Introduction

Since the beginning of time Human beings have been experimenting with themselves. What does this mean? We have always tried to find new ways to make ourselves the way we fantasize to be, through experimentation. We try different hair colors, clothes, plastic surgery, and manipulate our bodies by what we put into them. Due to societies hold over us and our own self esteem, we enter the laboratory of change.

This is the Human Experiment. 

Enhancing Drugs

 Cosmetics

Fads

Diet

Enter The Laboratoryyyyyyyyy! Links of Just How Far Humans Will Go

Crazy Diets

http://www.neatorama.com/2009/03/30/10-craziest-diets-in-history/

The Most Expensive Makeup

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7577857/ns/health-forbescom/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBBWMRRWOrM

http://www.steroid.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steroid

Steroid Facts and Fiction: Myth From Fact

http://www.steroidabuse.com/steroid-myths.html

Before and After Plastic Surgeries

http://freshpics.blogspot.com/2009/10/celebrities-before-and-after-plastic.html

Women and Diet Pills: The Solution

         Over the years diet pills have become very popular in our community. They are seen as a quick way to lose weight. Anti-obesity medication or weight loss drugs are all pharmacological agents that reduce or control weight. Many women use these medications as a quick way to drop a few pounds. One thing that people don't relies that there are life altering side effects.  Diet pills are bad because their companies fail to inform the consumers of the dangerous side effects, they show small built women in their commercials, and they are not naturally stable.

 There are so many overweight women in America and by telling them these pills work they are willing to take them. Over ◦51.5% of women aged 20-34 are overweight in the US 1999-2000 (Health United States, 2003, NCHS) http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/o/overweight/stats.htm and to tell them that diet pills are just the best thing since food would be false advertisement. Though a lot of these pills work most of these women are unaware of the health risk. If these women choose to take these pills they should be required to take a class that would inform them of the side effects.

     This class would show these women all of the risk involved with taken these pills. Such as the side effects that are really dangerous. Some of the diet pills that have eight to ten side effects are Ephedra (8), Meridia (9), and Adipex (10). These pills all have commercials and are false advertising to not only women but overweight people all over the world. These pills that cause life risking threats should be pulled off of the market. Due to the fact that if you have low self-esteem you would be willing to try almost anything even if this is a life treating thing. This should not be the case if these women are taught correctly they would be willing to hurt themselves.  There are even more of these dangerous pills on the website http://www.weightlossunit.com/diet-pills-side-effects.html.

   Most of these diet pills have women who are small figured representing their products. This is false advertisement. It gives these women false hope that they too can have the body of these women in the commercials. There should be a law that prohibits these commercials. These companies should have to show real overweight women and their struggles and challenges. This would show women that this is just the same as losing weight naturally. Then they might choose an alterative way of losing weight that would not risk their health. 

  There are also younger girls who are overweight who deals with the same problems older woman go through. The thought of being overweight for some young girls leads to anorexia. Anorexia is also a side effect of the pill Meridia. The young girls become this way because they are afraid to become over weight. So they buy diet pills to try to make sure that doesn’t happen to them. This is very sad that we as a country have girls who are afraid of becoming overweight. In some cases being overweight is not healthy but, these are not the reasons young girls do this.  Their doing this because the society was growing up in makes us believe that being small is the only way of the world.

          This is very sad that we not only have older women struggling with weight problems but we have our younger generations feeling the same way. We are in a society where if you don’t look a certain way you are looked down upon. This in many problems can lead to depression and a lot of times suicide. We should reach out to one another than we won’t have this problem. If you see someone over weight that is being teased or miss treated and they are talking about taking weight pills you should educate them. Tell them of these side effects and how they can change their lives if they get hurt. Also if you are really close to them you should help them eat right and show them how to design a work out plan.

    This would help them relies that not everyone is judging them. It would also help people get a better understanding of why they are overweight. Everyone is not overweight because they just like food. There are many different reasons like depression, some form of abuse rather it’s verbal or mental, or even just because there talked about. If they have someone to lean on and someone to help you always make it easier to do it naturally.  The exercise program would have to be at an easy level at first then as they get better they would make it harder.

  It is very sad that we live in a society that makes people think that they are inhuman. This means that they are less that of a person that has the “perfect body”. We have people who are willing to do large amount of damage to their bodies to basically fit into a word that we have created. The underweight trend that America is not as active all over the world. In other countries women are praised for being overweight. They are seen as better wives and child bearers. It is a blessing to receive an overweight woman. Some countries believe that an overweight women means wealth. Being that they have big figures it means that they have a somewhat big amount of money.  Look how we treat people that would in any other country would be treated like royalty.

  As a society we need to treat each other better and stop making people believe that they are less than. This is not how we want other people to feel as if they have to take pills and risk them lives to become a part of society. The side effects of these medications are very dangerous and will kill people who were otherwise healthy. Yes being overweight can cause some health problems but the natural was is always the best way to go.  Diet pills with high side effects should be removed off the market for good. They are not healthy and will end up killing someone if this is not tackled in a timely manner.

    They say that love can change anything. So why not love these people? Treat them as if they are the same as everyone else. Give them the love to take time out of your lives to help them change naturally. Teach them how to eat and how to work out. Show them how you keep your figure together. You never know you might become a couple of close friends. They might change you for the better. They can show you how they feel in a day to day basis. Then you would have a better understanding of how they are treated by almost everyone. This would teach a person how they should treat someone.

     Also in closing this judgment has to stop it is making people hurt themselves. Then they start to hurt other people they develop an “I have to hurt them before they hurt me attitude”. Then they start to go one a really bad diet this isn’t working so they become discouraged. Then one day their watching TV and a diet pill commercial and order them and they take them. Then they end up sick and in the hospital then people start to feel bad. This should never have to happen. If we start to love and treat people kindly the world would be a better place.

Steroids: The Antidote to The Epidemic

          The Human Experiment is the process of changes humans have made to our bodies and minds from the beginning of civilization. Due to societal pressures and influences we have required many tools throughout history. The most bizarre and detrimental tool of all in “The Human Experiment” is the anabolic steroid. The anabolic steroid first prevalently used in the 1950’s by athletes in the Olympics, has started a terrorizing chain reaction to present day professionals and youth players in all sport fields. Steroids have now become an epidemic effecting hundreds of thousands of Americans every year.  Within this article I have proposed a new approach that is a cost effective, and is a quintessential antidote to cure the poison of anabolic steroids.

After intense research over the past several decades, there has been a unanimous conclusion that steroid use is extremely harmful to not only the body but the mind.  Now you may ask yourself are steroids really a serious problem? And if they are why are they so widespread? The answer is that society through the use of advertisements and other vices like media, have manipulated us into believing that we must be a certain way, dress a certain way, and look a certain way. As an effect of media and its influences, we have acquired personality disorders like muscle dysmorphia, a disorder that is the opposite of anorexia and makes the person believe that they are never muscular enough no matter how much they workout. We strive to become what society wants us to become and in doing so we undergo experimentation.

 The effects of steroids on the human body are what we have become familiar with. At a first glance, men who use steroids are shown to become mammoths, with size and incredible strength in a short period of time. When you examine the effects of steroids on the body closely, you will realize that these amazing benefits come with a price that is much higher.  With the great strength come high risks of vulnerability to injury. In men steroid use can cause decreased fertility of sperm, breast development, shrinking of the testicles and male-pattern baldness. In Women it can cause enlargement of the clitoris excessive growth of body hair and male-pattern baldness. In both men and women it can lead to tendon rupture, cancer of the liver, tumors, infection, heart attacks, stroke and high blood pressure.

Now your probably asking who the hell would use something that would do this too you? It is because of the societal pressures that people are under to look the best and perform the best in sports, and everyday life no matter what it takes. Some leagues like the IFBB or International Federation of Bodybuilding, do not even enforce an anti steroid use rule. Even some famous athletes in American sports have been caught using steroids like Barry Bonds, and David Ortiz.  These players are idolized by the youth and are their role models. When the professionals use steroids and succeed without being caught, the younger athletes will and have followed in their footsteps.  In 2005 alone, 660,000 students (14 to 17 years of age) admitted to steroid use and those numbers only include the use being reported! (http://www.steroidabuse.com/steroid-statistics.html)

Steroid Use is a real problem affecting our children in the United States everyday. Curing this epidemic is something that hasn’t been instituted or even focused on within society. Most sports do not even test consistently to see if these drugs are being used. This leaves a state of unidentified steroid users, the cheaters, mixed with those who are actually playing the game naturally, free of performance enhancing drugs.

My proposal is simple; to remove the use of steroids through the same vices they are promoted; the professional league owners, the players, and the media. The combination of these three elements will create a powerful anti-steroid campaign. The funding of this campaign will not be extravagant and will be easily accessible. The owners of teams will do anything to preserve the image of their league and ultimately their profits. Each owner of each team will provide the necessary funds for random screenings of drugs testing which will only cost about $42 per person. (http://www.aclu.org/drug-law-reform/drug-testing-public-assistance-recipients-condition-eligibility) When these teams are earning millions of dollars each year in profit, this a very insignificant cost. The next factor of the campaign involves the players. If the very people who are looked up too, whose actions are followed religiously by younger fans and players, demote the use of steroids, the demand to use them will significantly decrease.

With the drug tests being administered as I mentioned before, players who voluntarily agree to the random screenings of drug testing, the counter argument of player’s privacy being violated becomes nonexistent. Ultimately the responsibility is in the hands of the professional players, because even the media aspect of the problem is reflective of them. If the players are voicing their concern of illegal steroid use the message will reciprocate in advertisements and commercials. Anti-steroid ads will supersede commercials of men and women with unnatural chiseled bodies promoting diet pills and supplements that are the gateway drugs to steroid use. Ads for natural products will become the new fad and become the new major market industry for bringing in money as opposed to million dollar black market steroid industry.

(http://abcnews.go.com/WN/FedCrimes/story?id=3802782&page=1) 

Tools of Human Change: The Diet Pill

                                                                  

Women and Diet Pills

               Over the years diet pills have become the “best” source of weight lost. They are seen as a new way to lose weight without having to undergo very difficult surgeries. Diet pills are said to not cause any harm and will not have any long term side effects.  This is not true and these companies are feeding women who are overweight false hopes. These diet pills cannot be healthy if they are causing health issues like seizures, hyperthermia, high blood pressure, and hallucinations. Just to name a few but the list goes on.

     There are so many overweight women in America and by telling them these pills work they are willing to take them. Over ◦51.5% of women aged 20-34 are overweight in the US 1999-2000 (Health United States, 2003, NCHS) http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/o/overweight/stats.htm and to tell them that diet pills are just the best thing since food would be false advertisement. Though a lot of these pills work most of these women are unaware of the health risk.

       Some of the diet pills that have eight to ten side effects are Ephedra (8), Meridia (9), and Adipex (10). These pills all have commercials and are false advertising to not only women but overweight people all over the world. These pills that cause life risking threats should be pulled off of the market. Due to the fact that if you have low self-esteem you would be willing to try almost anything even if this is a life threating thing.  There are even more of these dangerous pills on the website http://www.weightlossunit.com/diet-pills-side-effects.html.

    We live in a society where if you are not thin you are teased and talked about. There is only some much that a woman can take. We are said to be sensitive and this is true when it comes to emotional problems. So when the weight does not fall off quick enough women tend to take supplements to help. How are they supposed to feel when there are beautiful women like Kim Kardashian diet pills commercials claiming they use them? This makes them feel less worthy and starts depression. If these pill are going to continue to be on the market women should have to take a class to receive proper information about this pill. This is after their doctor gives them the okay to take it.

          There are also younger girls who are overweight who deals with the same problems older woman go through. The thought of being overweight for some young girls leads to anorexia. Anorexia is also a side effect of the pill Meridia. The young girls become this way because they are afraid to become over weight. So they buy diet pills to try to make sure that doesn’t happen to them. This is very sad that we as a country have girls who are afraid of becoming overweight. In some cases being overweight is not healthy but, these are not the reasons young girls do this.  Their doing this because the society was growing up in makes us believe that being small is the only way of the world.

            As a society we need to treat each other better and stop making people believe that they are less than. This is not how we want other people to feel as if they have to take pills and risk them lives to become a part of society. The side effects of these medications are very dangerous and will kill people who were otherwise healthy. Yes being overweight can cause some health problems but the natural was is always the best way to go.  Diet pills with high side effects should be removed off the market for good. They are un healthy and will end up hilling someone if this is not tackled in a timely manner.

Tools of Human Change: Cosmetics

Our world. It is the habitat of our very existence. Everything that we do, learn, and become, is the influencing effect from our environment and the observation of others. Due to the improvement of the intelligence and creativity of mankind, the influencing effect on observers can be either negative or positive. However, the moral condition of our society has altered the way that newer generations view themselves personally. Struggles of self confidence and the acceptance of one’s own appearance, is an inner emotional battle that mainly female adolescence are going through. Seeing pictures of flawless, “cosmofied” looking women on magazines, television, malls, billboards, and the Internet, filtrate the young minds of our generation. Young girls are beginning to wear makeup at extremely premature ages. They are becoming concerned with their appearance and how they can keep up with the latest trends of beauty. Young girls are attempting to race against the time of maturity by seeking to obtain a certain image.

These articles reassure that young girls are being affected by the use of makeup in a negative manner.

http://www.utne.com/Environment/Not-So-Pretty-in-Pink-Marketing-Toxic-Makeup-to-Young-Girls.aspx

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_beauty.cfm

When you think of make-up, you think of blush, lipstick, mascara, and eyeliner. Images of beautiful women with fierce and unique looks are the images of make-up. The usage of make-up is intended to merely enhance a woman’s beauty; not cover her natural image of her being. When young girls see sexy Vitoria Secret advertisements showing women wearing gorgeous make-up, or surreal television shows bombarded with women wearing long hair and heavy make-up, they become emotionally attached to these images, thinking of ways to become like that. However, what young girls are ignorant of is the fact that these highlighted women have cosmetic surgeries applied to their faces, to make their “makeup” appear flawless. They also wear incredibly long hair extensions to make it appear as if they have long, full hair. Computer altering to these images are also done to make the women look “beautiful” or “pleasing” to an influenced crowd. Makeup is promoted through these ways. It is highly suggested and recommended that young women should look a certain way.  Makeup commercials heavily influence young girls into looking a certain way. Both teenage and younger girls are making regular videos on how to apply the “right” makeup to an individual’s look. It is appalling to  see them prioritizing the use of makeup as an aspect f their young lives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2A635DUt14&playnext=1&list=PL600F216AA8724FFB

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36x-_5fxuKA&playnext=1&list=PLF061F47AD2888494

Girls as young as four years of age, emotionally secret the urge and desire to wear make-up. As devastating as it may sound, these children demand the use of cosmetics. Are young girls truly at fault if they desire the usage of cosmetics? It has become a natural feminine practice indeed, but it is intended for those of a more mature crowd. A Victoria Secret cosmetic commercial states that, “Only sexy women wear sexy makeup.” This phrase is acceptable to the promotion of their market as a business, but is inconsiderate and explicitly disrespectful to women as a whole. It promotes the usage of makeup by clearly degrading the natural beauty of a woman. In essence, children should not be permitted to wear make-up because it is irrelevant to their needs and young characters. Cosmetics should specify the targeting audience of their production, to an already adulthood crowd. This industry does not consider the impact they have on young girls. Exposure to cosmetic products at early ages, have severe health concerns that can cause problems in their developing stages of life. Both the emotional and physical downfalls of cosmetics are affecting girls tremendously in a harmful way.
In spite of the negativity that this aspect of the media has conveyed, young girls should be prohibited from such things as much as possible. Wearing excessive amounts of make-up (or any at all) does not make a person beautiful. Beauty is a form of one’s psyche. It is abstract and subtle. Young girls should not be improperly influenced and convinced that they should begin to wear make-up as soon as possible. They should be encouraged to brighter aspects of life that call for their happiness and development into a healthy lifestyle.

      

       

Tools of Human Change: The Anabolic Steroid

 If You Don't Think These Guys Have A Problem You Might Have One....

As the human race has progressed, so have the methods in which we modify ourselves. The alterations of the human body have tremendously increased with the generations, due to the craving to quench every futile desire.  The Societies in which we live have instilled powerful, but passive templates through media on how we should experiment and who we should be. We are promoted to idolize the faces of movie stars, the clothes of celebrities, and most of all the bodies of athletes. Due to the inevitability of human desires to achieve these goals, we will use any tool we can to ascertain them. One of the most drastic tools for change in the history of the Human Experiment is the anabolic steroid.

Steroids are drugs that can be legally prescribed to people for hormone deficiency and to solve problems associated with puberty.  Where the epidemic is created however, is when these drugs are used with out a prescription illegally. With the increase in hormones unnecessarily, the user can have spikes in aggression, chemical imbalances leading to damage to the liver, and the reproductive systems. Some users have been recorded to have such severe mood swings that it lead to suicide. Many Cases of cancer, sleep apnea, dysfunctional thyroid glands, and drug abuse from counteracting the drug have been reported in direct relation to anabolic steroids. (vhttp://www.sportsci.org/encyc/anabstereff/anabstereff.html)

Now why would anyone use these dangerous drugs? Steroids are used because they show quick results for those who demand their ideal outward appearance or athletic ability. Illegal steroid users are the humans who aren’t afraid to enter the laboratory of change, no matter how dangerous it may be. Steroid use is a topic often treated as insignificant, but in 2005 alone, 660,000 students (14 to 17 years of age) admitted to steroid use and those numbers only include the use being reported! (http://www.steroidabuse.com/steroid-statistics.html) Most users of steroids never report that they use them so many of the statistics display much less use than is actually occurring. Although most of us think that epidemic of steroids is non-existent, many men and women begin to suffer from the influences of society and develop personality disorders like muscle dysmorphia. This is a disorder that is the opposite of anorexia and makes the person believe that they are never muscular enough no matter how much they workout. (http://www.askmen.com/sports/bodybuilding/56_fitness_tip.html)  The awareness of this syndrome by name isn’t widely known, but even you may know some of these people. The friends who are constantly flexing, looking in the mirror but become depressed and complain that they are too small and need to bulk up. Victims of this syndrome feel real anxiety when they are away from the gym. Those who have this syndrome and others like it share the characteristics of someone who will result to steroid use. With advertisements everywhere showing what we should look like and what bodies we must have, many of us crack under all of the pressure and become societies’ lab rats.

In the world of human alteration, steroids have destroyed the lives of many people and have become prevalent and easily accessible.  There is little surprise and lack of concern when people begin to undergo steroid experimentation with themselves in today’s manipulative society. Societies “lab rats” begin dedicating every moment of their life to shooting up on steroids and working out due to societal requirements and pressures. They have undergone the human experiment and have not made it out alive.

For more information on this topic go to

http://www.steroidabuse.com/steroid-statistics.html

Societys Effect On Woman's Beauty

Human Enhancement has struck women in a way where they idealize an image to self obtain. Being constantly surrounded and bombarded by advertisements and images, it is almost impossible not to develop a conscience of an image. The impression of advertisements have on women are mostly negative because of the way women perceive to them. Society uses many tools at their disposal, to create an “alpha female” image by using media to advertise it, as an attempt to make all women strive for that image as their goal.

True Beauty of a Woman

It is the inner emotional battle that women obtain from observing commercials, advertisements, and other forms of propaganda that promote this emotional uproar.

The media also uses effective word choice, but that alone would not be fully achievable in communicating with women. When watching commercials and advertisements, the presence of extremely thin women is so prevalent that it is hard not to desire their glamorized or ideal image of a real woman that the media has portrayed to be. The thought that an individual has, about how the world sees them externally, is manipulated by images of slenderness, sleekness, and the beauty of the people in the advertisements. Bordo uses imagery that allows many women of different cultural backgrounds to view themselves either as victims or observers of the influential propaganda of an ‘idealized’ woman. She says, “An increasingly universal equation of slenderness with beauty and success has rendered the competing claims of…female beauty.” Bordo offers a vivid description on the entire claim of her argument. This allows her audience to engage in a deep individual aspect of the imagery provided and to draw their own conclusions of what female beauty truly is. Bordo argues this point by describing a commercial with a mother who drinks a slimming drink to make her thin. She barely eats and consistently consumes the slimming beverage. Her daughter, being her natural observer, is not influenced by her consumption of the beverage because her daughter knows her ‘secret’ to be thin. Bordo expounds on the methodology of the commercial’s ability, to emotionally influence women, as “the psychological acuity of the ad’s focus… represented by the absent but central figure of the mother, the woman who eats, only “not so much.”” If the mother (or individual) consumes a slimming beverage as a secret ingredient to her own idealized bodily accomplishment, spectators are somewhat, deceived into accepting the fact, that that is the mother’s natural state. This statement automatically provides an image of a thin, beautiful woman. It is hypnotizing enough that an individual will begin a metamorphosis of their self-personal thoughts and lives, seeking to obtain that image. An indication of changing the way one eats, behaves, and thinks proves that that individual is lacking inner beauty and self confidence of being in their own skin. Bordo persists that imagery is massively used throughout her article. The persistent of use of imagery informs the reader of the true facts of how an increasing amount of women feel self-consciously. A thought of Black, White, Asian, and Indian (etc.) women thinking of their individual beauty (compared to women from the media), is what Bordo attempts to accomplish in that they all are influenced by the media in merely the same way.

Got Juice?

The Human Desire For Acceptance

Society promotes the "norms" of how people should look and behave through the use of advertisements. These advertisements make us reconsider who we are which leads us to experiment with our bodies and minds.
Below are videos of 2 advertisements followed by excerpts of their analyses. These ads include of Gatorade, a sports drink and Pepsi soft drink. Each advertisement steers us to make us think we need their product in our lives. Due to our human desires and insecurities we will go out of our way to attain these materials to solve our personality crises.

For the entire articles click the links at the side of the page.

Gatorade

Advertisements: They are deceptions directly placed with the intention to be engraved in our minds. Planted like a seed to constantly grow into a reoccurring reminder of product or idea, self-regulating like a broken record. All judgments aside, ads are meant to direct thought in a certain way, mainly for the positive benefit of a product. They are a rhetorical device in action using all three styles logos, pathos, and ethos, to aim your belief of the idea or product presented in the “right” direction. Whatever our view of the existence of ads’ is now irrelevant, because they are ubiquitous in all aspects of our culture in the past century. 

Among these advertisements, Gatorade, a sports drink aimed at all athletes of all ages, has launched an intensive campaign through our history. This company has become a household name in America and has snuck its way into popular culture. In specific they have become fused as a necessity to rehydrate a tired athlete. In one Gatorade advertisement in particular, an intricate and creative use of rhetoric is highlighted.  It begins with a very old song playing in the background called “Evolve” by Kevin Quinn. The essence of the lyrics are “if you want a revolution, the only solution evolve.” The manipulation comes when we realize that aside from the directive to transition from drinking water as a source of rehydration to Gatorade, that the commercial targets factors like race and gender, as if Gatorade was active fighting for equality, and was with us on the journey to our evolution as not only athletes but as a society. The ad implies that the only way you can evolve is with Gatorade in your system, to change “the system”. 

Pepsi 

Pepsi ad 2006 http://www.metacafe.com/watch/229873/pepsi_advertisement/

Advertisement is all around you whether you’re outside or just relaxing and watching TV. Over the years advertisement companies have expanded their creativity. They have also changed the lengths they are willing to go to get consumers to purchase their products. For example production companies spend thousands of dollars just for someone famous to make an appearance in their commercials or billboard ads. In this Pepsi ad the people who made it choose two beautiful women (Beyoncé and JLo) to play the main characters. These two women have fans from all over the world. There are women who want to be them and men who want to be with them? Does this ad make you want a Pepsi?

         This Pepsi ad was created in 2006. They year were most people of my generation were just reaching their teen years. These women are both really pretty and they used them to appeal to the young mind. Beyoncé and JLo are a lot of young girl’s idols in some ways many girl dream of becoming one of them. With that being said girls would start to believe that these two women drink Pepsi and they are the “ideal women” so drinking this would make me closes to becoming like them. The more young girls want to be like them the more Pepsi would sell. This would also so appeal to teen males. The two women are dressed as hot biker chicks and fighters. What’s more hot than that? Drinking Pepsi to them would make them feel as if they have the right to have a girlfriend like that. Bring the thought that as a man this is what you should want and be accustom to. At this age young males are very impressionable and can be talked into almost anything by people they look up to.