Peer Response.: Carrie Edmunds

In Carrie Edmund's blog about celebrity endorsement she talks about how Jennifer Aniston is a promoter and supporter of St. Judes Children Research hospital. I agree that with her that Jennifer is a good celebrity to promote the hospital because of her credibility and her image. One reason is that she's a women strong and independent, but shows the love of a mother. If this was a male celebrity I feel that the impact would not be as strong because the bond between women and children is one that can't be understood by men. Women at one point are one with children and after birth there is just a special attachment that they only understand. This would appeal to people because they can see the love and care from Jennifer in supporting the hospital. Jennifer is also not married, so in some people's eyes, they see that she has put the time and effort into the hospital and is really dedicated to it.
Jennifer Aniston has a good reputation without many scandals and troubles in the past that makes her credible. The cause of helping out children is also very good and heart-warming that makes the cause more effective. In my opinion when it comes to any celebrity and how successful they promote things, it all comes down to them as a person. If they have not been tarnished by the media and scandal and have a good personality then usually the product is successful. Your reputation follows you wherever you go and that is the key to maintain a good image.

Real Food Vs. Fake Food

When it comes to seafood, I just can't get enough of shrimp. Shrimp is often used as an appetizer or party starter for gatherings, or can just be used as any ingredient to a good meal. I often use fake shrimp when I cook pasta for my family or friends because it's a unique topping with flavor. Real shrimp on the other hand just give foods the same spice, style and taste. Fake shrimp is the more cost effective choice, but that doesn't mean that real shrimp is not good because it is great.
Fake shrimp is cod and fish put together that is coated and flavored with real shrimp, then it is molded into looking like real shrimp. Fake shrimp often contains the same nutrients as regular shrimp, but is much more cost effective. The advantages to having fake shrimp over real shrimp besides the fact that you can get it cheap is that it often comes pre-cooked. This means that all you have to do is either boil it or bake it depending on your preference. In this economy buying real food is very expensive because of the lack of income or frugality that people are tying to maintain. Buying real food is just not plausible. Shrimp is a delicacy in someways because you don't really eat it everyday, but when you do want to you don't want to spend so much money which shows the advantage of fake shrimp. Though fake shrimp is combined with a lot of preservatives and fats it is not much more than that of regular shrimp.
Fake food to me is really not a problem due to the fact that I often just care about taste and price. If I can't rell the difference between real shrimp and fake then it's no problem to me. I want food that taste good at a good price and sure there might be some helth risk involved. Shrimp though in my opinion is not consumed on a daily basis where it would become a great problem to my health. With the money that I save I can put use towards other things that I enjoy in life.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-04-24-food-games_N.htm

I don't really agree with this article that states that fake food has become a leading problem in the obesity of young kids in America. I don't argue with the fact that it is part of the problem, but I feel there are more factors to it as there is with everything. Children these days lack the necessary exercise to maintain good health. With video games, movies, and other types of entertainment to keep children busy, they are often stuck at home. This takes away from precious time that they could be playing and exercising like in the old days when there weren't so many distractions before. z

Peer Response: Joy's Blog

Joy's blog discussed about how she prepared a meal for her family this past weekend. She talks about the convenience of having all the ingredients and how much her family enjoyed her well prepared meal. She talks about the enjoyment of food and not just about getting the necessary nutrients in food. Her family and herself actually enjoyed the food which goes along with how she talks about disagreeing with the claim that Pollan makes that people don't take pleasure in eating food anymore. I agree with Joy completely because it's not that Americans don't enjoy the food or try to savor it, but rather the people around them make food more compelling. If the envornment and people around you when you eat is cherry and upbeat then food always taste so much better because you are truly enjoying yourself.

Alcohol? 18 or 21?

I decided to compare two articles concerning the legal drinking age in the United States of America. Since under-age drinking is a big debate in America, I thought it be interesting to look at and understand both sides of the issue.

The first article I read comes from CNN and talks about how the legal drinking age of 21 is able to save many countless lives and is necessary for America to have. The article talks about the history of under-age drinking and the consequences that have arrived from it. Recently over 100 college presidents have started to question whether the legal drinking age should be 21 or not. The article takes examples from how New Zealand has reently lowered there drinking age and the result has been a wide-spread of vehicle accidents which furthers justifies the legal drinking age of 21.

The second article comes from CNN also and discusses how the drinking age of 21 just doesn't work at all. The article talks about how in the past legislation decided to change the legal drinking age to 21, but did so without even teaching the young how to prepare for alcohol consumption and its effects. The second article stresses the point of drinking in a controlled envornement and one where people have knowledge of alcohol to limit its effects and what not. It talks about how even in the college environment, students are still able to get there hands on alcohol.

After reading the articles my opinion on legalizing the drinking age to 18 still remains the same. I still think that having the legal drinking age at 21 just makes younger people more eager to dirnk and when they do they go all out. The more young people are prepared for drinking and alcohol the less they will want to do so, because eventually it'll just be an activity where they get tired of because they can do it so easily.

Nike Vapors and Cristiano Ronaldo Endorsement

One of the best and youngest soccer players and Nike can only mean one thing success. Cristiano Ronaldo is hailed as one of the if not the best soccer players in the world and with him endorsing Nike's soccer shoes the Mercurial Vapors this has been a great success. The Vapors have become a brand of soccer and Nike for all young soccer players because of the combination of the two.

young kids who play soccer want to be the best and look the best when they play. There shoes make them who they are on and off the field and Nike notices this. Cristiano Ronaldo is a fantastic young player with a lot of upside and also has the cockiness and flair for the public. Nike uses his skills and his demeanor in order to promte there shoes. They take a good young vibrant soccer player, who kids idolize and want to be like, and market him. Ronaldo is a worthy candidate definitely due to the fact he has been awarded FIFA soccer associations mos prestigious awards such as, Young Footballer of the year, and also the Professional Footballs Association player of the year award at such a young age.

As the new Mercurial vapors are set to launch this spring, I think that Nike will continue to be successful in selling there shoes. Ronaldo has only gotten better and is also more mature now making him even more marketable not only to young kids but older kids and fans of soccer. His flair draws in players and his skill makes him envious. If Ronaldo chooses to he can take Nike Soccer to the next level. Here is a video ad of his endorsement of the Vapors.

David Beckham is a name that many people have heard of, and he grants a great deal of respect when hes talked about. Beckham has taken soccer to the next level globally and Ronaldo has the same chance to do so and make soccer even greater than it already is. Just take a look at Bay Windows article on Ronaldo which further helps my claim and explain why Ronaldo is the perfect choice for a company like Nike.

Peer Response: Kari's Blog

When Reading Kari's blog about the new fragrance of "Halle," I found it very intriguing. The post talks about how the fragrance "Halle" is a new and popular fragrance on the market and how they use Halle Berry to market it. Halle is a very beautiful women and a perfect candidate in the eyes of marketers. It's very interesting because Halle has never endorsed any fragrance before so this endorsement somewhat caught me off guard, but I felt that her success helped this endorsement become very successful.

I absolutely agree with Kari about the fact that Halle is the perfect candidate to endorse this fragrance. The point that I think Kari hit head on, was about how Halle Berry has very little history about scandals in her past. This means that she is well respected and well-mannered enough that she can become a good role model for all people which widens the market for the fragrance to be able to be sold. Being a celebrity there is a lot of drama and complications with the public, but Halle was able to become a bona-fide superstar avoiding all the scandals which makes her the perfect candidate for endorsing any product.

Also, some ideas that I think could also be explored to as why they chose Halle as there endorsement partner is the fact that she is a strong African-American women. Typically when marketing a product there is a certain target group, Halle allows for this target group to widen even more than the average white women. Halle is successful and a star, but that fact that she is also diverse makes it possible for her to reach another market which translates into more money basically. Of course with any endorsement there is always going to be trouble, but Halle is a good endorser that she is able to minimize the trouble because of her strong reputation.

Kari's Blog

Self-Evaluation Speech

The topic I chose for my speech was how to kick a soccer ball correctly. I chose this topic because I had a great deal of knowledge about it, since I played soccer for about 10 years. This topic was somewhat relevant to the class because of the sporting event that is occurring this summer. This event is the World Cup which is one of the biggest if not the biggest sporting event in the world. I organized the steps in an easy manner which could be demonstrated successfully.

I felt that my presentation had very good energy as I was constantly moving around. My voice was projected loudly enough where the whole class could hear and there was clearness in the speech. I did mumble or stutter a couple times though which could be worked on. I felt like I made eye contact with everyone, there weren’t a lot of moments where I was staring at the ball or the window. I was consistently making eye contact with the audience. My body language though could use some working on as I noticed I fidgeted with my hands quite a lot which was not a good thing as it took attention away from my true purpose of the presentation. My physical presentation was very good because I repeated the steps twice and the steps were simplified where not much knowledge or skill was required in order to perform the task.

My visual aid was just a plain soccer ball and also my uniform that I was in. By dressing up as a soccer player I felt it made the audience give me more respect and willingness to listen because I know what I’m talking about and just dressing up catches the audience more than if I was in casual clothes.

I would choose the same topic again because I really enjoy playing soccer and teaching people how to play or perform things in soccer properly. Soccer is the most popular sport in the world, but in America people have very little knowledge of it. I think I would dress up in a more colorful uniform if I had to do it again because that way I could get the attention of the audience even more and thus creating a greater impact possibly on the audience. One things I would like to improve on is not fidgeting so much with my finger and hands as it was very distracting and made it seem like I was very nervous and not prepared to give me speech.

Self-Evaluation Link

Peer Response: Anna's Blog

"Eat food, not too much. Mostly plants." Ann's view post about Pollan's In Defense of Food is about the process of making healthy decisions in your choice of food. Anna talks a lot about the importance of food choice in life and defends many claims from Pollan. She summarizes why people should pay attention to their food because it is a constant determinant of health and daily living in the lives of people. She talks about the daily nutritional guidelines that have been passed on generation to generation and how this has lead to poor decision in making in the eyes of people. Anna states that if consumers were willing to pay more for better and well-grown food, but just purchase less then we would definitely benefit and the environment, but in my opinion this is not always the case. To afford food for some families is already a struggle, and now to afford food of a higher quality, but lesser quantity would just hurt them more. According to the U.S Census Bureau more than 13 million families are below the poverty line, I'm all for becoming a healthier nation and living healthy, but it's difficult to do this when we can't even help feed those who struggle to survive. People could possibly look at us as a nation that is healthy, but then when they see all those who struggle in our country the could consider us people who are very class dominated and focus more on helping the upper-class than caring for everyone as a whole.

http://hungerreport.org/2009/chapters/us-poverty/62-current-reform

Here are some facts that help support my claims somewhat to as why we need to focus on helping everyone become healthier, who struggle to meet the poverty line.

Peer Response Anna

Prepare a Meal

Every morning breakfast is an essential meal to the day, probably the most essential according to some people. When I think of breakfast I think of eggs, sausages, toast, and orange juice. My meal is simple and essential to a happy day. To begin preparation for my meal you need ingredients and to obtain ingredients you need to go to the grocery store of some sort. The ingredients vary on how you like your eggs and such, but for me I usually buy a dozen eggs, sausage links, orange juice, bread, black pepper, salt, oil, and some jam depending on how you like your toast. Breakfast is pretty simple, the most important thing is just cooking your eggs the way you want the. Many people like it scrambled others like it sunny side up, but this is absolutely up to the preference of the person. After eating the my breakfast I just feel so energized and a much better. I feel like I have the energy to do activities that i wouldn't be able to usually don during the day because I would often feel tired and what not. When I first buy the food my feelings are mixed with excitement and joy because I know that what I will be making will taste really good and be very satisfying. Prepping the meal though on the other hand is somewhat difficult due to the fact that I am stressing to make a good meal and healthy also. My mind is on the prepping and not on the food, but once everything is said and done the eating part is the best because all your hard work has paid off in order for a satisfying meal. I disagree with his claim somewhat due to the fact that people just want to watch their health and have become conscious about the things they eat. Producers understand this and want to meet thee needs of the consumers so they sell low-fat processed foods. The meal that I created though did not affect my opinion at all because to me being healthy is more than just the food I eat its a way of life. Also for me as a person I just enjoy food that taste good and live life with happiness.

Response to In Defense of Food

Meat or Plants, does it really matter food is food right? As long as I get filled up and have energy to perform my daily tasks it doesn't really matter what I eat, right? In Pollan's In Defense of Food he basically is continuing the argument of which foods are truly healthy and which are not. He talks about the process over time of how food has changed and in changing this "Western Diet" has developed. Pollans main arguments consist of how over time the food we eat has slowly become science instead of naturally and organic food. Once people started to worry about food and the nutrients behind it, food became less real and more of just artificial food. Although I agree with some of Pollans points I also feel that he exaggerates some of his points also about food. Pollan argues that over the past half century we have been advised to replace fats in our diets with carbs, but instead of getting healthy we got less and even more obese. This point that Pollan makes is a valid when. According to the CDC Over the past half century also obesity rate according to the BMI index at rating over 30 is considered to be obese. Within the United States over this time obesity has steadily occurred and increased to a point where within the United States there is no state with an obesity rate of less than 20%. Pollan has the percentages and the supporting facts, but some things I feel that he's missing that is necessary is what type of people are getting obese. Meaning which ethnicity contributes the most to obesity and age, basically the demographics. I feel like there it to much information being left out that you can't get a solid answer on whether it really is the food you eat that makes you unhealthy.

First Post

This is my first post =P