Blog 14

Blog 14
What can a woman do to reduce her risk of assault?

I think that this is a hard topic for woman to realize, because we tend to have the “it wont happen to me”, attitude. I think that taking defense classes would really help a woman in case it does happen to her. There are also safety tips that woman should know about. There are some interesting facts about woman and assaults from Plattsburgh State University of New York:

“One in for college woman have been the victims of rape or attempted rape. ”

“90% of the victims know their assailants.”

85% of more of sexual assaults involve alcohol.”


I think the more education woman have of this topic the better. I think that every college should have seminars on what to do if you are assaulted.






Work Cited
(2009). Sexual Assault: Safety Tips, Resources and the Law. April 15, 2009 from
http://www.plattsburgh.edu/offices/admin/universitypolice/sexualassault.php.

BLOG 13

I think that woman think it is a sign of weakness, but I do not think it is a sign of weakness. I think that it is the opposite. I think that it takes a really strong person to admit that they have a problem. And then it takes even a stronger person to do something about it. I have some people in my family with drug/alcohol problems and I wish they would want to change and fix their problems. It is hard to see someone you care about go through the ups and downs of substance abuse. The best thing you can do for someone with a drug/alcohol problem is just be there for them. They will only change their lifestyle when they are ready!

blog 12

About 6 months ago my grandmother was diagnosed with bipolar disease. It’s really weird to hear about diseases and then see one of your family members go through it. It started about a year and a half ago. She started acting really strange. She started doing things that she usually wouldn’t do. She started being really ADD. It was like she couldn’t just sit down and relax for ten minutes without getting up and cleaning, or doing something. She also never slept. She would only sleep for a couple of hours and get up at like 3 and start cleaning or cooking. I remember my dad calling me one and telling me about how she was acting. My grandmother was staying with him for a weekend and one night at about 3 am he was woken up by a sound in the kitchen. He went into the kitchen and found her in there. She had taken all the glasses, pots and pans out of the cabinets and was cleaning them. This is a very serious disease. She wasn’t a severe case but the whole family could tell that she wasn’t herself. Before this I thought that bipolar was just a emotional disease. Where people were happy one minute and then said the next, but it isn’t. It also deals with being really ADD and then crashing. My grandmother would also take naps during the day which was also unusual for her. She would also fall asleep at church, which to her is very disrespectful and something she would normally never do. Thanks to doctors and medicine she is fine now. We just have to make sure she stays on her medicine.

blog 11

I do think that we would live differently if we knew what our future held for us. If we knew that we would fail and be a bum then I don’t think we would try so hard to succeed, and vis versa. When we are young we are taught that we can be whatever we want to be. So we spend the next 20 years trying to make our dreams come true. However the truth is that not everyone “makes it”. And I think that if those people knew that they would make it they would live their lives differently. That’s the negative effect on knowing what our future will look like. If we knew that we would succeed, people who are afraid to try would work harder and become something. Or if someone was going to die young, this would defiantly change the way they spend the rest of their lives. This could be a bad or good thing, depending on the person. Me, however, I am glad that we do not know what our future holds for us. Living life everyday is a gift and I think that if we knew what was in store we would take more things for granite and we would appreciate things.

blog 10

My grandfather was the first in my family to have heart disease. He was the first and so far the last. No one else in my family has heart disease. However, my family doesn’t live very active lives. Nor do we eat as healthy as we should. I am afraid that if we don’t change our ways it will lead to heart disease. Many of my family members are a little over weight. None of us are hundreds of pounds overweight but we are a little chubby. I think that our environment and lifestyles are the two most important factors in why we are not as healthy as we should be. We are really busy and don’t always have time to eat healthy. Also my mother is a single mom who works so when she gets off work she has to come home and take care of the kids homework, laundry, and house work. Also there are not any parks or fields to play on at my moms. We have to drive to the nearest park. As far as education goes I think that as a whole everyone needs to be more educated. I think that schools need to better educate children and there should be more community education. I think that we get so busy that we forget about our health and we need to work to change that.

Friends with eating disorders - blog 9.

Talking to a friend about having an eating disorder can be really hard. You have to be very understanding. If you come on to strong and judgmental they may not open up and let you in. You have to understand where this person is coming from and have a lot of patients. Eating disorders are very complex and usually are for an unknown reason that they may hide. It is not uncommon for girls to hide the fact that they have an eating disorder. So they may not admit it the first time you bring it up. As long as you make sure that she knows that you are someone she can talk to and make sure you are there for her no matter what. That’s really all you can do if she doesn’t want help at the time. You can’t help someone if they don’t want to be help, or if they are in denial.

getting older -blog 8

In other cultures people look up to older generations. They are considered wise and are respected. Here it doesn’t seem that way at all. Older woman are getting face lifts and Botox, trying to look younger. In today’s world we look at getting older as a negative thing. I am a fan of lotion and natural things that keep your skin healthy and wrinkle free but we have taken this to a totally unhealthy level. Women are having surgery on their faces to lift them up!! How crazy is that? The main reason I hear is, I want to look good. We look at models and see perfection that is beyond anyone’s reach. Not even the model is that perfect but yet we seem to want to be like them. I think that if we had everyday looking models things would change. We have this unrealistic view and expectations of how woman should look and act and it is ridiculous. I am all for wanting to look and feel good but there has to be a boundary, and I think that surgery and Botox is stepping over the boundary.

Blog 7

After reading chapter seven I learned that there are many women who get STD’s and feel ashamed. I could understand why they would feel that way but on the other hand there are a lot of people who are going through the same thing. We have unrealistic views about woman and it is extremely unfair to call a woman names and belittle her because she has made a mistake. I know a woman who got married and her husband gave her herpes. Herpes is something you can NOT get rid of and this is something that she will have to deal with her entire life. I tell this story because not everyone with a STD is promiscuous. I know that married people are not the majority of the cases but these cases do appear. There are people who think they are in a committed relationship and there partner isn’t truly committed. I think that it is unfair to judge one another. The woman that I know has great friends and a great family for support but not everyone has that. There are many groups and counselors that I think are a great way to understand and talk about your disease. I am a great person to talk to and I feel that I am a nonjudgmental, but when it comes to STD’s I honestly don’t know how they feel. I think talking to people that are in your situation is better and can help you out more than someone who doesn’t know where you are coming from!

having children

Woman and having children


I am a firm believer that not all women should have children. I do not have any children of my own but I have worked with children for years and I have seen how they can be treated. It takes a lot of patients and love to have a healthy child and I don’t think that all women have what it takes mentally to have a child.

As for me, I can’t wait to have children. I love being around children they are fun to be around and can say and do the craziest things. But I am in college and I want to wait until I get out and get on my feet to settle down. I think that it takes a lot to be a mother. You have to give up a lot of things for your child. I think that you need to make sure that you are ready to make that commitment before you have a child. I know that there are cases where people have children even if it’s not the right time and I have so much respect for them. There is no way that I could go to college, get a degree and have a baby.


I have seen many great children being neglected and it is sad. I have seen mothers who take their children to daycare and leave them there until closing and don’t spend very much time with them. These are the children that act out. These are the children that want attention so bad that they will do anything to get it, even if it is negative attention. I know that most parents have to work to support their families but they also need to spend quality time with their children.

Blog 5 - cultures and contraceptives

I believe that culture plays a huge part in influencing decisions about contraception’s. I have a boyfriend that is Muslim, and his believes and culture played a huge role in his beliefs about contraceptives.
Here in America we are extremely open about sex compared to Pakistan, which is where he is from. They are not taught about contraceptives or diseases in Pakistan because you only have sex when you are married and if you’re both virgins (which you are suppose to be) than there is no need to worry about STD. His culture doesn’t believe is contraceptives, period, whether you’re married or not, contraceptive are not accepted in his culture. Needless to say when we first met I was way more educated than he was when it came to STD’s, sex, contraceptives, ect. I could not believe that he was so uneducated not only about sex but also about the whole reproductive system. When we met he was in college and so he knew a little about sex, and condoms, from health and science classes, but not a lot. For example he knew what a condom was but he couldn’t tell you how to put one on. Or he knew woman had periods but he couldn’t tell you why or how often. I, on the other hand knew this information early in life. Even though my parents were divorced and I lived with my dad, my mom did her best to inform me.
Dating him has been a great experience to me because it opened my eyes to other cultures, and how they view different topics. When I graduate I want to work with people and I am going to have to get use to other culture, religion and people with different backgrounds.

sex education and teens

I strongly believe that sex education should be in the schools! There are kids that are having babies at 13 and I think that we can change that if we educate them. I remember when I went to sex education class in high school. We had it once a year for half the day. It was very educational but the problem I think is that we started having sex education when we were freshman. By that time more than half the class was already having sex.
I think we need to start educating kids at a younger age. I think we should start in the middle school. And I also so think that we should teach the kids both, abstinence and safe sex. I think it is safe to say that kids are going to have sex whether they are educated or not, so why not educate them. Girls not only need to know about there own bodies but they also need to know about the boys body as well. They need to know how boys react to certain activities, like making out. They also need to know about STD’s (STI) as well. They need to know about birth control, male and female condoms and how to properly use them. They also need to know that abstinence is the only way to stay 100% safe, healthy, and not pregnant.
In a perfect world sex would be discussed in the home and not publicized, but the truth is that a lot of parents don’t talk to their kids until it too late. I was raised by my dad so I never got the “sex talk”. I just had to base sex on what other kids told me. It would have been great to have someone who I could ask questions if I had them. Sex education gives kids an idea of what is going on and allows them to ask any questions they may have about sex or just about there body!

Sex Education - blogg 4

I strongly believe that sex education should be in the schools! There are kids that are having babies at 13 and I think that we can change that if we educate them. I remember when I went to sex education class in high school. We had it once a year for half the day. It was very educational but the problem I think is that we started having sex education when we were freshman. By that time more than half the class was already having sex.
I think we need to start educating kids at a younger age. I think we should start in the middle school. And I also so think that we should teach the kids both, abstinence and safe sex. I think it is safe to say that kids are going to have sex whether they are educated or not, so why not educate them. Girls not only need to know about there own bodies but they also need to know about the boys body as well. They need to know how boys react to certain activities, like making out. They also need to know about STD’s (STI) as well. They need to know about birth control, male and female condoms and how to properly use them. They also need to know that abstinence is the only way to stay 100% safe, healthy, and not pregnant.
In a perfect world sex would be discussed in the home and not publicized, but the truth is that a lot of parents don’t talk to their kids until it too late. I was raised by my dad so I never got the “sex talk”. I just had to base sex on what other kids told me. It would have been great to have someone who I could ask questions if I had them. Sex education gives kids an idea of what is going on and allows them to ask any questions they may have about sex or just about there body!

How can we encourage adolescents?

I am a Health Studies major and although I'm not 100% sure of what direction I want to go with my career I really would like to work with children and teens. I think that we should start educating at a younger age. There are 11 and 12 year old girls getting pregnant these days and we don't even start sex education until high school. Or at least that's when I first got a sex education class. Some schools now don’t even give sex education classes. I know about all about the controversy going on with sex education but I think that it should be a mandatory class. If we do not increase the education of STD's (STIs) and condom use disease and pregnancy will only increase.

As for diet, the schools are doing a great job at providing healthier lunches, but we need to improve what they eat at home as well. Parents need to be more aware of what they are feeding and buying their kids. I know it’s harder now days when you have both parents working but you need to find time to make healthy food choices.

Exercise is a problem in schools and homes. Schools use to have mandatory P.E. Now not only can kids get out of the class but some have cut P.E and recess. Now you talk to parents and they say their kids get exercise at school, and the teachers say the kids should get exercise at home. Kids need both. There are some programs like Jump rope for Heart that are great and help get kids motivated but we need more. We need community centers that are free for kids to come and play. We need better parks for kids to play on and a sidewalk that goes around the play sets. That way while the kids are playing the moms can walk around and watch their kids.

This is something that is very important to me. And if we do not start doing something about kids eating and exercising habits we are going to have a load of problems in the future. We are already starting to see kids with type 2 diabetes and kids that are obese and we need to fix it. We need to start in the communities to better facilities so there are no excuses.