SFC Public Health Obesity and Black American Women Question
Teacher Stated
For your next assignment I would like you all to write an opinion piece called an Op-Ed. An op-ed piece derives its name from originally having appeared opposite the editorial page in a newspaper. Today, the term is used more widely to represent a column that represents the strong, informed, and focused opinion of a writer on an issue of relevance to a targeted audience. Our focus for this assignment will be on community health issues that
Generally, Op-Eds are used to reflect opinions of an author or group. They are usually longer than a regular letter to the editor, often being written by a subject matter expert (i.e. you on issues of community health!) or otherwise notable person with the qualifications to have an opinion.
Distinguishing Characteristics of an Op-Ed
A good Op-Ed is:
Short, between 750 and 800 words.
Has a clearly defined point.
Has a clearly defined point of view.
- Is easy to understand and has very specific details outlining the problem
- Contains the strong, unique voice of the writer
- An Op-Ed should start with background on the community health issue and end with your opinion on we as a society can make this issue better.
- Assignment
- Review all the topics we have covered this semester (from the History of Public Health Week 1 to Income Inequalities and Health Week 11). Identify a particular community(the community can be a specific racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, political, geographical, or local group but it must be clearly defined) and write an opinion piece clearly identifying an issue that impacts your chosen community and why this issue is particularly concerning. Then state your opinion on what needs to be done to solve the issue.
For example, last class we mentioned that diabetes is the fastest growing cause of chronic disease and death in Black communities. One way to solve this issue is to tackle its root cause, obesity, so one might propose tackling childhood obesity by eliminating food deserts (replacing fast food restaurants with affordable grocery stores) and creating policies to limit junk food marketing targeted to youth.
