Coca-cola colonizes Mexico

"Coca-colonization."

That's what two researchers are calling the transformation of remote areas of other countries into junk-food-eating communities.

In their 2004 study in Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, Thomas Leatherman and Alan Goodman, researched how tourism brought about this change in eating habits. Coca-cola, a U.S. icon, has an especially pervasive presence in the Mayan communities that are now tourist areas, according to their research.

Changing community

Tourism now supports these Mayan communities and provides jobs for their residents. Many of the residents are construction workers, tour guides or maids.

The Mayan people realize how tourism has changed their community, according to the article. They also realize how important tourism is to providing them with jobs.

But without as many people working on local farmland, the Mayans don't eat as much local produce. Instead they turn to the unhealthy snacks and sodas brought to big and small stores in the area at least once a week.

'Comidas chatarras'

The Spanish name for all the junk food the Mayans now eat is "comidas chatarras." The malnutrition of the Mayans has led to stunted growth and obesity.

In their survey of the eating habits of the community, Leatherman and Goodman found:

• overall child growth has grown in the past decade, but child growth has been somewhat stunted
• children were overweight considering their weight and height, but no children were obese
• 86 % of urban women are overweight
• 50% of urban women are obese
• diabetes is the fourth leading cause of death in Yucatan

The researchers speculate that a Yucatan population that is already overweight and obese will only continue to have those problems because the children don't have good nutrition and are overweight.

No say

The Mayan people are being used for cheap labor at the tourist attractions and "only set an ethnic backdrop at tourist sites," Leatherman and Goodman say.

They suggest that one way to improve the health of the Mayan people is to let them have a say in the government bodies.

Religious discrimination complaints grow

The first ammendment prohibits the United States government from making any law that would prohibit the free exercise of religion.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of regligion, as well as race, color, sex or national origin.

But businesses and companies still discriminate religiously against workers. From before 2001 to 2008, the number of religious discrimination charges filed in the United States has increased by more than 30 percent, according to a USA Today article. The Equal Opportunity Employment Commission received 3,273 charges of religious discrimination in 2008.

It’s not just people of religions that are new to the United States. Thousands of cases were filed. Among them were complaints filed by Christians.

A Missouri woman was fired from her small town public library in 2003 because she refused to work on Sundays, according to a Fox News article. Three years later, Connie Rehm, a Lutheran, regained her job after a judge ruled in her favor in court.

But Christians aren’t the only ones discriminated against in the workplace based on religion.
Muslims, the fastest-growing religious group in the United Sates, according to the State Department, have been increasingly discriminated against since Sept. 11.

The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in June 2009 against Essex County for firing a Muslim corrections officer for wearing a head scarf with her uniform.

Being fired simply for following a religion is unacceptable. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 guarantees that employees won’t be discriminated against based on religion. The United States government should make sure businesses are adhering to that law.

Muslims have faced harsher discrimination in the workplace – from employers and fellow employees.

After the train bombings in India, one Muslim woman received an e-mail from a co-worker that began “Dear Muslim,” according to another USA Today article. A study by Yale professor Mona Amer shows that Muslims have worse mental health than Americans in general.

No one in the United States – a country that was founded by people escaping religious persecution – should experience anxiety or stress related to religious discrimination.

If the United States government is going to condemn other countries, like Bulgaria, for religious discrimination, it needs to take a look at the problem in its own country first.

Americans left behind in globalized world

There are 4,000 reasons Americans should know about the world pointing at us.

Missiles, that is.

It would take only 20 minutes for a missile to reach the United States from Russia, Christopher Van Aller, a political science professor at Winthrop, told his American Foreign Policy class.

The students in his 500-level political science class, however, are among the few Americans who know a significant amount about the geography, history and politics of the world.

A shocking 20 percent of 18- to 24-year-old Americans think Sudan is in Asia, according to the 2006 National Geographic-Roper Survey of Geographic Literacy. An even higher 48 percent of young adults surveyed thought the majority of the population in India is Muslim. (Take the quiz yourself.)

Americans have a mind-set that Stephen Brooks, author of “As Others See Us,” calls one of isolationism. That isolationism is composed of ignorance, insularity and indifference, he says.
Some international students at Winthrop University apparently have this same view of Americans.

Brandi Baker, a junior elementary education major, works as a peer mentor. One of her students from Canada told her many Canadians think Americans “live in a dome.”

A large reason for the mind-set of isolationism stems from the lack of global learning in schools. That’s why organizations like National Geographic and the National Council for Geographic Education have started campaigns to support the teaching of geography to students of all ages.

The view Americans have of the United States as the example for all other countries in the world to follow simply can’t continue to exist in a world in which globalization is increasingly important.

The curriculum for American schools needs to include lessons on the world, starting with geography at a very young age. Knowing where countries are located is the base to understanding more about them and the connections between them all.

Americans rely mostly on television as their source for national and international information about current events, according to the book “As Others See Us.”

This can be dangerous because the coverage of international events on American television networks isn’t necessarily proportional to the importance of events and issues across the world.

For example, the death of Anna Nicole Smith received more coverage than all other countries except Iraq, according to a presentation by Alisa Miller, the CEO of Public Radio International. (See video above.)

The economy has affected the number of foreign bureaus news networks can afford, Brooks said in his book. But television networks are covering these pop culture topics rather than international news because that’s what American viewers are interested in.

An increase of global learning in American schools would spark students’ interest in world issues. Young adults today have seen the effects of not knowing about the world. That's why we need to support global education so that younger generations aren’t left behind in a world consumed by globalization.