{"id":1561,"date":"2026-09-29T16:56:29","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T20:56:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/?p=1561"},"modified":"2026-09-29T16:56:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T20:56:30","slug":"steps-to-losing-weight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/steps-to-losing-weight\/","title":{"rendered":"Steps to Losing Weight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"project<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My project serves as a commentary on diet culture and false\/misrepresented information that is used to encourage unhealthy dietary habits. Using specific sources, I put together a satirical infographic poster containing \u201cSteps to Losing Weight\u201d, with various tips such as eating raw meat, exercising 6-13 hours a day, or adding insects to your diet for fat loss. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I organized everything using a format from an old US Department of Agriculture poster about different food groups that should be included in one\u2019s diet, and then replaced the food groups with the \u201cadvice\u201d for losing weight. The poster also contains a visible key, although the only information that is presented in the citation format used is the name of the organization that it was pulled from. I purposefully only gathered sources that were credible, such as the National Library of Medicine or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason I selected my sources so intentionally is because the purpose of my project is to give a commentary on how things are often presented as fact using false authority, simply because of where it is sourced from, even if it is out of context or manipulated in different ways. Whilst the information presented on my \u201cinfo\u201d-graphic is unrealistic at best, looking at just the key alone makes the information seem credible. The underlying advice that I am giving through my project is not to simply check the source of information, but to look into it further to make sure the information is being presented in an accurate manner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I decided to focus on diet culture because it\u2019s an area prolific with fake or misleading information, and thus was a perfect topic to use as an example of information misrepresentation. In order to better represent the wide range that diet culture covers, I tried to incorporate many different ways that I\u2019ve seen data be manipulated in my project. For example, the line from Group 6 saying \u201cTapeworms cause weight loss\u201d is true. However, the source was from a CDC article about taeniasis (tapeworm infection), and the various symptoms that it can cause. Conveniently, I left out the other symptoms that were included in the article, such as abdominal pain and other digestive problems. Another form of data manipulation I used was exaggeration, specifically of numbers. For example, Group 2 states that \u201c6-13 hours of daily activity\u201d, as opposed to the original source stating the recommendation was 150 minutes of exercise per week to improve health. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe that my plagiarism is not an actual plagiarism, as I use information presented for different purposes and spin it to create a commentary on diet culture, bringing in my own perspective and opinions on it to make it something new, conveying a different meaning from the original sources. Whilst I do believe that a viable argument can be made for the way that my process was similar to patchwriting, as I used a poster as a base to organize the information and simply replaced the different groups, the overall meaning of the poster has shifted from an infographic about different food groups into something mocking the trends of diet culture both on social media and from the past. The information presented has been changed to point towards this new meaning, encouraging different ways to try and lose weight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contrary to what the poster itself may display, the intention is for viewers to oppose the \u201cadvice\u201d that\u2019s given on it. I hope for it to act as a call to action for those who may be influenced in any way to \u201cimprove\u201d themselves, especially in an age where it seems you can never be satisfactory just the way you are. I make this statement and project not simply to address diet culture, but the information misrepresentation and unrealistic standards portrayed in beauty, gym culture, academics, and many other aspects of our life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Link to (the real) key: https:\/\/docs.google.com\/presentation\/d\/1nLGPB_Nx0k3FiB_P_McpdcP80NlZFlJLsTlhOoqLgGQ\/edit?usp=sharing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My project serves as a commentary on diet culture and false\/misrepresented information that is used to encourage unhealthy dietary habits. Using specific sources, I put…<\/p>\n

Continue ReadingSteps to Losing Weight<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":9085,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-an-original-plagiarism-fa26","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9085"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1563,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561\/revisions\/1563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}