Write a summary of the thesis and main supporting arguments of the essay you are responding to. Keep it clean and simple. Include the author's name and the title of the essay. Leave out the supporting detail. You can discuss the details in the paragraphs that follow if you need to.
Post your paragraph by Thursday at 5 PM.
In “Don’t Blame the Eater,” David Zinczenko argues that the fast-food companies and the food industry are to blame for America’s obesity epidemic. He illustrates in his essay how fast-food in America is too easily accessed for the people of America. He writes how people in poor socioeconomic situations fall into a pattern where they buy fast food at a high frequency. He also writes how fast-food companies do a poor job with informing the people about the health hazards of fast-food and how they are devious in their advertising strategy. In his essay ZInczenko calls for widespread fast-food reform. He believes that America’s obesity epidemic will be helped greatly if fast-food companies made the hazards of fast-food more obvious, if healthier foods were more cost-effective relative to fast-food, and if fast-food companies were not allowed to be so devious in their advertising schemes.
ReplyDeleteIn Radley Balko’s essay, “What you eat is your own Business’, he argues that to solve the national epidemic of obesity, people need to be more in control of their own health. He argues that if people had more personal incentives to live a healthy lifestyle, they would be more inclined to care about their own health. If those living an unhealthy lifestyle were forced to pay their own health bills, Balko argues that they would indeed take greater care of what they put in their own bodies. He also argues that the state is holding private citizens back because the state is implementing rules that make it more advantageous to live a cheap unhealthy lifestyle and foot the bill on others. Balko tells us that in his opinion the government should not be telling us what we should eat, that instead it should be up to the individual what they choose to eat.
ReplyDeleteThere are many arguments that refute David Zinczenko’s article, “Don’t Blame the Eater.” Specifically, the article does not take into account all the sources of healthy alternatives, the other causes of obesity, and the full extent of nutrient ion information available to people. If fact, the article often presents the worst case scenarios and extremes of the fast-food industry. It states generalized facts about diabetes in relation to obesity when there are other factors involved in the disease. Zinczenko claims that the fast-food industry “would do well to protect themselves, and their customers, by providing the nutrition information people need,” but the reality is that a majority of people are informed enough to read “hard to understand” calorie information and make proper decisions. “Don’t Blame the Eater” is focused on generalized statements that do not consider the specifics of the obesity situation in America.
ReplyDeleteDavid Zinczenko argues in his essay “Don’t Blame the Eater” that the consumers of fast food are not to blame for their increase in obesity. Zinczenko’s main argument is that fast food is much more available than healthy alternatives. His claims are that eating fast food is the only option for a meal when on a low budget and that there are many more locations to purchase fast food than there is to purchase fruit. He also argues that fast food companies do not put enough caloric-information charts or warning labels on their products. People are going to continue to eat fast food since they do not actually know what they are eating and that it could be a potential health hazard.
ReplyDeleteIn What You Eat Is Your Business, Radley Balko argues that the government should not come between you and your waistline and that obesity is not an issue of public health. He argues that the government should foster personal responsibility and it is up to the individuals to become fit and make the right food choices on their own. Balko claims that states should not prevent health insurance companies from charging obese patients higher premiums.
ReplyDeleteBalko makes the claim in “What You Eat is Your Business” that the people of are more responsible for America’s health problem than the food industries. Moreover, he believes that congress shouldn’t focus on passing laws that aren’t helping, such as laws that restrict food marketing to children and more demands of food labeling. Basically, the problem will only increase unless congress addresses the people directly to “foster a sense of responsibility” for their own healthcare. Furthermore, it will be more effective because it will only affect the people who are overweight, and in turn, lighten the America’s medical bill of $200 billion a year.
ReplyDeleteIn David Zinczenko’s article, “Don’t Blame the Eater,” he argues that it is the fast food industry’s fault for the growing obesity epidemic, in other words the individual should not be blamed. Zinczenko argues that the only inexpensive and available options to most kids are fast food establishments. Furthermore, he argues that it is difficult to find healthy food and even seemingly healthy fast food is actually just as bad for you as other items on the menu. Lastly Zinczenko states that the fast food industry is marketing dangerously unhealthy foods to children which is just plain poor judgment and thus had led to the obesity epidemic.
ReplyDeleteIn his article "What You Eat Is Your Business," Radley Balko argues that obesity should not be an issue of public health and that the government shouldn't be responsible for the food you eat and how it may change your body. He states that it is up to the individual to make the right and healthy decisions when it comes to food and doing what needs to be done to stay fit. He also says that individual states should not prevent the health insurance companies from giving patients that are obese a higher premium on their insurance.
ReplyDeleteThe essay “Don’t Blame the Eater” by David Zinczenko stresses that it is the conduct of fast food companies and the food industry that has lead to the high obesity rate in the United States. Food that is healthy, tasty, and affordable is very hard to come by. On the other hand, there are cheap and delicious fast food options all over. This circumstance has lead to consumers often just surviving of what is cheap and readily available. Fast food companies also shy away from giving consumers the truth about their products. For example, the information available is often skewed and portrayed to sound healthier than it really is.
ReplyDeleteIn the article, "What You Eat is Your Business, Balko tries to prove that obesity is not the governments job to overcome. He believes that people are responsible for keeping themselves healthy and the correct weight. He makes an argument that states should not be involved in health insurance companies not insuring overweight customers. Congress should not focus their time on passing legislation regarding healthier eating habits that create no positive outcomes. He believes that to overcome the issue of obesity, Americans need to take control of their own daily habits.
ReplyDeleteIn the essay “What You Eat Is Your Business,” Blako shows that government intervention will not cure obesity in America. Blako does this by claiming that personal health is becoming a matter of socialism, in of a matter of personal responsibility. There is a lack of personal responsibility in American citizens and an overabundance of responsibility for everyone else’s health. He claims that we will all make better choices when someone else isn’t paying for the consequences.
ReplyDeleteIn “What You Eat is Your Business” Radley Balko argues that to solve the rampant obesity problem in our country people need to take responsibility for what they’re eating. He argues that the best way to stop the rising rate of obesity is to “remove obesity from the realm of public health”. By allowing obesity to become a public health care issue you would be alleviating people of the cost of their weight problems.
ReplyDeleteIn his article "Don't Blame the Eater," David Zinczenko states that fast food companies need to start taking responsibility for the health problems caused by their food. He argues that there is a lack of feasible alternatives for young people, causing diabetes to skyrocket. He also argues that nutrition facts for fast food products are not usually readily available. When they are, Zinczenko states that they are convoluted and misleading.
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