Epidemic

In recent years, the United States has been plagued by an opioid epidemic. Tens of thousands of people die of drug overdoses every year. According to the CDC, in 2015 at least 33,000 people died of an opioid overdose. (CDC, 2017) To put the prevalence of opioid deaths into perspective, consider that in 2015 the total number of drug overdose deaths was estimated at 52,000 (VOX). This means that 63.4% of fatal drug overdoses in 2015 were caused by an opioid. According to the National…

coming up, and I think represents one of the fundamental missteps youth ministry can take. For those of us who prefer reading to listening, I 've taken some of my key thoughts from the podcast and written them up here as notes. Enjoy! The Extrovert Epidemic Much of our youth ministry is focused towards the extrovert, which follows a cultural pattern of being driven towards them too. Our school rooms and classes, for instance, are geared towards controlling and regulating the extrovert by…

What Caused the Opioid Epidemic? Would you be surprised if I told you that the United States had 50% more people die last year due to a drug epidemic than in car accidents? I heard this on a news podcast and was shocked to find this statistic to be true. This drug crisis is the opioid epidemic we are currently facing in our country that last year alone claimed 60,000 lives. This prompted me to ask, why are we having this epidemic? How could we be having such a massive amount of deaths each…

Another social factor that contributes to the rise of this ‘epidemic’ is the role of the media and in recent times: social media. According to Tiggermann and Pickering (2006), mass media such as television, the internet, magazines and movies, bombard the lives of those in globalized societies. One of the negative effects of this overexposure is the “pervasive transmission of societal beauty ideals” (para.2). It is important to keep in mind that this is not unique to one age group or gender,…

The conservative indifference to the HIV/AIDS epidemic did not end with Reagan’s administration. As LGBT groups organized and mobilized to combat the blatant negligence of the federal government, President George H. W. Bush continued the legacy of generally neglecting the crisis. Bush embraced oppressive policies such as mandatory testing at certain agencies, as well as implying that local and state governments were primarily responsible for combatting the health crisis. Perhaps worse, there…

The obesity epidemic in the United States is now three decades old, continuing to worsen over the years. Many Americans are fearful of being categorized as obese because of the risk of other developing health conditions that come along with it, including: heart disease, cancer, diabetes or sleep apnea, just to name a few. Obesity is looked at as a simplistic issue because being larger than others automatically means that one is lazy right? This is the attitude taken towards this subject. Many…

obese and are not healthy. McDonalds is a global joint and a place that sales about 46 million meals a day. This has changed the world because McDonalds is making the people crave more fast food and causing them to be obese. Obesity is a national epidemic and has impacted the world greatly according to Morgan Spurlock’s documentary of “Super-Size Me.” He challenges himself to eat McDonalds for a full 30 days and wants to show people that McDonalds and other fast food restaurants is very harmful…

More than 2 out of 3 adults are overweight. Hi, I am Max and I am here to speak about the Obesity Epidemic, and what we can change. What is obesity? The literal definition is the condition of being grossly overweight or fat. But in scientific means, obesity is if you have a BMI of 30 or more, while being overweight is if you have a BMI of 25 or over. Recent studies by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey show that around 73.7% of American men and around 66.9% of American women…

The Heroin Epidemic The current heroin epidemic is just as bad and just as scary as the cocaine epidemic. The epidemics have their similarities, however, they have many differences as well. The heroin epidemic started in America around 2013. From 2003 to 2013 the amount of heroin-related deaths had already risen an astonishing 286 percent, and those numbers have not slowed down. Heroin is currently the cheapest its been in a long time which means that it is a drug almost anyone has access to.…

There has been a growing increase of obesity in the last decade and it has become an epidemic that needs to be resolved. There is many risks that come with obesity especially with someone so young. Obesity can make everyday tasks much more difficult and increases the chance of death. While many parents ignore that fact that their child is obese they are putting their child’s life is danger and suffrage. Obesity is dangerous in every age but it is more casual in a child because the body is so…