Physical Activity in the US Essay -- Social Issues, Transportation

The level of the population’s level of physical activity is becoming a major public health concern in the United States (Wahlgren, 2011). As a result of urban sprawl, Americans rely heavily on personal vehicles to travel to work or other destinations. This is leading to a sedentary life style for the public as they take to their cars to travel to their destination. The public’s perception of the environments in which they live in are likely influencing their behaviors resulting in their dependance on personal vehicles. (Wahlgren, 2011). The physical environment and peoples’ levels of physical activity are directly connected. Low density zoning and auto-dependent development is resulting in the promotion of sedentary life styles. Most activities, like commuting to work or shopping, requires the use of a personal vehicle because of the area’s isolation in residential zones and commercial zones (Ewing, 2010). Alternative modes like walking or bicycling are ra ther impractical, as the areas often have little to no sidewalks or other pedestrian friendly amenities (Marshall, 2009). The Low density design is developed because residential homes have fewer units per acre and commercial buildings tend to only be a couple of stories and spaced further apart. The sizes of lots tend to be bigger to accommodate large parking lots that are often oversized and unsafe for pedestrians. An effort to combat the continual development of urban sprawl, smart growth development looks to solve this dilemma. The idea of smart growth concentrates its development around compact walkable centers within urban areas. The purpose of this is to avoid the growing sprawl through the implementation of walkable, bicycle-friendly and alternative transportation like b... ...uate personal motivation, however it is an issue that involves social and physical obstacles that must be overcome as well (Steinman, 2010). Environments that enhance walkability are typically associated with greater pedestrian traffic and lower body mass index (BMI). Neighborhood safety and traffic volumes and road speeds have been identified in the ACRES and other studies as determinants to a walk able neighborhood (Steinman, 2010, Wahlgren, 2011). Urban planners can address these issue in several different ways. Placing sidewalks and lighting to clearly guide pedestrians and creating visibility with canopy trees can create safe inviting spaces. Addressing volume and speed on roadways can be addressed by introducing sidewalk bulbs, roundabout and buffers between sidewalks and streets through the use of landscaping (Wahlgren, 2011, Dumbaugh, 2011, Frumkin, 2002).

Most Dangerous Game Essay Essay

â€Å"The most dangerous game† by Richard Conell is a short story about a stimulating hunt that a professional hunter who is tired of hunting animals and wants to try something more strenuous and amusing – hunting humans. It presents two characters that have experienced the dangers and thrills of hunting throughout their whole life. Just by reading the title of this story, you can figure out that a large number of conflicts occur. After all, it is a dangerous game that will include two players, hunters in this case, battling each other and only one has to survive. This essay will contemplate and revolve around examples of conflicts that were manifested in the story. There are two types of conflict: external and internal. External conflict is a struggle that occurs between a character and outside forces, which can be the environment. Whereas internal conflict is a mental or emotional struggle that occurs within a character. The conflicts encountered during the story are definitely a struggle for â€Å"Survival of the Fittest†. You could say that the main conflict was the fight for survival between the protagonist and antagonist (man versus man). Sanger Rainsford, the main character, suffered many conflicts. He came across a conflict with nature, a conflict with general Zaroff, a conflict with himself, and a conflict with fate. Not only did Rainsford experience these conflicts, but also his opponent general Zaroff. The conflict with general Zaroff versus Rainsford is the most apparent and obvious conflict. Zaroff uses Rainsford as his quarry to accomplish an entertaining yet dangerous game. Rainsford has to survive in the hunt against Zaroff and his cohort in crime, Ivan. He has to use his wit and knowledge to outsmart Zaroff who has been playing the â€Å"game† a lot longer than he has. Rainsford thought of strategies that he used in the past while hunting animals to escape and triumph over the general’s bloodcurdling and amusing game. He had to do anything and everything just to survive, which caused more conflicts to interfere. He had shown his tenacity to live by making traps. The two characters had to face each other in the ultimate test for survival. General Zaroff says, â€Å"It’s a game you see. I suggest to one of them that we go hunting. I give him a supply of food and an excellent hunting knife. I give him three hours to start. I am to follow, armed only with a pistol of the smallest caliber and range. If my quarry eludes me for three whole days, he wins the game. If I find him, he loses! † Rainsford said, â€Å"Hunting? General Zaroff, what you speak of is murder. † However, Rainsford ended up winning the game by killing Zaroff and sleeping on his bed. Rainsford resolved the conflict throughout the story and the suspense was eased from there. Hence, a hunter uses tricks against another hunter to stay alive. That’s exactly what Rainsford did in order to clinch the victory of this dangerous game. The second type of this conflict occurred at the beginning of the story where Rainsford and his partner Whitney debate about hunting. Rainsford finds hunting to be the greatest sport and shows no empathy for his prey. He believes that the world is made up of two classes – the hunter and the hunted, while Whitney disagrees with his point of view. Throughout the story, Rainsford experiences karma and the fear of being hunted. Many of Rainsford’s actions had to be carefully thought of, that is why he had internal conflicts. The most important conflicts on this story were with his inner self (Human versus self). During the game, he is internally debating the decisions as he is hoping to survive. One of the decisions he had to come up with rapidly was to decide which island to swim to. After General Zaroff had explained the game to Rainsford, he had to also make another decision. He had to also decide what traps to put out. Rainsford kept battling his pretty strong emotions, namely fear, in his fight against Zaroff. Rainsford realizes the painful way that being hunted isn’t fun, whether it’s a beast or human. The General also experienced conflict within himself at the time when he treats life as a game â€Å"God made me a hunter†. He realized that hunting animals began to bore him so he decided to move on to the next stage, hunting humans. Boredom is an internal conflict Zaroff tries to overcome through his twisted game. Ultimately, it leads to his demise. Character versus Nature is a conflict that also shows the character struggling to survive against the natural elements. Rainsford had a conflict with the sea when he fell off his yacht. He had faced many hardships and had to do it to survive or the waves take him away. He also had to survive on an unknown island running in the jungle blindly in the mist and the black sky to escape from the General. Surviving in the jungle at night itself presents special challenges and conflicts to Rainsford. Character versus society is a type of conflict when a character fights against the social traditions or rules. This conflict only entails the General that decided to buy his own island for his own leisure. To hunt humans is permanently unacceptable in society. Zaroff violates that rule and creates his own rule to keep himself indulged. Character versus fate is the last conflict that will be proclaimed in this essay. Zaroff and Rainsford both fought against destiny from the commencement of the hunt. Who was going to win this dangerous game? Who was going to outsmart whom? Albeit the general is more experienced than Rainsford when it comes to hunting, he still lost to the hunt. Rainsford set up traps to outsmart his foe and used his skills to evade the hunt. He reached his destiny by putting all his effort in this survival game. Each conflict pinpointed in this essay was resolved at the denouement of this story. Sanger Rainsford and General Zaroff had overcome many conflicts in this short story. Rainsford was the only character that made the precise decisions each time. Suspense was the key to all of these conflicts and they changed Rainsford’s life.

Breaking the Rules Free Essay Example, 1500 words

Breaking the Rules Have we ever stopped to think why human beings have the natural tendency to break rules, no matter how harmless and insignificant they may be? From the dawn of civilization, the practice has continued and has become a common phenomenon in our everyday life. In Paradise Lost, Milton’s focus is on the same subject when Eve is tempted to eat the forbidden fruit which causes her to fall. Temptation, rooted in every human being, tries to induce people to commit wrong-doings and in the process, to break rules. The tendency to break rules ranges from trifling matters to incidents resulting in dire consequences. The subject had never provoked my thoughts till an incident involving rule-breaking changed my whole outlook towards my parents. I used to resent the fact that my parents did not have a broad outlook in matters relating to my activities. Observing the fact that I was spending a lot of my precious time out with my friends, my father viewed the matter with co ncern and gave me the clichà ©, ‘A man is judged by the company he keeps’. We will write a custom essay sample on Breaking the Rules or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now He further went on to advise me that I should be more careful in choosing friends. What irritated me was the fact that my mother also agreed with him. I was filled with resentment toward my family and felt they were orthodox in their views and they just did not fit into my world. I blamed the so-called generation-gap for their attitude towards me. I knew they loved me and cared about me. Then why were they trying to restrict my freedom? Why were they encroaching on my mind? Those were questions that remained unanswered then, but I did not have to wait long. A month later, an incident in which I was involved changed my whole outlook towards life. Something happened to give me the strong conviction that parents are always right, and if they draw some boundary lines to regulate our life, they have a valid reason for doing so. The incident, even as I recall it now, makes me admit the fact that parents are the best gift in a person’s life, at leas t that is how it has been with me, and I hope everyone else is as lucky. On that particular day, some new friends had asked me to meet them in the evening as we had decided to go to a concert together. As usual, my father was a bit concerned about who my friends were and where they lived. He took the address of the place where I was going. He also reminded me to keep my cell-phone switched on. Hiding my irritation, I bowed down to all his wishes. When he finished giving his instructions, it was my mother’s turn.