong influence on one’s performance. In Humara’s analysis, he notes that athletes who are aware of their anxiety and stress, not only score higher on self-confidence tests, but also perform at a higher efficiency in these stressful situations. The athletes who could not properly control their stress saw worse performances by some margin. Showing that clearly, the worse stress and anxiety is seen, the worse the performance will be. These performances were noted at varying skill levels as well. However, there seems to be a different understanding of anxiety in athletes, some believe it to be debilitative while others see it as facilitative. Those who choose the latter see less anxiety in their sports compared to the other. The athletes that have control over their emotions may have the stress perceived as eustress in comparison to those who could not cope with the situation as acute stress.

Stress and anxiety are felt in every individual’s life constantly. The way we manage and cope with these two factors dictate every decision we make. In the topic of athletics, the way athletes control and cope with these factors translate directly to their performance. An athlete, no matter the skill level, if they cannot cope well with the inevitable, they will not be able to perform at their peak. The stress and anxiety that athletes will undoubtedly face will dictate their final performance, whether for the better or for the worse.

References

Elizabeth Scott, P. D. (2020, August 3). How is stress affecting my health? Verywell Mind.

Estes, W. K., & Skinner, B. F. Some quantitative properties of anxiety. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 29(5), 390–400.

Humara, Miguel The Relationship Between Anxiety and Performance: A Cognitive-Behavioral Perspective Athletic Insight.

Tan, S. Y., & Yip, A. (2018, April). Hans Selye (1907-1982): Founder of the stress theory. Singapore medical journal.

Accessible Music, Soothing Music

Listening to music is a loved activity by students, especially when studying and doing homework. In “Do you listen to music while studying? A portrait of how people use music to optimize their cognitive performance.” Franziska Goltz and Makiko Sadakata say that “access to music at any time and place becomes more and more common.” We can play music by a couple clicks onto a smartphone and a pair of headphones; it’s that easy. Being able to listen to music so easily gives us the freedom to listen to it while doing work, eating, cleaning, and many other activities. The most interesting time to listen is while doing homework/studying. The easy access to music allows students to listen to music while studying, helping them perform better and become more efficient.

It’s no secret that music on smartphones has become more popular over the years. As the iPhone has grown, as well as other Apple products and other companies, the use of phones has been essential. It’s no wonder that by clicking a few buttons we can play our favorite albums. Spotify is a major company that houses over 380 million active users every month. The app is free, as long as ads are okay, and we can create our own playlists with our favorite tunes. This creates the easiest access to music for anyone and everyone. We can plug some headphones in and even use wireless bluetooth earbuds to listen to our music on the go! No matter where we are or what we’re doing, we can listen to music. This creates an atmosphere for students to complete their homework or study with music playing in the background. Results are not guaranteed for every individual.

The brain of an individual is going to have a lot of effects on whether listening to music increases working performance. A big thing that comes into play is something called working memory capacity (WMC). Having a much higher WMC will let our brains multitask better, leaving room for the music to sit in our brains while also engaging with our work. This does not work as well for individuals with a low WMC. Personality will also change how music will affect our performances. If an extroverted individual listens to pop music, it would not affect her when studying or doing homework, so if that is her favorite genre she is all set. Introverted people tend to like the quiet much more, but some soft classical music could help him. Someone more music oriented is going to enjoy their favorite genre when working much more than someone who isn’t. He may become more interested in the music than the work itself, but this has only been tested once, showing that it may not be true in all cases. Music that engages in lyrics and a fast tempo is not going to be the best choice for someone trying to focus on writing a paper. The music that we will get the best performance results with is softer instrumental classical music, as it has the least distracting qualities. The soft music will stimulate a part of our brains that can mold around what we are thinking about, creating a pleasing atmosphere for us. Overall, the individual and an individual’s preferences are going to matter a lot when it comes to the positive effects of playing music when working, but there is always something for everyone.

Having music on in the background when performing a critical thinking or memory assignment is going to positively affect an individuals performance, especially if she have figured out the correct music for her. There is a bump here for the fact that someone who has been listening to music when studying for a long time will see better results in their performance. Someone less experienced with this may not have the same results as quickly, but with some time he will be able to receive those positive improvements. If he are trying to memorize vocabulary terms, learn a new language, or even complete spatial and logical reasoning tasks, he will have positive effects from listening to music. The modulation of our prefrontal cortex activity can be prominent evidence that background music has positive effects. The prefrontal cortex has shown reduced activity when an individual is learning when listening to music, therefore showing a reduced demand on the use of the prefrontal cortex. This portrays clear effects of playing music while doing homework and studying, and that it can make an individual more relaxed allowing more space for the individual to feel comfortable. Be sure to find the best music or these results will vary for an individual. Most individuals will see the best results when listening to background music that is instrumental, allowing their brain to accept the noise but not focus as much energy on it. Vocal music, or music with lyrics, especially songs that are very familiar to us, will cause our brain to start focusing on those words instead of the ones on the paper.

If music was hard to get access to for the average person, many wouldn’t listen to it. Maybe it would be an occasional treat to have once in a while, especially if it always costs money. Nowadays there are a ton of platforms providing free music to its users, allowing people to listen to music on their phones whenever they want to! Having this huge cloud of music available lets students listen to music when they are studying or doing homework as well. Studies have shown that having background music when doing so does have positive effects on an individual’s performance and efficiency. Many factors come into play to make this feat possible, such as the individual’s personality type, working memory capacity, music preference, and more. This very easy access to music on the go allows individuals to listen when doing homework and studying, creating a better performance from them overall.

Resources

Goltz, F., & Sadakata, M. (2021, September 20). Do you listen to music while studying? A  portrait of how people use music to optimize their cognitive performance. Acta Psychologica. Retrieved October 10, 2021, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691821001670?via%3Dihub.

Solar power’s attributes are affected by numerous factors, and counterintuitively, cause many non-green results in the production process and the maintaining of solar farms. Like many other man-made appliances, solar panels have an expiration date. After 25-30 years of use, they have to be disposed of due to the effects of the weather.

To produce power in the first place, solar panels have solar cells that need to receive sunlight in order to function. According to the author of “Solar Photovoltaic Cell Basics,” When the light comes into contact with a solar cell it causes the energy from the light to transfer into electrons. The extra energy these electrons have from the sun allows them to flow through the semi-conductive material creating an electrical current. Since the current is also in contact with the conductive metal it causes the current to transfer directly into the main grid hooked up to the solar panel. Since “95% of the [solar cell] modules” have a base element of silicon the harmful process to manufacture silicon is widely used in solar panel production.

The production of Solar Panels is dangerous to those involved and releases harmful substances into the environment, which is the opposite goal of clean energy. In “Solar Energy Isn’t Always As Green As You Think” Dustin Mulvaney states that the quartz used to begin the process is extracted from the earth, the miners are put “at risk of… …the lung disease silicosis.” Upon further research, the American Lung Association claims that particles coming off the quartz crystals, when breathed in, remotely cause “permanent lung scarring, called pulmonary fibrosis” which eventually harms the inhaler’s ability to breathe. This scarring takes years to develop but can go unnoticed for just as long. The next harm comes from the casting process. Mulvaney continues to explain how the furnaces used to cast the quartz into silicon result in harmful substances being released into the atmosphere. To power, these furnaces require large amounts of energy which in most cases comes from other non-clean power sources that release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Mulvaney explains how the furnaces themselves also release carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide. These gasses trap heat in the atmosphere which is the cause of global warming. Turning the refined quartz from silicon to polysilicon results in 3-4 times as much silicon tetrachloride being created as a byproduct. Companies that cannot afford to recycle silicon tetrachloride throw all of it away. This is where the byproduct comes into contact with water, resulting in harmful fumes being released and acidifying the surrounding soil. Mulvaney gives a real-world example of this from 2011 where “hydrofluoric acid used by [a] company… …contaminated river water, killing hundreds of fish and dozens of pigs”.

The energy capacity of any power source is the amount of time each year in which the system runs at max efficiency. Factors such as resource consumption, human error, and throughput influence this efficiency. Since the earth is spinning the sun is never in the same place in the sky. This is an example of a throughput limitation and directly causes solar panels’ energy capacity to fluctuate all day. The only time a solar panel can work at one hundred percent efficiency is when the sun is at its highest point which according to Mike Mueller in “Nuclear Power is the Most Reliable Energy Source and It’s Not Even Close” is only 24.9% of the time. The remote cause of this percentage is that companies are required to produce and install 4 times as many solar panels to get the efficiency of 1 running at 100%. Furthermore, this low energy capacity requires solar farms to draw power from alternative power plants with higher energy capacities. Solar power uses nongreen energy to stay green. The fact that 4 times as many panels are needed leads to 4 times the production, leading to 4 times as much being released into the environment or atmosphere. This also drives the price up to 4 times as much, making it less affordable than other conventional energy producers.

Solar panels don’t last forever. As a result of thermal cycling, long-term exposure to damp heat, freezing, and UV exposure, solar panels can degrade by 0.5% or 3% a year according to too John David Baldwin in his article “What causes solar panel performance to decline”. Baldwin continues to speak about an ironic process in which the Busbars used to increase the efficiency of a solar cell actually cause the solar cell to degrade. He quotes Kelly Pickerel, the editor of Solar Power World, when she states, “The soldering points put stress on the solar cell and can lead to microcracking.” Standard use panels have a “life spawn [of] about 25 to 30 years” according to Nate Berg in “What will happen to solar panels after their useful lives are over?”. Berg quotes Garvin Heath, a scientist at the NREL, that eventually the degradation of the panels is going to cause a “waste management issue.” The lifespan ending on the first generation of solar panels, and the sheer number of panels will produce a global electronic waste issue.

Looking at solar power as a conventional energy source on a national level causes the price of Solar panels to decrease. According to Andrew Sendy “a fair price for … … a solar system in 2021 is between $2.60 per watt and $3.20 per watt,” but when buying on an industrial level the price drops from roughly $3.20 to roughly $0.70.  Because of the capacity factor, it requires 3.1 million solar panels to produce a wattage equal to that of one nuclear plant. The space required to fit this many solar panels is over one thousand three hundred acres, causing the price to skyrocket after factoring in the cost of the land. When compared to the price of other conventional energy sources that don’t release harmful substances during the production process, solar always comes out on the bottom because of the countless other price changes that come with the use.

Obesity Rises Cancer Rates

Humans that are obese are prone to have negative health effects for most of their life. Those health effects can be cardiovascular issues, cancer, bone issues, etc. There is no limit to the amount of illness and severe medical issues that obesity can cause. Not being able to stay active and being under the body mass index can cause cancer. The differences between the sexes may in part be due to carcinogenic exposures and lifestyle factors like cigarette smoking, drinking alcohol, and eating fattier foods — all of which are more prevalent among men. Heart disease and weight loss are closely linked because your risk for heart disease is associated with your weight. If you are overweight or obese, you may be at higher risk for the condition. 

After researching obesity, the hypothesis that obesity and negative health effects have been one of the top three reasons for humans getting cancer is the top study listed. This study covers that weight, weight gain, and obesity account for approximately 20% of all cancer cases. Data from the past 25 years point to obesity as a cause of approximately 14% of cancer deaths in men and up to 20% of cancer deaths in women. Overweightness and obesity have increased from 15% in 1980 to 35% in 2005. The researchers for the International Agency for Research on Cancer studied and tested the rates of obesity in the majority of the common cancers. Researchers concluded that obesity was a cause of 11% of colon cancer cases, 9% of postmenopausal breast cancer cases, 39% of endometrial cancer cases, 25% of kidney cancer cases, and 37% of esophageal cancer cases. 

Obesity in children and adults has different effects on the body. Children’s cases of obesity have more than 200,000 cases per year in the United States. Usually, there are no lab tests or imaging studies. Obesity is common from ages 8-16. Obesity in children can last from months to years and genetics can increase the likelihood of being obese your whole life. Obesity in adults is more severe and there usually isn’t a way to go back. It is easier to catch obesity at a young age and change habits sooner than later. Obesity in adults is very common. There are more than 3 million cases per year in the United States. It can sometimes be treated by a medical professional. It also does not require lab tests or imaging. It can last several years if habits are caught soon enough or it can be lifelong. “Healthy behaviors include regular physical activity and healthy eating. Balancing the number of calories consumed from foods and beverages with the number of calories the body uses for activity plays a role in preventing excess weight gain(CDC).” 

Obesity in women and men has different effects on the body. Men are more likely to be more active than women. Heart disease and weight loss are closely linked because your risk for heart disease is associated with your weight. Men are more likely to recognize that being overweight causes health problems and are not distracted by the way they look. Men have roughly twice the percentage of muscle mass as women. This makes them heavier. “The nutrition transition taking place in many developing countries has also affected excess weight gain among both genders, but has had an even greater impact on the physical activity levels of women(Kanter).” Men have a higher chance of getting cancer while women are more likely to survive it. Men are 6% more likely to die from any type of cancer than women. Men are 12% more likely to die from a certain type of cancer than a woman with the same type of cancer. “A recent study suggests that the differences between the sexes may in part be due to carcinogenic exposures and lifestyle factors like cigarette smoking, drinking alcohol, and eating fattier foods — all of which are more prevalent among men(E-health).”

 Since the 2002 IARC report, new evidence has supported a cause-and-effect relation between overweight and obesity and the start of these cancers, increasing the responsibility of cancer resulting from obesity. Physical activity, body size, and metabolic efficiency are related to total energy intake. It is difficult to assess the independent effect of energy intake on cancer risk. There are sufficient pieces of evidence to support the role of physical activity in preventing cancers of the colon and breast. Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution, patterns, and determinants of health and disease conditions in defined populations. Epidemiologic evidence indicates that obesity is probably related to cancers of the pancreas, liver, and gallbladder, and aggressive prostate cancer. The body mass index can determine whether you are obese or not. Body mass index is a value derived from the mass and height of a person. The body mass index is used as a screening tool for overweight and obesity. Being overweight and obese can cause changes in the body that help lead to cancer. Some of these changes are long-lasting inflammation and higher than normal levels of insulin, insulin-like growth factor, and sex hormones. The risk of cancer increases with the more excess weight a person gains and the longer a person is overweight. 

Studies have shown that with improved cancer survivorship, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and other noncancer events compete with cancer as the underlying cause of death, but the risks of mortality in competing-risk settings have not been well characterized. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a group of conditions that involve the heart and blood vessels. CVD deaths are varied by first cancer site, indicating increased risks after the first diagnosis of lung cancer, hematologic malignancy, and urinary tract cancer. For individuals with all cancers combined, CVD was the leading cause of competing mortality in both male and female patients with cancer. CVD can be caused by obesity. Men are more likely to be more active than women. Heart disease and weight loss are closely linked because your risk for heart disease is associated with your weight. If you are overweight or obese, you may be at higher risk for the condition. Medical experts consider obesity and being overweight to be major risk factors for both coronary heart disease and heart attack.

Obesity is one of the leading factors in cancer. What we do with our body, what we put in our body, what we do in a day are all leading causes of cancer. Obesity has different effects in men and women, children and adults, and healthy and unhealthy people. The different causes for each person have a different effect on how long and how healthy a person can live. Obesity is dangerous but it is usually avoidable and can be maintained if help is reached before it is too late. Bad habits need to be stopped before they reach this level and you can not undo it. 

References

How cancer affects men and women differently. (n.d.). http://Www.eehealth.org. https://www.eehealth.org/blog/2017/11/how-cancer-affects-men-and-women-differently/

https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/obesity/index.htm