Second Article Reflection of Second Term

       In the article titled "Supersize Me", the writer argues whether overweight people should be blamed for their size or not and states that the real culprit is the so-called “obesogenic” environment to cause an upsurge in obesity at early ages. I totally agree with her because I believe that attitudes of families and negative conditions provided by environment are most triggering factors causing obesity. For instance, I was an obese patient during my childhood and these factors had influenced weight gain in my body until I became conscious and began to lose weight healthy. Firstly, the more generously parents exhibit attitude about nutritional habits of their children, the more inevitably children become prone to obesity. They are encouraged by parents saying always “unless you eat, you cannot thrive”, then contract obesity even at early ages. For example, when I was three my grandmother made me to eat fatty foods and sweets persistently because she thought that I was so feeble. However, I became chowhound in time and suffered from obesity. Unfortunately, I was blamed for being overweight by other people during my childhood. Like me, almost all “chubby” kids are obliged to pay for their excess weight mercilessly. In order to avoid this damaging situation for mental health of children, parents should be more sensitive about the issue. Secondly, the “obesogenic” environment makes obesity inescapable nowadays. It becomes more effective owing to easy availability of calorie-dense foods and inadequate implementations of government about the issue. As the writer states, modern-day families prefer convenience foods and restaurants use more high-calorie food products and present menus with bigger portions. This type of unhealthy diet through taking the easy way out causes uncontrolled weight gain, which creates unhealthy generations. When it comes to governments, they always try to take precautions in order to head the raise of obesity off. For example, the Turkish government recently has proposed a tax boost on fast food prices to decrease the fast food consumption. I think that such implementations have no deterrent effect on the issue and are not exact solution. Even if prices increase, some people will continue to eat hamburger or pizza, of course. Governments should find more permanent and effective ways to provide entire public health. To sum up, when obesity is perceived as a serious problem, the underlying causes such as attitude of parents and unfavorable effects of environment should be consider. We never can get rid of the disease just ignoring treatable conditions and blaming overweight people for their size.  

Second Journal of Second Term

      In this journal, I want to talk about “The Lottery”, one of my favorite short stories which I met last semester, and handle it in terms of the context and the meaning. In “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson tells about a small village where only about 300 people live and these people’s annual ritual known as “the lottery”. I think that she builds a plot in a bewildering and complex way and gives impressive messages thanks to this exaggerated story. First of all, she shapes the story so unexpectedly that it must be read more than once in order to be totally comprehended. For example, in the beginning of the story, she starts with a description of the wonderful weather and how the people interact, which is like any other small town where everyone is friendly with one another by using a happy tone, making it impossible for us to guess the horrible ending. In addition, she mentions “the lottery” which means one’s fortune of winning a prize throughout the story; however, in the end, it is understood that “the lottery” means a cruel tradition carried on by determining someone to sacrifice for a good harvest from cultivating corn. We can infer the aim of ritual from the old proverb stated in the story “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon”. Secondly, in my opinion, she mainly aims to draw readers’ attention to our indifference to the violence in our lives by emphasizing on blind rituals of mankind with such an exaggerated story. In addition, I think that she refers to the patriarchal life patterns of existing societies by mentioning a conservative and men-oriented community and probably implies that this situation causes most of social unfairness. To sum up, I find “The Lottery” both astonishing because of its unexpected plot and raising awareness because of treating of the writer by giving impressive messages.

First Article Reflection of Second Term

      In the article titled “At Home with Mamma”, the writer states that many young Italian men has the pleasure of living with their mothers, even at the age of thirties, and shows economic and personal reasons for the situation. While I was reading the article, I likened the Italian men’s lives to Turkish men’s. Firstly, both of them have similar attitudes about the issue living with mommy. Almost all Turkish men live at home until they have to go to another city because of university education or military service. After a short break, most of them come home and continue to live with their mothers. The ones who do not have career goals independently from their families choose this home-loving life style because of the financial comfort. They do not cover the cost on their own and, whenever they need, can take the financial support from their families as far as possible. Moreover, they do not have to be destitute of homemade food off mommy’s hands. Since living at family home is a part of the customs of Anatolia’s many regions, it does not seem awkward and is totally reacted normally. Even if men get married, they and their wives might continue to live with their families, which is a rooted custom in most parts of Turkey, again.

         

      Secondly, the situation of “gelin-kaynana” conflict is the same in the Turkish families. Men become the meat in the sandwich because of the deep affection of mothers which makes wives feel in second place, as in Italy. The husband does not want to hurt the feelings of his mother and expects sympathy from his wife whereas the wife is fed up with interfering behaviors and suffocating attention of her mother-in-law and begins to lose patience. Inevitably, all these conflicts cause the end of the happy marriage of couples. In other words, even if living with mammas means comfort and safety to men initially, it might be the main reason of unexpected problems in their lives afterwards. To sum up, this story, which Italian men cannot fly the nest, includes both reasonable causes and undesired results, and everybody may be familiar with this double-edged sword, especially in Turkey.