Racial Discrimination In These Days?

                 

                The incident at the 1968 Mexico Olympic Games, when two black athletes Tommy Smith and John Carlos raised their black gloved fists as a symbol of “Black Power,” marked a turning point in existence of racial discrimination in sport. Although the International Olympic Committee banned those two runners from Olympics after this incident, they stood up against racism and took a first step toward the equality in sport. 

                After watching the documentary called “Solute,” we questioned each other in our discussion session about the existence of racial discrimination in present days. By looking at the professional sports leagues, we might think that there isn’t any discrimination in modern sports because Black athletes are everywhere in NBA &NFL and there are also large proportions of Hispanic players in MLB. However, I think that there is still some discrimination existing in sports. 

Many Korean soccer players are currently playing in European soccer leagues, which some of them are having a hard time for racial discrimination. Ki Sung-Yong, a young Korean soccer player who plays as a central midfielder for Scottish Premier League club Celtic, has recently suffered from opposing team fans’ jeers and booing during the match, just because he was the only Asian player in the field. English soccer fans also try to humiliate Korean players by calling them a dog eater, expressing a cultural bias. Therefore, I think the racial discrimination still remains in sports although we can’t clearly recognize them like in the 1960s.

           Related link: http://www.thesun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/3207410/Fury-after-footy-fans-woof-at-Celtics-South-Korean-star-Ki-Sung-Yueng.html

Obesity as Cancer rather than Epidemic

       

       In the last few decades, people became more sedentary and dependent on fast foods. The author of the “Perfect Storm” Baker Harrell describes the problem of obesity as cancer rather than epidemic, which he is emphasizing that this problem is much more severe than what we are assuming. I was surprised about the increase in percentage of obese people compared to past years, which the amount was 5% in 1970 but it has almost tripled to 15% in 2002. If the problem is not considered seriously, we won’t be able to cure this wide spreading disease.

      In my opinion, the social environment plays important role to improve the problem of obesity. For example, schools can help to reduce the chance of children being obese. School can increase the amount of time for recess and PE classes in order to let more students participate in physical activity. School can also control the food offered to students by reducing the amount of fast food section and vending machine. Moreover, most families consider perceived safety of a neighborhood, because it influences parents allowing children to active outdoors. Therefore, providing safe environment in the area where children usually spend time could be another method to allow more physical activity for teenagers.

Ideal Image of Women?

       During the class, Dr. Todd presented us different pictures of women including image of bodybuilder, soccer player, tennis player and super model. The students’ votes for the most attractive women among those images were quite common. Most students stated that body of super model was the most ideal one, and many students responded that female bodybuilder was far from ideal image. In my opinion, this respond showed similar results because there are some kinds of standard of femininity. 

       

        We can relate this issue to the changing standards of women’s beauty. Recently I read an article, which I talked about beauty of women that changes through different cultures and ages. In ancient Chinese culture, thin and fragile women were known as beautiful woman. However, the standard of ideal women changed to someone busty and healthy-looking. In Japan, the definition of beauty of women also changed throughout the periods. Women with long faces, thin eyes and large chins were considered beautiful during ancient times. However, women who were buxom later became more attractive. This shows us that there can be different standards of women’s beauty or femininity according to the social trends of the time. Then, does that telling us in someday our society will consider huge and muscular women as the ideal standard of femininity? Who knows? 

Related link: http://www.beautyopinion.net/beauty-of-women-through-different-cultures-and-ages.php

History of Sport: Ancient to Modern Sports

         After learning about historical moment that sports had went through, it was interesting for me how the origin of sport is different from the modern sport. Do you see the difference between these two pictures above? The nature of the sports has been changing for centuries. The original sport began by honoring gods with ritualistic of nature, and then it was used as survival skills, and then the birth of modern sports started with the industrial revolution in Britain. In modern sport, people began to organize and regulate the game which sport participants could actually find their job as professional athletes. Eventually, the sport became a business and it is now one of the biggest industries in the world. 

          I tried to come up with a good definition of sport, which one of the definitions that I found from the textbook says “sport is regarded as a physical expression of the norms and values of that particular society in that period of time.” I think this definition of sport clearly gives us an explanation of the changing nature of sport. To give an example, sport existed throughout primitive cultures to maintain the survival skills of hunting, wrestling and running. Moreover, sport also existed during Victorian era in UK for preparation for officers in war and development of proper characteristics.

Performance Enhancer

               At first, I was confident with the decision that we should ban steroids in sports, but I started to doubt my decision after watching the film “Bigger, Faster, Stronger.”  Anabolic steroids, one of the most widely used performance enhancer in sport, are considered illegal among the sports athletes. However, the debate is still going on that whether we should legalize the performance enhancing drugs. If I imagine watching a Super Bowl game, while knowing that all the players are depending on certain performance enhancer, I would probably not get too excited with their performances. Likewise, we are amazed by sports athletes’ energetic performances that are resulted from their own effort and hard work, and it is true that people get less interested in those players who cheat.

                After watching this video, I questioned myself “If we ban steroids in sports, what about the performance enhancer used by musicians and fighter pilots? Aren’t they also considered as cheating?” The video showed that fighter pilots often take drugs to lower the blood pressure, and musicians take beta-blockers to prevent performance anxiety. However, people do not think these behaviors as cheating, which they might say “in sports, you should play fare and in war you don’t.” Remember Tiger Woods got his eye surgery to have better vision. Isn’t this also considered as performance enhancer?

                I found an article about eyeglasses that can enhance sports performance, which I’m not sure whether it is allowed for professional athletes, but it is truly a performance enhancer used by sports participants to gain advantage during competition. If sports eyeglasses and steroids both enhance the players’ performance, why do people only concern about athletes using steroids? I think it is really hard to give the right answer for these questions, which I guess different explanation can support individual opinion.

Related link: http://www.allaboutvision.com/sportsvision/eyewear.htm

Is Gene Doping Good or Bad?

 

                In our session, we broadly discussed about ethical issues related to athlete’s illegal use of drugs. Although drugs and doping can cause serious side effects to human body, a number of athletes still decide to take those prohibited drugs to enhance their performance. The survey was taken by one of the sports magazines asking track athletes that “If you take this drug, you will be guaranteed to earn gold medal in Olympic Games, but you will die in seven years because of the side effects. Would you take this drug?” Surprisingly, about 80% of those athletes answered that they will still take the drugs, which shows that many athletes decide to use drugs even though they know it will harm their body. 

                We talked about gene doping and morality of choosing the traits of the baby to grow as a perfectly conditioned athlete. Recently in Britain, HFEA, the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, approved the embryo screening which allows parents at risk of transmitting genetic disease to ensure that their children are unaffected by the disease. It is good news that we can use this technology to prevent children born with high possibilities of getting disease. However, what if this can be used in unethical way in sport? If parents can decide the preferred traits of their child to let him become athlete, for example, selecting specific height and strength of specific body, and the child later realizes that he has been planned and forced to become an athlete, what’s the difference between gene doping and  buying a man made robot? In my opinion, gene doping violates both human right and the honesty of athletes that they must embrace in sport activities.  Every athletes need to have equal opportunity to develop and strengthen their athletic skills, which I think enhancing the ability with the help of the modulation of gene expression should be prohibited.

                

Related link:

http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/embryo-screening-and-the-ethics-of-60561