Analysis of Social Science Challenges: Loneliness, Obesity, and Public Health

This analysis examines two articles focusing on major social science challenges. The first article, "Social Science Lines Up Its Biggest Challenges" by Jim Giles, highlights 23 unsolved questions in social science, including issues of equality, wages, wars, and health. The article discusses various approaches to tackling these challenges, such as Emily Oster's use of cash rewards for weight loss and Christakis's exploration of the link between social and biological attributes. The second article, "Loneliness is Deadlier than Obesity, Study Suggests" by Sarah Knapton, explores the detrimental effects of social isolation on health, highlighting its potential to increase the risk of early death by 50%. Both articles provide valuable insights into pressing social issues and the need for research and intervention.

ASSIGNMENT 1: TEXT ANALYSIS
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In the article presented by Jim Giles, the emphasis was laid upon “Social
Science lines up its biggest challenges”. Top 23 unsolved questions lined up that are
needed to be tackled by social science to address the issues of equality and wages
to wars and health. Many scholars and economists have outlines the issues that are
faced by the social environments which need to be changed focusing on the
psychological as well as physiological factors (Giles, 2011). The focus was laid on by
Emily Oster on the public0helath issues such as obesity by initiating the cash
rewards for reaching the weight loss targets by the people. This strategy laid by
Oster will help the society to save money as future medical expenses will be
reduced. Christakis highlighted a possibility of sharing a link of the social attributes
with that of the biological ones. In order to motivate the researchers to draw out
solutions for these problems according to Cary Cooper funding will aid the problem
and will help the researchers to feel confident.
In another article written by Sarah Knapton, the lights were shed on the loneliness as
more deadly health hazard than obesity under the article “Loneliness is deadlier than
obesity, study suggests”. In this article, many researchers came to a view that social
isolation can lead to the health effects and their arises increased the risk of early
deaths by 50% in case of socially isolated persons. According to the researchers,
obesity on other hand raises around 30% at the age of 70 where people die
(Knapton, 2017). According to the ONS figures Britain forms as the loneliness capital
of Europe as the people there tend to share a less strong bond of friendships with
their neighbours or friends as compared to other countries of EU. The result came
out as a statement from the Local Government Association that Loneliness is a
major health issue that should be treated and at national level a UK-wide strategy
should be developed that will help to tackle loneliness and social isolation that will
help to draws out solutions for these growing crises (Kosinski, ET AL. 2015).
Both articles summarized above wer4e published a few years back that is focused
on the social science that needs to solve the major challenges faced by them. In the
first article, many researchers and scholars have laid their views within their fields
and laid the solutions that they had investigated it. this makes it a reliable source. At
end of the first article, a change was made about the University of Nick Nash that did
his MBA from the Stanford University rather from Harvard University which ensures
more reliability in the same volume of the article. The second article was published
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by science editor and many professors, campaigns, surveys and associations at
local and national levels have stated their views which ensure the reliability of this
article (Gerst-Emerson & Jayawardhana, 2015). Thus both articles are a reliable
source as they were published under their fields they belonged to and targeted the
professional audience via magazines and The Telegraph.
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REFERENCES
 Gerst-Emerson, K., & Jayawardhana, J. (2015). Loneliness as a public health
issue: the impact of loneliness on health care utilization among older adults.
American journal of public health, 105(5), 1013-1019.
 Giles, J. (2011). Social science lines up its biggest challenges.
 Knapton, S. (2017). Loneliness is deadlier than obesity, study suggests.
Online available at
(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/08/06/loneliness-deadlier-obesity-
study-suggests/) last accessed March 2018.
 Kosinski, M., Matz, S. C., Gosling, S. D., Popov, V., & Stillwell, D. (2015).
Facebook as a research tool for the social sciences: Opportunities,
challenges, ethical considerations, and practical guidelines. American
Psychologist, 70(6), 543.
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