TED Talk Ideas?

My English class has been assigned the to present an analytical, educational yet inspiring TED Talk. The speeches are supposed to be related to our paradigm shift papers. My paradigm shift paper is primarily about the shift from fast-food towards the fast casual restaurants aka McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King to Chipotle, Panera and Qdoba. I wanted it to reflect how in American culture, it has suddenly become trendy to be healthy and eat better quality food. I have tons of statistics and research to support my paper, but now my next challenge is deciding my topic for the TED Talk.

Since we are allowed to take a small part of our papers to help us decide our topics I think that I would like to focus on health trends in America today.

My TED Talk would begin with statistics how on how much more focused the country has become on health including examples like the locavore movement and decreasing sales of fast-food restaurants. This would establish that a trend does exist in the improvement and in the effort to becoming healthier. Then I would get into the purpose of the TED talk: discussing the causes of this health trend. Are we attempting to be more healthy just because it is trendy nowadays to shop at Trader Joe’s and eat frozen yogurt, or are we putting in that effort for our own well-being?

The farmer’s markets are the heart of the locavore movement.

Although a shift towards a healthier America may have begun with a reaction to record-high obesity rates (that are still as high as ever today) it has maintained its strength because it has become so commonplace that people don’t even notice that it has affected their decisions anymore. Even choosing Chipotle over McDonald’s is one of those unconscious decisions (but I wouldn’t say it is healthier, it is just better quality food).

One possible reason obesity rates have not actually gone down is because there is an assumption made in society today that bigger women are healthier hence why obesity has not gone down because that perception has made some people believe that they are not overweight even though, in terms of numbers, they are. This has a parallel effect on the other part of the population: a stigma on the cookie-cutter models, most popularly, the Victoria’s Secret models. Some are convinced that these girls are way too skinny and are therefore unhealthy and should not be looked upon as role models. However, I can honestly say that for most of them being healthy is their entire job. When modeling is a person’s career, they have the time to make sure they get the fitness training they need and the greens and healthy food they need to keep their skin clear. But this does not necessarily make people bigger than Victoria’s Secret models unhealthy.

One little fact that a lot of people ignore is that for each and every one of us, healthy does not have the same definition. (More research will be done on this) For example, a lot of people think that some girls of the same height look fatter than other. Wrong. Genetically, some will be born with wider hips which will therefore need more weight to be supported. So their butt isn’t actually too big, their body shape is actually a healthy size for them. As compared to a girl with very thin hips, she will not need as much volume to support her body. Everybody has a different definition of being healthy.

So what my point is that we shouldn’t be trying to be healthier and more fit because other people are doing it and that’s what people perceive to be better. We should already be making this attempt because we are concerned with living longer, avoiding disease, building a stronger heart, improving our well-beings, and in general feeling good about ourselves.

Let me know your thoughts!

2 Comments on TED Talk Ideas?

  1. Alanna R Harding
    November 13, 2014 at 4:06 pm (9 years ago)

    Personally, I disagree strongly with this statement.

    “One possible reason obesity rates have not actually gone down is because there is an assumption made in society today that bigger women are healthier hence why obesity has not gone down because that perception has made some people believe that they are not overweight even though, in terms of numbers, they are.”

    I don’t feel that our society perceives bigger women as healthier. In some ways our culture looks down upon anemia. but all in all my perception is that thinner people are healthier. If you are planning to make claims like this, you really should make them more specific.

  2. Ashley Sklack
    November 7, 2014 at 2:31 am (9 years ago)

    I’m going to be very honest, I’m really confused. You burned through a lot of topics very quickly. I worry that you will not be able to cover all of these things in one Ted Talk. Also, you seemed to get around to your eventual point in a very round about and hard to follow way. I’m still struggling to fully comprehend how each topic relates to the other. It would probably work for your paradigm shift essay since it is pretty broad and eventually comes full circle. So maybe a narrowing of your topic would be beneficial.

    Also on a technical note, I advise rereading your posts before you submit them. You make a few grammatical mistakes rather frequently. They aren’t glaring because they are still correctly spelled words just used in the wrong sense. For example, you used “thing” instead of “think”. Just a few thoughts.

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