research process draft

1. Some just call it being American, others say it is disgusting, but whatever the view obesity is not healthy. Obesity is the cause of many health problems such as heart disease, diabetes and even death. This isn't only a problem for our adults, but also the children of today. More and more children are having to deal with the problems of obesity that effect every aspect of their lives. What is causing this growing problem? A variety of causes are to blame, such as a poor diet, lack of exercise, television and genetics. How can we solve this problem when everything you do could be a cause?

2. Health, medicine and nutrition are the academic disciplines for my topic. Library of Congress Classification (LC) Areas: Medicine, R. Pediatrics, RJ. Nutrition and feeding of children and adolescents, RJ206-235. Child health, child health services, RJ101-103. Genetic aspects, RJ47.3-47.4. The most useful keywords and subject headings were: obesity, children, diet, exercise, and TV. Putting obesity and children with each of the other words got the best results. ProQuest, Google advanced, and alternative sources were the best databases.
Keywords and subject headings were a little harder than I had originally thought they would be. My first attempts were a little too broad, when I used terms like causes. I had to narrow it down and actually put the causes instead of being so broad. After I was using more specific terms I still got a lot of articles each time, but there was usually always a good one or two on the first page. The library of congress subject headings didn’t have the exact keywords for my topic, but they had the more general idea that had information that works for my topic.
3. Like in the keywords paragraph above, I had some trouble at fist with too broad of key terms and words, but it ended up working out with a few adjustments. I don’t mind when I get 10,000 hits off of my search, as long as there is something useful within the first page I say it was a good search. I just don’t look through the other thousands of sites. I actually got better sites when there were more hits, not when there were only a few sites to choose from.
The nature of my topic is causes of obesity, and the conclusion will also include some ways to avoid it or help overcome it. The causes are exercise (lack of), diet, TV, and maybe a little on genetics because that does play a part in a lot of overweight children’s lives. My topic has enough aspects to it that I can find good information on each section, but it is also not so broad that I have too much information and have to worry about cutting out something important.
I am a Google person so that is where I expected to find everything because it seems like Google has everything. Google was a help, but not the only place that I found useful information for my topic. Since my topic has recently become aware to people as a problem I found the alternative sources useful because I found a radio show that had useful information. I was impressed by the alternative sources assignment and how much it helped. The internet is still the easiest source for getting information, and quickly, but it isn’t the only one and it’s not always the best.