Obesity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1

Obesity - Essay Example This paper seeks to discuss the definition and measurement of obesity, the current state of obesity among high school students, the causes, and the possible measures that can be taken to address the issue. The nature of obesity makes it difficult to clearly define the condition. However, most researchers define obesity as the presence of excessive fat in the body that is characterized by the presence of adipose tissue. Using the above definition, presence of 30% fat in females was considered as obese while for males, presence of 25% fat in the body was considered obese. The Body Mass Index (BMI) is the most common tool used to measure obesity. The BMI is the ratio of an individual’s weight in kilograms to the square of their height in meters. The BMI percentiles are used together with a growth chart to assess levels of obesity among various age groups. Currently, the rate of obesity among high school students stands at 13.7% while the number of overweight students is 16.6% of the total population of high school students in the US. On the boys’ category, the rate of obesity among white American students stands at 16.5%. The rate is slightly higher among Latin American students whose figure stands at 19.0%. However, this rate for African American students with this group’s figure recorded as 14.8%. On the girls’ category, 9.7% of white American students are obese while the figure for Latin American students increases slightly and is recorded at 11.4%. African American students at 16.7% recorded the highest rate of obesity for this category. According to these statistics, African American girls have the highest rate of obesity among high school students white American girls have the lowest rate. Latin American boys have the highest rate among boys. The above statistics indicate that obesity is most prevalent among African American students. White Americans have the smallest rate of

The Accountability Strategy read chapter 8 Article

The Accountability Strategy read chapter 8 - Article Example To measure activities used in teaching mathematics in a school, the most important measure involves imparting new skills thus the need to evaluate the learning resources applied by the teacher. There is also need to assess the amount of time spent in effective instruction and the means used. For example hands-on learning is more effective, thus by this assessment, activities can be measured. In measuring output, keys aspects to look into entail, attendance can be used as a measure since high attendance of the lesson indicates interest, while the outcomes can be measured against the objectives of the lesson, which in this case would be application question in a test depicting real life events. This is particularly possible in algebra lessons, which are both abstract and applicable. Therefore, effectiveness can be measured using the amount of time spent teaching and this can then be put against the goals and objectives. More time with poor results indicate low efficiency, while less time and better results indicates otherwise. Collection of information about efficiency, output, outcome and activities can be obtained from official records since all teachers are required to keep records of the work they have taught. As such, this makes it easy to obtain information unless the data is confidential, as is the case with test scores. If the names of students are not required, then the acquisition of this data becomes fairly easy. Collection of data is meant to evaluate effectiveness of methods of teaching and the resources allocated to the teacher, as well as the time taken to teach (Berman, 2006 pg. 150). As a result, the most important aspect of the data is in the learning outcomes, where learning outcomes take centre stage. This affects the choice of performance measure in that the outcome has to be reflected on most in spite of the purposes overlapping. The difference between accomplishments and activities is narrow as there is