Question:

the editorial/commentary must be word-processed, lines double-spaced, without columns, and a word count, excluding references, displayed. The double spacing of text makes it easier for the markers to insert comments. A title for the editorial is necessary but a title page is not. Reference style can be Vancouver or Am J Clin Nutr. Penalties will not apply for exceeding the number of references (15 references), but again, the best editorials adhere to the recommended limits.

Paper to write editorial on: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)31679-8

Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990–2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015

Answer:

Community Based Approaches for Fighting Lifestyle Diseases

The primary source of reference for this journal is titled “Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioral, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990-2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015.” The journal is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It tackles risks associated with lifestyle diseases. The advent of new technologies makes it possible for health care policy makers to formulate policies aimed at creating community-based solutions to public health care. Various theories attest to the fact that technology innovation is the best way to implement community based approached in tackling the obesity (5). One of the primary theories that speak to this effect is the theory of Technological Determinism. Technological Determinism is a theory that was developed by Marshall McLuhan a Canadian scholar in the 1960s (6). The theorist argues that the creation and invention of technology forms a change in culture of societies around the world.

The theory further posits that the primary channels of communication are the main sources of change (7). Community health care therefore begins by a change in culture. The people of New Zealand need a total change in how they think, how they understand things and the ideals they hold dear to their hearts. One of the requirements for better health and healthy living is constant exercises. I look up to people with athletic bodies and imagine that I can one day be as fit as they are (1). However, it is one thing to wish to be fit and another to work to be fit. I develop many reasons for not exercising as much as I know I need to work out to keep fit (2). One of the reasons I develop is that I might fall in the course of working out and hurt myself then I will have to nurse my injuries for the rest of my life (3).

At times I say some people were meant to be fit and others were not meant to be fit and hence no matter how hard I work out there would always be someone else more fit than me (4). I console myself by saying that we cannot all be the same. Some of us have to be fit, and others have to be unfit to make the world a balanced place. Technological determinism is a theory that can used to explain how morality relates to alternative media. The theory argues that the behavior of media users especially those who heavily use it, are affected by technological advancement. They derive their actions from what they often observe in the media transform (9). Alternative media has experienced technological advancement and this has in turn affected the lifestyle and the moral behavior of the youth in the society. The media is defined as any substance used for the amplification and the intensification of body senses or functions (6). This sums up the explanation that alternative media affects the way the youth in campus think. This therefore affects their behavior and their morals too.

New Zealand ought to adopt the community-based approaches in fighting lifestyle diseases as opposed to the model of personal responsibility that has so far proven futile, invalid. Many lifestyle disease cripple first world countries connected to over nutrition. The diseases are less prevalent in the third world countries compared to the first world countries. Issues of under nutrition are prevalent in the third world countries. Various factors including policies have resulted into a decline in the rates of under nutrition especially in the high socio-demographic regions. New Zealand can adopt policies that promote the use of various community-based strategies to help in the fight against lifestyle diseases like Hypertension and Diabetes instead of using measures that aim to throw the responsibility to the individual.

The postmodern worldview is based on this view. It so much affects the content of the media. Whatever the authors and publishers think is good they do publish. They have the freedom to determine what is right as it relative to them. The punishments that can come to them if they subscribed to moral absolutism do not apply (1). Morality also subscribes to the view of universalism (8). Universalism claims about nature, human nature regarding the good transcends the local or cultural context. It is characterized by skepticism and subjectivism or relativism. This comes about with particular suspicion towards reason. It also inspires acute sensitivity to the role of ideology (6). It asserts and maintains positive economic and political power. It focuses on relatives’ truths each person, skeptical of explanations, which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races (5). It relies on concrete experience over abstract principle. People who have this as their focus judge things according to what has been experienced in the past. Postmodernism denies the existence of any ultimate principle and lacks the optimism of there being a scientific, philosophical, or religious truth, which will explain everything for everybody (9). The limitation of this principle of postmodernism is that, it is in itself a principle yet is denies the existence of principles. This means that either there is no postmodernism or their premise is false.

The theory of technological determinism highlights the media’s role in shaping how people in the society think. It traces the manner in which the society operates as we move from one age of technology to another (3). It explains that the more developed the medium of relaying information so developed will be the senses of the audience. For instance, the radio mostly will develop the sense of hearing while the television will develop hearing and visual senses (6). The development of the media leads to subsequent development of the human being and all his senses (8). As he explains, each era of media development has its own consequential result to the human ability. The thoughts that media users have and the actions they take is so much affected by their exposure to the electronics (8). The media affects the message, which in turn affects the interpretation and the reaction to the same by the audience. In campus, people interact with the computer daily (9). They use them for social interactions, professional purposes, and class assignments. They are therefore bound to a total transformation of how they perceive things. It is also has an epistemological assumption that ‘truth is got from what happens over time’. The assumption further explains that people are only likely to use a certain medium for what it was created.

References

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