Plastic Surgery - Imperfection

Have you ever thought about these questions?
- Am I pretty?
- Can I be pretty?
- Why am I so ugly?
- Why is SHE so pretty?
- Can I have her face and her body?
The society we live in today makes us believe that we need to reach a level of perfection, which can never be achieved. We walk by large billboards and ads on the streets and can't help but think about our own imperfection. Or it might be Barbie's "perfect" appearance that affected you on how you think about yourself. But, please be reminded that Barbie dolls are fake and getting a body like Barbie is probably one of the hardest things to do.  I think the idea of "changing your face" is against what God made you. God made each of us perfect and in His image; He has never made a mistake.
Some people might think that plastic surgery is acceptable because it only deals with the outer appearance. Others might think that it is not okay because it is against God's will. However, this is my opinion. Plastic Surgery may change how you look, but it will never change how you think and act. It doesn't matter whether or not you're pretty or not, but if your inner self is filled with darkness and hatred, changing your physical appearance would not make a difference.
Korea is widely known for their plastic surgeries. Therefore, girls at a very young age start thinking about having plastic surgeries. According to statistics in Korea, one in every five women participated in some sort of plastic surgery. A possible reason why numerous Koreans are crazy for surgeries could be because of Korean celebrities. A lot of Korean celebrities have undergone some sort of cosmetic surgeries so that they would look pretty in front of their followers and fans. Since K-pop is popular among teenagers, it has informed to them about plastic surgery.
Plastic surgery is popular not only for its beautifying effect, but also for medical purposes. Scars and wounds can be replaced through plastic surgeries. According to Stanford School of Medicine, plastic surgery can be a reconstructive surgery that could repair the hole left behind by a bone tumor after its removal. Another way plastic surgeries can be helpful is when people age and they start developing wrinkles and tissues sagging. A cosmetic surgery can lift your skin up so it would not affect your everyday life.

Sites Used:
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/05/the-k-pop-plastic-surgery-obsession/276215/v
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_surgery
http://plasticsurgery.stanford.edu/
https://umm.edu/health/medical/reports/articles/skin-wrinkles-and-blemishes
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2134352/One-women-Seoul-gone-knife-South-Korea-tops-global-list-plastic-surgery-procedures.html

Overpopulation

According to Overpopulation.org, one third of the population growth in the world is a result of unwanted or incidental pregnancies. Every year, 80 million unintended pregnancies occur in developing countries. Growth is most rapid in the 49 least developed countries. Calculations have shown that their population is going to double in size from ≈ 900 million inhabitants in 2013 to 1.8 billion in 2015. In the year 2050, the US Census Bureau predicts that the world population would reach 9.2 billion. Each day, the world population increases by 200,000 people. In any country, it takes 70 years for the population to double at a growth rate of 1% per year. Overpopulation is a big issue if not tackled effectively.

A region is considered to be overpopulated if there is not enough farmland/grazing land to feed everyone. Overpopulation can be a cycle. When people are poor, they have to spend all their money on food. This results in being unable to afford an education or medical care for their children. When children are unable to have an education, especially girls, they tend to marry earlier and have more children because the families want to have less mouths to feed. High infant mortality rate leads to having women believe that they need to have more children as insurance. However, overpopulation may have somewhat of a benefit. If there is a large number of young people entering the labor market, it can boost the economy. But, there needs to be jobs available for these young people. If they are educated, it improves the chances of boosting the economy.

Overpopulation will lead to not having enough basic resources. These basic resources include food, water shortages, air quality, fuel, the ozone layer, and the earth's topsoil. One out of 7 people go to bed hungry every night. 25,000 people die of hunger-related issues every day. Food production and distribution could catch up if our population dropped to a sustainable level. Around 1 billion people lack the access to water for consumption, sanitation, and agriculture. Lung-related problems have risen dramatically due to air pollution. As more and more people have to travel many miles to gather some sort of fuel (wood, oil, etc.) for cooking and heating, it increases their vulnerability to hardship and danger. The ozone layer no longer protects us as well from the UV rays from the sun. Lastly, the earth's topsoil has limits. Growing excessive amounts of food is depleting the 6 inches of topsoil rapidly.

Overpopulation would also lead to social problems, such as overcrowding. In an experiment on Norway rats, rats were put in overcrowded cages. Many of them suffered physical and behavioral problems. Scientists think that if this type of situation happened to humans, it would affect us just as badly. Conflicts and wars are another problem, as lack of hope for the future due to their living situation combined with low self esteem can result in violence.

Speaking of crowded cages, in Hong Kong, tens of thousands people have been living in "bird cage" homes. These small homes are 6 feet by 2 feet. It is pretty much like a wire cage, being made out of wire mesh. Each little cubicle has its own rent. They are stacked on two levels - $775 for a cubicle on the upper deck and $1160 for the lower bunk because the lower bunk barely allows the occupant to stand upright. However, this depends on the type of apartment they live in. Some have 3 levels. Chung lives in a 625 square feet flat with 18 strangers. They all share a common bathroom and kitchen. Chung complains that temperatures oftentimes reaches to 34°C.


Sites Used:
http://www.overpopulation.org/faq.html
http://howmany.org/environmental_and_social_ills.php
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2084971/Hong-Kongs-cage-homes-Tens-thousands-living-6ft-2ft-rabbit-hutches.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/10/28/cage.homes/index.html?iref=24hours

Food Crisis

"Frost in Brazil and Paraguay, dry conditions in Argentina, and delayed plantings due to wet weather in producing regions in the Russian Federation and Ukraine all raise concerns for winter wheat harvests."

       - Food Price Watch - November 2013

Where does YOUR food come from? How much does YOUR food cost?...

Food prices worldwide are getting increasingly higher by the day. The weather has been a great affect on food supply and farm productions. The declining amount of farmed goods was one of the reasons that caused the inflation of food prices.

East Africa 2011- severe drought: East Africa experienced one of the most severe drought in 60 years. 10 million people were affected by this drought in Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti, and Somalia. This drought has caused crop failures and limited food supply in these regions. "All the predictions show seasonal rains are far away and the situation will deteriorate -- we have not even reached the peak of the crisis," said Dr. Unni Krishnan. Refugee camps had to withhold thousands of people, with many of the population leaving their home country to escape from the food crisis. The drought has made the price of food shoot high up and millions of the victims are suffering from hunger. Farmers had lost two of the rainy seasons to harvest which is very rare in their region.
In Somalia, where the government does not control the entire country, the situation has become harder to control. Over 2.5 million people in Somalia are affected by the drought when at the same time, a civil war is active in the country. Foreign countries find it very difficult to deliver aid into the country because of the ongoing conflict. Food prices in poor areas have significantly inflated because of the situation they have been living in. By reading about food crisis, I think we should start being aware of the food waste we create daily. The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that food waste worldwide is approximately 1.3 billion tons per year. Let us all not waste food and rather send food to places that do need food. They need YOUR help.

The Guardian states that more than half of the children under 5 in this region died from the drought from hunger and malnutrition. A refugee camp called Dadaab can only hold 90,000 but this drought had created an extra amount of 370,000 people joining the camp.

Sites Used:
http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/publication/food-price-watch-november-2013
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_East_Africa_drought
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/07/08/east.africa.drought/index.html
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jan/18/east-africa-drought-disaster-report
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/04/drought-east-africa-climate-change
http://www.unep.org/wed/quickfacts/

HIV and AIDS

According to Aids.gov, 33.4 million people currently have HIV/AIDS. HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. Similar to many other viruses, it can cause common colds. However, unlike other sicknesses, your immune system is unable to get rid of the virus. HIV attacks a person's T-cells or CD4 cells, using those cells to replicate itself and then destroying them. When HIV destroys many of your CD4 cells that your body is unable to fight it anymore, it can result in AIDS. AIDS stands for Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome. As the final stage of HIV infection, people in this stage have defectively damaged immune systems.



Where did HIV originate from? Scientists identified that a particular kind of chimpanzee from West Africa contributed to HIV. Believed that humans were affected when they came in contact with chimpanzees infected with SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus), the SIV mutated into what we know as HIV. Slowly, the virus spread across Africa and to the rest of the world. The earliest known case of an HIV infection in human was found in a blood sample of  a man from the Republic of the Congo in 1959.

HIV can be found in human body fluids. It can be transmitted through many different ways, including through sexual contact, pregnancy, breast feeding, occupational exposure, and rarely, through blood transfusion or organ transplant. If your partner has HIV, it can be transmitted to you through sexual contact. A baby can get HIV from drinking infected breast milk. Healthcare workers can get HIV when they come in contact with infected blood through needles sticks or cuts. Getting HIV from a blood transfusion or an organ transplant is rare because medics carefully examine it before giving it to a donee.

The earliest signs of HIV include headaches, fevers, rashes, swollen lymph node, and exhaustion. Other symptoms may include muscle or joint pain, sore throat, and ulcers. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, these symptoms usually arise between 1-2 months of the infections. If you suspect that you have HIV/AIDS, it is important to consult with a doctor as soon as possible.

Sites Used:
http://aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/hiv-aids-101/what-is-hiv-aids/index.html
http://aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/hiv-aids-101/statistics/index.html
http://www.theaidsinstitute.org/node/259
http://aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/hiv-aids-101/how-you-get-hiv-aids/index.html
http://www.healthline.com/health-slideshow/early-signs-hiv-infection

Tobacco Smoking

How is tobacco made? Tobacco comes from the tobacco plant. After its harvest, a series of 'curing' the tobacco is done for the next seventy to ninety days. It is later sent to different factories for further treatments and made into products such as cigarettes, cigars, smoking tobacco, chewing tobacco, and snuff.

In 2011, according to the American Cancer society, about 43.8 million people smoke cigarettes in United States alone (1 in every 5 adults).
Most of these smokers are men but there are also a large amount of women smokers. The use of tobacco is common not only among adults but also among teenagers. Nearly 1 in every 3 high school students use of tobacco in some form.

What are some reasons people start smoking? Is smoking and consuming tobacco a good thing? Some people start smoking is because of peer pressure, parental influence, advertising, medication, etc. I think most teenagers take cigarettes because it might make them look "cool" or popular. But smoking will have greater consequences later in their lives.

According to National Institute on Drug Abuse, cigarettes kill 440,000 people in United States every year. Smoking can lead to several kinds of illnesses. It can damage your organs including your brain, heart, lungs, liver, and kidney. Helping you breathe, your lungs are especially affected. They get badly damaged because of the chemicals in cigarettes, turning into sticky brown tar. Deformed lungs can result in lung cancer that can result in death.

Another kind of consequence that we could all suffer from is its pollution. Oftentimes, after people finish their cigarettes, they litter their cigarette butts right on the streets. An estimation of the total amount of cigarette butts disposed of worldwide is 1.69 billion pounds per year. Not only do cigarettes create a massive amount of waste, it also pollutes our environment. People around these smokers can also receive damage to their lungs if they inhale too much of their smoke. Pollution can ruin animals' habitats and the air we breathe in.

What you can do:
- Stop smoking
- Pick up trash around us for our environment
- Don't smoke in public so it won't affect others

Sites Used:
http://library.thinkquest.org/TQ0310171/how_is_tobacco_made.htm
http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/botany/tobacco-info6.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_cigarette_consumption_per_capita
http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/smoking-cessation/10-reasons-people-start-smoking2.htm
http://www.tobaccofreeca.com/smoking-problem/impact/environment/
http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/tobacco-addiction/what-are-medical-consequences-tobacco-use

Environmental Pollution

Many people have heard of air, water, and land pollution, but have they heard of the other kinds of pollution? Being able to understand the basics about pollution can minimize individual's contribution and vulnerability to pollution's harm. There are 9 recognized sources of modern pollution. Other than having a damaging impact on the environment, these sources of pollution can also affect the health of humans.

According to the dictionary, air pollution is defined as the contamination of the atmosphere. Air pollution can be in the form of small particles, such as dust, or excessive gasses. Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, is one of the main pollutant that is causing global warming. Fumes from vehicles, radiation from nuclear accidents, and the burning of fossil fuels all contaminate the air. These are linked to respiratory illnesses, such as asthma and some types of allergy.

Water pollution is when anything degrades or contaminates water's purity and quality. It can occur in any body of water, such as oceans, rivers, lakes, streams, and reservoirs. Examples of water pollution are dumping waste into the middle of the ocean, bacteria growth, raw sewage running into streams, and even oil spillage.

Land pollution is caused by misusing earth's resources and disposing waste inappropriately. Litter disposed on the side of the road and not in the rubbish bin is a common example of land pollution. This makes the sanitation workers's job harder. Pesticides and other farming chemicals are also examples of land pollution. We must avoid using them as best as we can. Not only has land pollution affected the lives of humans, but it has also done damage towards the natural habitats of animals.

Light pollution may sound rather silly, but it is caused by the over illumination of areas that are oftentimes not needed and will cause disruption. Some examples would include unnecessary lights (like at home when you're gone), night time sporting events or other forms of entertainment, and street lamps that emit light in many directions, not only downwards onto the street.
Thermal pollution is excessive heat caused by human activity that will cause lasting negative impacts on the earth over long periods of time. Thermal pollution can be caused by power plants, heat from factories, and deforestation. This kind of pollution can cause wildlife populations to have a difficult time adjusting to the temperature changes.

Noise pollution are loud noises that cause disruption or annoyance to humans and animals. Examples of noise pollution includes vehicles of airplanes, loud constructing noise, traffic, and even concerts. Constant exposure to noise pollution can cause hearing damage and wildlife disturbances.

Visual pollution is basically unattractive views or things that visually damage the nearby landscape. It can range from skyscrapers that block the view of the scenery behind to  billboards/advertising to even graffiti on nature. All these can cause eyesores.

Radioactive pollution is considered rare. But when it occurs, it is very deadly. It can cause intense damage to human health. Uranium mining operations and nuclear power plant leakage are sources of radioactive pollution. The unfortunate event of Japan's nuclear leak a few years ago would classify as radioactive pollution. The explosion of the atomic bombs on Japan are also examples of radioactive pollution. Radioactive pollution can cause cancer, loss of white blood cell, and vomiting.

Personal pollution is the contamination of a person's health and well-being. It may even contribute to the other 8 forms of pollution. Smoking and drugs are common examples of personal pollution. Smoking can cause lung cancer, while drugs can cause premature aging.


Air pollution in Hong Kong is a serious problem. Cases of asthma and bronchial infections have increased over the past few years because of bad air quality. Traffic is a main cause in Hong Kong's air pollution. To find out more, visit this site http://www.airqualitynow.eu/city_info/prague/page4.php

It is important to not contribute to any of these forms of pollution, as they will, sooner or later, affect the you and the environment you live in. Numbers 35:33-34 says: "You shall not pollute the land in which you live...you shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I  dwell, for I the Lord dwells in the midst of the people of Israel." As stewards of God's creation, we must be take care of the land, as God commanded.

Sites Used:
http://library.thinkquest.org/3471/radiation_effects_body.html
http://www.sustainablebabysteps.com/kinds-of-environmental-pollution.html
http://www.ask.com/question/personal-pollution
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/pollution-overview/
http://greenliving.lovetoknow.com/Types_of_Pollution
http://www.openbible.info/topics/pollution
http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/environmentinhk/water/water_maincontent.html