Don T Blame The Eater Summary

The passage entitled “Don’t Blame the Eater” written by David Zincenko starts off with a personal anecdote about his youth. He writes about how he was a “latchkey kid (Zincenko 241)” and how every day he had to have fast food for lunch and dinner. Zincenko goes on to write about how obesity and diabetes have become more prevalent in today’s society. He argues that fast food is more available than healthy food, and there is no nutritional information on the fast food that people are buying. Because of this, he believes that the fast food industry and society as a whole are set up for failure because of lawsuits and deteriorating health.

Industry is about efficiency; ideally, turning the most profit from the least expense. Therefore, how can we trust an industry to make an ethical choice that will potentially hurt their business model? As exhumed by the articles “Escape The Western Diet” by Michael Pollan and “Don’t Blame The Eater” by David Zinczenko, the health care and food industries are not interested in suggesting we shift our diets towards a what they define as a “healthier”, more natural one, but rather they are set upon developing and distributing a variety of processed, nutritionally-overloaded supplements and cheap foods that conveniently further their return of profit.

In the article, “What You Eat is Your Business,” senior writer and investigative reporter, Radley Balko, argues obesity is a personal and individual responsibility and should not be regulated through the government since that violates our freedoms and rights. Balko states the government’s regulations in preventing obesity, such as, removing junk food in school vending machines, more detailed food labels, and forcing the food industry to be more responsible in their behavior towards the health issues of consumers. Many politicians agree with banning of unhealthy snacks and sodas from school vending machines, in addition, calling for a fat tax on unhealthy, high calorie foods. According to Balko, this is the wrong way to fight obesity, he continues,

In today’s society a huge issue is that we constantly hear about the food industry in America. We often hear in the news that obesity rates have increased, or that Americans have many diseases that contribute to being obese. “What You Eat is Your Business” by Radley Balko expresses that people are at fault for making such unhealthy food choices. Others argue that the food industry is to blame for being so unhealthy. According to David Zinczenko in “Don’t Blame the Eater” he blames the fast food industry as well as the consumer. Zinczenko asks “shouldn’t we know better than to eat two meals a day in fast food restaurant’s?” (392). So, who is to blame for American’s eating so much unhealthy food? Should it be the consumers’ burden or the fast food companies? On one hand, as consumers we continue to purchase foods that we know are making us overweight. On the other hand, fast food companies continue to offer high in calories foods.

Radley Balko, the once editor of the Huffington Post, argues in his essay “What You Eat Is Your Business,” that personal responsibility is necessary when it comes to the food you ingest and your health. Balko goes into detail about how the government should not have a hand in what consumers eat or where they eat by discussing initiatives the government has put in place. Anti-obesity initiatives such as the request for more food labels and the restriction of junk food in vending machines at schools are becoming more popular and causing the American population to not take responsibility for their own health choices. American’s well-being has become an issue of “public health” instead of being an individual concern.

In Michael Moss’ article, “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Food,” he discussed multiple methods food industries used to attract consumers to buy more of their products. He mentioned how multiple CEO’s of food companies discussed the health epidemic. He revealed, “Today, one in three adults is considered clinically obese, along with one in five kids, and 24 million Americans are afflicted by type 2 diabetes, often caused by poor diet”(476-477). Basically, Moss is stating that millions of Americans are at risk of or have type 2 diabetes because of the unhealthy choices in their diet. Similarly, in David Zinczenko’s article, “Don’t Blame the Eater,” Zinczenko blames food industries for the health epidemic. He stated, “But where, exactly, are

In David Zinczenko’s article “Don’t Blame the Eater” he focuses on the fast food industry and their role in the increasing health and obesity issues of our nation’s children, as well as these issues potentially becoming a serious problem that we will all have to deal with if we collectively don’t do something about it now. When it comes to the topic of fast food, most of us can agree that it is not the best source of nutrition. It is unhealthy and can be the cause of many serious health issues with our children such as obesity related Type 2 diabetes, stomach ulcers and even heart disease, high cholesterol, sleep apnea or even cancer. We can even agree that fast-food diets are a major contributing factor to

He claims that the prevalence of fast food and the lack of healthier food alternatives is causing an epidemic of teenage obesity in America. In his essay “Don’t Blame the Eater,” David Zinczenko notes “Drive down any thoroughfare in America, ... you’ll see one of our country’s more than 13,000 McDonald’s restaurants. Now drive back up the block and try to find someplace to buy a grapefruit” (463). Zinczenko argues that there are no inexpensive and convenient alternatives to fast-food restaurants for teenagers. Especially for teenagers, unhealthy and fattening fast food

In the article, “What You Eat is Your Business”, Balko argues that the many government programs are not helping people become healthier. In reality, it seems that these programs are enabling bad choices. President Bush added a whopping $200 million into his budget to combat obesity, and state legislators are now banning certain snacks and sodas from school campuses and vending machines (Balko 396). Balko believes this is the wrong way to create a healthier society, because it does not create a sense of accountability for one’s health. He then goes on to say, “Your well-being, shape, and condition have increasingly

In an article written by Radley Balko titled “what you eat is your business” published on May 23, 2004, Balko informs us that giving the government control of the food industry is not the correct way to fight obesity. He points out that a few of the things that the government is doing already to try to control what students eat at school, and some ideas that congress are considering to help reduce obesity. Something that Balko mentioned related to putting focus on individual duties as a person, to take care of themselves by monitoring personal food intake, instead of everyone else’s unhealthy choices. He says that by giving government control of it, takes away the personal responsibility. Balko thinks that because the government is not allowing private healthcare to increase

You cannot watch your favorite shows without coming across an advertisement for a fast food restaurant. It happens so often that people get persuaded to try out the new items at these places, but what the advertisement is not providing are the nutritional facts. Most of what is being promoted on television is not healthy for anyone, but people get blinded by that because the food looks appetizing and it is so easy to access. For instance you cannot travel anywhere around the United States without passing a McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) or Pizza Hut (“Don’t Blame the Eater”). These are the three most recognized food chains across the United States and they are also the same fast food restaurants that are causing major health problems within the community such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, etc. Some may say that it is not the restaurant’s fault that people are enduring these health problems because no one is forcing a person to eat the fast food which is true, but if these restaurants were not being promoted as much, people would not be so compelled to go out and eat that type of food. In David Zinczenko’s article “Don’t Blame the Eater”, he talks about how we cannot blame people for what they are eating. I agree with Zinczenko up to a point, I cannot accept his overall conclusion that the consumer is not to be blamed for the food that goes into one’s body because children eat what is being placed in front of their face at

Throughout this article David Zinczenko calls out fast food companies, such as McDonald's, for manipulating children into becoming obese. Mr. Zinczenko claims that unhealthy fast food, was the only affordable option when growing up. Zinczenko joined the Navy Reserves and got involved with a health magazine, so he managed to avoid obesity, unlike some of his friends. Since the year 1994, Type 2 diabetes has risen over 25 percent. Finding healthier alternatives to fast food is difficult. The big fast food chains such as McDonald’s, have a monopoly, with over 13,000 restaurants in North America alone. Additionally, there is little to no information about the food being consumed. When there is information on the label, it is often manipulated.

Fast food companies are the one to blame for America’s obesity and obesity in children now days. Back in time we would never see children with diabetes or with heart disease, and now that’s all that we see in the streets, news, etc. It’s all about marketing and their target is children, which is wrong! Food enter by the eyes as the saying says, and children’s are the one who goes more by that saying. If only fast food would control the amount of calories you in take things would be so much better in the terms of obesity in children, but no one does anything for the cause. It’s not bad to eat once in a while at a fast food restaurant. I mean we all do that and it’s not bad. Is just the amount of fast food (Junk Food) that we eat and how often

One of the groups to blame for the epidemic in America is the food industries itself. The food industry is primarily interested in profit and would do anything to achieve it, not caring about our health. Shannon Brownlee a nationally known writer and essayist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, New York Times Magazine said, “Fast food marketing strategies, which make perfect sense from a business perspective, succeed only when they induce a substantial number of us to overeat” (Brownlee, Shannon. "It’s Portions Distortions That Make America Fat." Sacrament Bee, 5 Jan. 2003. Web). In Ms.Brownlee’s opinion fast food industries trick people to eat fast food by providing extraordinary deals, in order to make more profit. This worked because

In today’s world most people are already too lazy to make healthy decisions. That’s ultimately why we have fast food so people do not have to think about what we are eating. Fast food chains take advantage of our laziness after a long day at work or a stressful day of school. “Consumers spend more than half their food dollars outside of the