類型 英文寫作類. 篇名 Why do teenagers want to lose weight? 作者 溫欣莉 中山工商 綜合高中三年 15 班 劉芷吟 中山工商 綜合高中三年 15 班 黃凱琪 中山工商 綜合高中三年 15 班 指導老師 卓誼潔 老師

Transcription

1 類型 英文寫作類 篇名 作者 溫欣莉 中山工商 綜合高中三年 15 班 劉芷吟 中山工商 綜合高中三年 15 班 黃凱琪 中山工商 綜合高中三年 15 班 指導老師 卓誼潔 老師 -0-

2 I. Introduction Teenagers generally have a higher metabolic rate, thus they can burn calories faster than adults. However, lots teenagers tend to lose weight. What influences a teenager to take weight issue into a major concern? Are they truly overweight or because of other reasons? With the advance in technology and science, many diet products such as diet beverages, food, medicine, or even plastic surgeries have been invented to meet consumers needs when it comes to losing weight. What are the measures commonly used by teenagers to lose weight? Are these measures safe and healthy? Do people at such a young age really need to lose weight? With a view to find out the answers to all of these questions, we decided to choose the topic: Why do teenagers want to lose weight? II. Thesis In order to do a research on our topic, we did a survey in our school, Chung Shan Industrial and Commercial High School. The interviewees are 100 girls and 100 boys randomly picked, with the age from fifteen to nineteen. We recieved back all the 200 questionnaires and none of them were invalid. The graphics below show the results of the statistics based on our questionnaire. A. The rates between teenager boys and girls on losing weight. Figure 1.1 Statistics between genders on diet experiences. Figure 1.1 shows that out of 100 teenage boys 69 have had or being on diet, while out of 100 teenage girls 81 have had or being on diet. The question is, why is that -1-

3 teenage girls diet rates are higher than boys? Another possible reason is that men physically develop more muscle than women, and which makes their bodies consume calories faster. And that is probably why girls need to work harder to stay in good shape than boys. B. Figure 2.1 Comparison between genders on the major motives for losing weight. Aren t teenagers still on growth development? Aren t they supposed to eat more in order to gain the proper nutrients that will assist their bodies to develop? Why do people in such a young age start to lose weight? As figure2.1 shows, according to our survey, the major reason for a teenager want to lose weight is: self-image, 44% of the boys and 57% of the girls. Since our interviewees are teenagers, the concern for self-image is the biggest motivation for them to pursue more attractive looks, and figure is no doubt an important element. But surprisingly, 25% of the boys and 19% of the girls declared heath issues as the main reason for losing weight, the second motive among the boys while the fifth among the girls. Besides, health issue is the only one motive which boys rate is higher than girls. According to clinical study, the percentage of hospital discharges for pediatric and adolescent obesity-related diseases has doubled over the past 20 years. The cause of this epidemic is entirely behavioral: high-calorie diets and insufficient exercise. Although these numbers also proves that teenagers are aware of the health risks that being overweight may cause. -2-

4 Figure 3.1 What measures are commonly used among teenagers to lose weight? Figure 3.2 What are the most common side effects that these diets can bring? Hair loss Poor appetite Gastrointestinal disorders Menstrual disorders Endocrine disorders Sleep loss Headache Hands and feet easily numb Metabolism slows down Anemia Uncoordinate respiration Eating disorder No effects Boys Girls The most common ways to lose weight is exercising and dieting, which most people think that is the best and healthiest way to lose weight. However, figure3.1 points that there is a small group of teenagers that uses drastic measures such as: skipping meals, diet pills or diet beverages to lose weight. Such drastic measures may lead to an eating disorder or even more serious health crisis. For example: skipping meals, to a small number of teens, may be the fastest way to lose weight, but a recent study at the University of Texas at El Paso found that people who skip breakfast are 4 times more likely to be fat than people who don't skip breakfast! This study suggests that skipping meals doesn t really assist one to lose weight; in fact it can make you even fatter. (NowLoss.com, 2010) Moreover, people who suffer from weight problems would tend to believe that there is a simple, easy solution to their situation, and that urges them to turn to diet pills. One of the most dangerous aspects of diet pills is that they are not verified by law to be tested by the authorities concerned before they are released to the public. Diet pills can be addictive and can also have harmful side effects even when patients take in according -3-

5 to the doctor's directions. Some known side effects of diet pills include: anxiety or nervousness, insomnia, heart attack, hair loss, menstrual cycle disturbances, and etc. Another prevalent way shown in figure3.1 to lose weight in Taiwan, particularly among girls, is diet beverages, which accounts for 14% of the figures. The reason why these beverages are so common is that it is cheap and easily purchased. However, specialists advise that even though they can increase one s metabolic rates and help burning fat, one should not rely on them too much. People will often look for the magic cure that will allow them to continue to eat whatever they want and still lose weight at the same time. Needless to say that only a balanced, sensible diet combined with exercise has been proven to be the best way to keep people from being overweight. D. Results obtained by teenagers on losing weight. Figure 4.1 How many kilograms have you lost on your most successful diet? Figure 4.2 Have you gained back weight after a while? As figure 4.1 shows, boys tend to lose more weight when on diet than girls, and in figure4.2 more girls claim that they gain back the lost weight after a while than boys. Why do people gain weight? Bad habits such as staying up late and daily stress can result in weight increase. ( 陳俊旭,2007) -4-

6 Why is it harder for women to keep the weight off? It has a lot to do with muscle mass. Men naturally have more muscle mass and larger muscle fibres than women, resulting in a higher metabolic rate. It s generally true that losing weight can be more of a challenge for women than men because of their different muscle development. In fact, researchers from Syracuse University looked at the energy expenditure of men and women while running and walking 1,600 metres at the same speed. They found that men burned an average of 124 calories against women 105 calories when running and 88 calories when walking while women only burned 74 calories. (The Global and Mail, 2010) What exactly does this mean? It means men can indeed burn calories faster than women, which provides them the ability to lose weight quicker. Thus, that is why girls in average are apt to lose less weight than boys, and it also explains why more than half of the girls gained back the weight they had lost after a while. E. BMI rates V.S. stature satisfaction. Figure 5.1 BMI average (the figures below are based on the number of people who declared to have had or were on diet) Figure 5.2 Are you satisfied with your stature? -5-

7 Nowadays with the advance of technology, teenagers have a better access to the fashion world. With the progress of internet, teenagers can also easily have access to any kind of information. We believe that these are the main reasons why teenagers start dieting at such young age. One of the questions based on our survey was: are you satisfied with your stature? (Figure 5.2) Despite 35% of the boys and 49% have a normal BMI (Figure 5.1), more than half of the girls and 41% of the boys answered: NO, while the rest of them are overweight or under weight. However, in figure5.2 it shows that half of the teenagers are unsatisfied with their stature. Thus, by comparing these two figures we can conclude that teenagers nowadays have the wrong concept of what is to be slim and healthy at the same time. F. Experiment: Being influenced by mass media advertisement and TV commercial, teenagers in Taiwan tend to use diet beverages to lose weight. Most of these products promise miraculous results in a short time without making any extra efforts. All you need to do is drink it. However, are they elixir or just a hyperbole in order to catch customers attention? With a view to test if these diet beverages are as miraculous as its advertisement claims to be, our group members decided to do an experiment with one of these diet beverages. We chose a diet beverage made by one of the most famous beverages companies in Taiwan: Hey Song. The reason why we chose this particular brand is because its commercial promises consumers to see the results in two weeks. The pictures below are from the commercial of Hey Song beverage. Figure 6.1 The commercial is about a sumo that is going to participate in a sumo final competition 15 days later. In figure 6.1 the sumo starts to drink Hey Song diet beverage two weeks before the final competition. -6-

8 Figure 6.2 The sumo drinks the diet beverage while eating a large amount of food at the same time. (Figure 6.2) Figure 6.3 Two weeks later, after having started to drink the Hey Song diet beverage and eating the same amount of food, he still loses one layer of fat. ( Figure 6.3) This commercial gives consumers the strong impression that this beverage will make them lose fat in a short time, even if consuming the same amount of food as before. In other words, it suggests that you can lose weight without dieting or making any kind of physical effort. In order to test its authenticity, all three members in our group volunteered to drink this beverage for 15 days, just like the sumo did in the commercial, with a view to find out whether this drink has the effect or not. Figure

9 Figure 6.4 are the pictures taken on the day before we started to drink the Hey Song diet beverage. Figures 6.5 Figures 6.6 We drank the Hey Song diet beverage for exactly two weeks, starting Oct. 11 th to Oct. 25 th, and we ate the same amount of food as before. We took pictures before (Figure 6.5) and after (Figure 6.6), and recorded our weights change (Figure 6.7), including waist measures and weight. Figure 6.7 Weight & waist creasers chart Sony Amy Ketty Name Weight Waist Weight Waist Weight Waist Date (kg) (inches) (kg) (inches) (kg) (inches) Day 1 (Oct. 11 th ) Day Day Day Day Day Day Day 15(Oct. 25 th )

10 The comparison from day 1 to day 15 shows that the diet beverage did not show any effect as promised in the commercial; what s worse, it proves that its commercial might be a little too exaggerated. Although drinking the beverage might help us digest better, it does not help us lose any fat contained in our bodies, just as shown in the commercial. III. Conclusion In modern society, with the development of the mass media and technology, a great number of teenagers are easy to access to various information. Teenagers nowadays look up to stars or idols, which look gorgeous on TV or on magazines. However, in order to look better on the screen, the entertainers tend to be much thinner than the normal size. Proning to look like them may be one of the reasons why teenagers start to lose weight at such young age, even if they are already in a healthy weight range. According to our experiment, the results proved that diet product advertisements sometimes might exaggerate the effects in order to obtain a higher sales volume. Commercials deliver wrong message to customers that only by drinking the beverage can they eat and drink whatever they want. Such manner might cause the opposite effect. That is, they probably gain more weight than before. In order to eliminate this myth, it s not only essential for teenagers to understand that there is no short cut to lose weight, but it s also vital that the authorities concerned enforce a law against false advertisements. Moreover, they should also advertise the right and healthy concept of weight control. Perhaps by taking such measures, it will change teenagers concept on what it is to be slim and healthy, instead of the thinner the prettier. IV. References 1. NowLoss.com 2. 陳俊旭 (2007) 吃錯了, 當然會生病 臺灣新自然主義出版社 The globe and mail 4. Medicinenet.com 5. Overweight Teen -9-

11 6. Natural bloom 2005 Margie James. All rights reserved to 7. 華夏經緯 8. Figures 6.1 ~ 6.3 Youtube 9. Figures 6.4 ~ 6.6 provided by : 溫欣莉, 劉芷吟, 黃凱琪 -10-