Final draft

Eating sugary foods, worse for children than for adults.

If you see chocolate chip cookies and doughnuts that are covered with sugar, you surely feel fantastic and want to eat them. This is not a exceptional case for someone. Most people in the world like to eat sugary foods regardless of age or sex. Of the five flavors, sweet flavor is the flavor that everyone likes. However, it is not good to eat too much sweet foods for us. Especially, the sweet temptation of sugar is more dangerous for children than for adults. That is because they easily tend to lose their self-control and they can form a habit of craving sweet flavors in an early age. Eating sugary foods is surely worse for children than for adults.

Sugar is defined as a simple carbohydrate that belongs to a class of chemically-related sweet-flavored substances in the article medical news today. It comes in many different forms. The three main types of sugar are sucrose, lactose, and fructose. There is a physiological reason why people find sugar addictive. It prompts the body to release serotonin, which makes you feel happy, into the blood stream. The instant happiness we get from sugar is why we want it when we want to feel comfortable or get a reward. However, the sugar craving that makes us happy causes an increase in insulin as the body wants to bring blood glucose levels back to normal. According to BBC news, this has the knock-on effect of ‘sugar craving’. Especially for children who are growing, the physiological effect of sugar is more intense. According to Sue Coldwell, a researcher at the University of Washington who has studied kids and sweets, and her colleagues, growing bones actually secrete hormones that can influence metabolism. They said metabolic hormones like leptin and insulin have been shown to act on brain areas that control cravings and appetites. It means that the hormones from growing bones of children make them crave sugary foods. 

There is an evolutionary theory that explains why people have begun to crave sugary foods. Many scientists believe that a child’s preference for sweet foods is an evolutionary factor. As children preferred high-calorie foods in times gone by, they could have had a better chance of survival when food sources were scarce. This theory suggests the evolutionary evidence that children enjoy sugary foods far more than adults.

However, children’s preference for sweet foods cannot be an advantage anymore in current situation even though it has helped them survive in the past. Rather, it is very dangerous for children to prefer sugary foods in a modern world. In a modern world, manufacturers often add more sugar to food because it makes them taste better. Even though the information is mentioned in the food labels, the consumers don’t recognize it as sugar because sugar has various forms of words. Therefore, the consumers cannot determine the amount of sugar they are eating. They eat sugar more than they imagine without recognizing the truth about sugar. 

There are 3 reasons why children’s preference of sugar is worse than adults’ preference of sugar. The reasons are a risk of having a bad habit in an early age, a situation that children are more exposed to sugar than adults, and an evolutionary theory of children’s preference for sugar.

The biggest problem of children’s preference for sugar is that it can become a bad eating habit. According to health website GreenFacts, adopting healthy habits in an early age reduces the risk of serious health problems as people get older. That means, on the other hand, having bad habits in an early age increases the risk of serious health problems. Although bad habits formed in an early age can be changed later in life, it would be much more difficult because it has already fixed into a habit. There is a famous proverb that suggests this situation. “What is learned in the cradle is carried to the tomb.” It advises that habits that are formed in an early age are important, and they influence on most of your life. It indicates that eating a lot of sugary foods in an early age is more dangerous than eating them later as an adult.

Furthermore, in a modern world, children are exposed to sugar intake more than adults are. In a modern world, the advertisements of sugary foods aiming at children have increased to a large amount. There is an example of cereal companies which advertised cereals aiming at children that contain more sugar than cereals aiming at adults. According to researchers from Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity, cereal advertising aimed at children increased by 34% between 2008 and 2011. Marlene Schwartz, deputy director of the Rudd Center, said: "While cereal companies have made small improvements to the nutrition of their child-targeted cereals, these cereals are still far worse than the products they market to adults. They have 56% more sugar, half as much fiber, and 50% more sodium." From the example of sales strategy of cereal companies, we can learn that companies try to use the mind of parents who are willing to open their wallets to buy their kids what they want. Not only companies that sell cereals use the sales strategy aiming at children, but also companies that sell sugary drinks, chocolates, candies, and snacks use it. The negative aspect of that strategy is of course, the product aiming at children contains more sugar than that aiming at adults. In a commercial capitalism society, children have more possibilities to get bad influence from sugar.

 The evolutionary reason that children crave sugar more than adults also notices the risk of children’s preference for sugar.It is mentioned above that children prefer sugar because children’s preference for sweet flavors has helped them survive when the foods were scarce. According to Mennella who works at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, children are actually living in different sensory worlds than adults when it comes to basic tastes. "They prefer much more intense sweetness and saltiness than the adult, and it doesn't decrease until late adolescence." Mennella says. Because of the evolutionary reason for sugary flavor, children are in a more serious danger than adults. Naturally seeking sugary foods doesn’t act as an evolutionary advantage anymore. 

The opponents of my thesis would insist that eating sugary foods is worse for adults than for children. They would say that the adults are relatively older and weaker than children and thus the side effect of sugar intake will negatively influence on adults more. Also, they would say that unlike children who do not earn money, adults can earn money and buy sweet foods whenever they want. They would insist that the possibility to get addicted to sugar is higher in adults because of their ability to buy sweet foods. However, I disagree with opponents’ arguments strongly. The opponents’ arguments have fatal faults. First, they said it is more dangerous for adults to eat a lot of sugary foods because they are older and weaker. They did not see the situation in the long term. In the long term, the fact that children are younger than adults makes the preference for sugar more dangerous. Children can form a bad habit in an early age, and be negatively influenced on their health more seriously since earlier than adults. Second, they said that adults are exposed to sugar intake more because they afford to buy sugary foods. However, they overlooked that parents, who afford to buy sugary foods, usually buy them for their children. Also there is a statistics that shows that children have the highest amount of sugar intake in a whole age group. According to khealth website, adolescents between 12 and 18 have the highest amount of sugar intake, 69.6g. It is 13% higher than the average amount of sugar intake. Thus, their argument that adults are much more affected by sugar intake due to their affordability is wrong.

As the time passes, a lot of processed foods have emerged due to the rapid-speed society. These processed foods contains a lot of sugar that is hidden in other names, but people eat them without recognizing the fact. In a modern world, children are in the center of risk of sugar intake. The evolutionary theory, physiological theory of children’s preference for sugar is fatal to children living in the modern world. The health problems of children that are caused by sugar intake is becoming very serious. If my argument is persuaded by other people, we will recognize the importance of forming eating habits in an early age, and educate children about the risk of eating a lot of sugary foods. Therefore, we will be able to guarantee their healthy eating habits, and even healthy future. In the long term, children who recognized the risk of sugar can grow as adults who have healthy habits, and the adults will educate healthy habits to their children, forming a healthy cycle. 

References

BBC Science. (2013, March 22). Why is sugar so addictive?. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/0/21835302

BBC Science. (2013, March 22). How much sugar is hiding in your food?. Retrieved from 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/0/21843942

Christian Nordqvist. (2012, June 24). High sugar cereals aggessively marketed at kids,despite pledge. Retrieved from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/246996.php

Diet and nutrition prevention of chronic diseases. Retrieved from http://www.greenfacts.org/en/diet-nutrition/

Gretchen Cuda Kroen. (2011, September 26). Kids' sugar cravings might be biological. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2011/09/26/140753048/kids-sugar-cravings-might-be-biological

Jeong Meung jin. (2014, May 13). Korean article. Retrieved from http://www.fnnews.com/news/201405131423129368

Joseph Nordqvist. (2014, June 16). How much sugar is in your food. Retrieved from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/262978.php

Peer Review 2 20423 최민재

 Peer Review 2 20423 최민재

 The 'transformer' movie is a 2007 American science fiction action film based on the transformer toy line. Interestingly, in the film, there are many strange cars which can transform into robots. And the robots have the power to protect themselves meaning that they are semi-autonomy. They can think and do something like real humans. As robot technology has been developing, we, human, can not foresee the limits of the robots. Therefore, we can not sure whether the robots would develop like the 'transformer' robot. If robots had the AI(artificial intelligence), the shape of the world would be changed in many respects, people would say it is an AI revolution, following industrial revolution and information revolution. In terms of military, it would also lead to a revolution. However, whether military robot is effective is must - have discussion. And I don't agree with the idea of military robot.

 Military robots date back to world war 2 and the Cold War in the form of the German Goliath tracked mines and the Soviet tank. The U.S.Military is now investing heavily in research and development towards testing and deploying increasingly automated systems. The most prominent system currently in use is the unmanned aerial vehicle (IAI Pioneer& RQ-1 Predator) which can be armed with Air-to-ground missiles and remotely operated from a command center in reconnaissance roles. DARPA has hosted competitions in 2004 & 2005 to involve private companies and universities to develop unmanned ground vehicles to navigate through rough terrain in the Mojave Desert for a final prize of 2 Million. Not only U.S military but also other nations are now starting to research this field.

In the book called 'the Harvard sampler' said that there is something robot cannot follow human. And I research about them too. According to science news, It talks about what the robot can not follow human. Firstly, the mimicking evolution in the physical manifestation is hard. What tends to happen is natural systems have lots of little joints, lots of little muscles that pull and tug and make a motion. And if you start introducing that many joints and that many motors in a synthetic thing, your cost goes up exponentially as the complexity keeps growing. At the same time, the reliability goes down. If any single joint fails, your whole thing is going to fail. So that makes it very hard to mimic nature.

 On the brain side of things, it is also hard. A lot of us teach ourselves how to reason, how to think, how to analyze new information and make sense of it. However, those have been very difficult for robots to be able to do. So people will try to program different contexts and different scenarios for what a robot should do, but that way of doing it is simply not scalable. You don’t have enough time and manpower to code up all the possible scenarios that a robot would encounter and what it should be doing. People have made very tiny steps toward reasoning and learning, but in general robots do not yet know how to learn.

 And this asked me a question that nowadays, many nations have made lots of the robot soldier for effectiveness. In this book, however, there is something robot can not follow human. And in terms of military, there are also many things military robots can not do. Not only this reason but also other reasons do disagree with the military robots

 Before arguments, I would define the robot and military robot. These are from powerful dictionary company. And I would list them. According to Doosan dictionary, it says that a robot is The machine that automatically process or work the given tasks by itself retained ability. Also, according to the Oxford dictionary, it says that robot is a machine capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically, especially one programmable by a computer. And, according to the Wikipedia, A robot is an automatic mechanical device often resembling a human or animal. According to the dictionary, it says the characteristics of the robot. Firstly, robot should work or help out human. Secondly, work automatically Lastly, react itself to the surroundings.

 And there is few definitions of military robot. According to Wikipedia, military robots are autonomous robots or remote-controlled devices designed for military applications. Such systems are currently being researched by a number of military.

Until now, we have learned the definition and the issue on military robot is important because many nations now start to research this field. This would conclude our future war.However, there are also some doubts of using this. And I disagree to military robot too. There are three reasons; lack of judgment, possibility to be insensitive to war for people and doubts about flexibility of it.

 Firstly, it lacks judgment compared to human soldiers. Even though robots developed, there is a question: Can computers and robots be truly trusted even though they are not humans? Actually, while discovering the latest technology, according to CBC News Broadcast Documentary team,they came up with a serious question that needed to be answered. This question was as follows; what are the new rules of engagement for robots that kill humans in wartime? This is a major disadvantage of question associated with military robots. If the future holds independent, acting robots acting on their own how would they be able to decide right from wrong? Would we hold a robot accountable for a death that shouldn’t have occurred or could we even conclude that? These are a few scenarios that one must consider as disadvantages for future military robotic use.

 Secondly, we could be insensitive to the war. According to P. W. Singer, he once interviewed a drone pilot. And he said that "You’re going to war for 12 hours, shooting weapons at targets, directing kills on enemy combatants. Then you get in the car and drive home, and within 20 minutes you’re sitting at the dinner table talking to your kids about their homework." If soldiers are using the military robot instead of human continuously, they think war is just a game to play and become insensitive to it.

 Lastly, however they developed, there are limits that robot can not follow human: delicate physical manifestation and human brain. According to Satyendra Gupta from science news, even though they are developing, they lack creativity and adaptation to changing situation. In war, similarly, there is many unsuspected variables. And it requires creativity and adaptation which robot does not have. In battlefield, therefore, military robot could be ineffective.

 Although many nations have made lots of military robots, it would just waste of money and time because they will never be as effective as the human soldiers. Some would argue that military robot would save many human soldiers. To be exact, it will save many human soldiers. However, the purpose of existence of soldiers is to defend its enemies. If two each nation fought only by military robots, it would be unmeaning war. And eventually innocent people would die. Isn't it paradoxical? In the result, it just saves human soldiers not citizens. Then where is the meaning of soldiers? On the other hand, some would argue that military robots are preceding human soldiers in terms of environmental, functional capability. I also  agree with it. Sometimes, robots can do things a human can not. However, it is different in war. Some silly people think that victory and defeat from war would be concluded by superior weapons. Of course, we must not ignore it. However, decisive factors of outcome of a war are other things such as the times, general(human), flexibility( the most important thing). And there are many various examples from history. In addition, robots will have no flexibility however they develop. Therefore, these arguments are just short-sighted way of thinking.

 As I speak, many nations have made lots of military robots competitively. And this is crucial issue because it will decide our future war. However, this process is a short - sighted. They don't think the negative effects of it. Even though they are developing and seems to have many merits superficially, there are actually many problems and can not precede human soldiers in the end.

Grade

According to the rubric above, what grade would you give this essay? Why?

I think this essay deserves 4. The thesis is unique: Is military robot effective?

How does this essay need to improve to get a better grade?

To improve to get a better grade, it needs to be longer, I think. It's a little bit short.

Thesis

What is the thesis?

Is Military robot effective?

Is the thesis clear and debatable?

It is clear and debatable.

If you (The reviewer) wrote this essay, how would you have written the thesis?

If I wrote this essay, I would added some background information of current military robots.

Any other thoughts?

Nope

Classical Argument

Can you easily identify the 5 parts of the classical argument? If no, what parts are missing?

Yes.

Does the introduction catch your attention? Does it comfortably lead to the thesis? 

Yes, but I think it should be more focused to military robots, not 'robots'

Does the narration give all the necessary background information to understand the topic?

In the narraration, I think he missed the current circumstances of military robots.

Does the confirmation adequately support the thesis?

Yes, 3 reasons are clear and adequately support the thesis.

Does the refutation and concession address a realistic counterpoint? Does it adequately dispute the counterpoint, or respond in a reasonable manner?

I was not persuaded by his refutation. I suggest him to provide reliable resources in the refutation, not his own argument.

Does the conclusion summarize the article and address the larger significance of the thesis? 

I think the conclusion doesn't summarize the whole article. I think he need to emphasize his argument more in the conclusion.

What suggestions do you have for improving the classical argument structure?

As I mentioned above, I want to suggest him to rewrite his conclusion to emphasize his argument.

Persuasion

When you started reading the essay, did you agree or disagree with the thesis? 

.I didn't agree

When you finished the essay, did you agree or disagree with the thesis?

.I didn't agree

If your mind changed, why? What parts of the essay were persuasive?

. I didn't change my mind.

How could the author enhance the persuasive parts of their essay?

I think he should use reliable resources in his refutation and concession.

Research

Is the author using research effectively? 

Yes

Is the research from appropriate sources?

Yes

Are the sources obvious?

Yes

Are the pieces of evidence relevant to the thesis or essay?

Yes

Are there any parts of the essay that need evidence to support the claims?

the refutation part