“Don’t Blame the Eater”
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
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I do agree that complicating the lack of alternatives is the lack of information about what we’re consuming. The government does not require calorie information charts on fast-food packaging as there are on grocery items, nor are prepared foods covered under Food and Drug Administration labeling laws. They are more concerned with keeping costs down, thus banking in the money, than with the welfare of our children in any aspect. Look at the state of our public education system. Look at the salaries of our nations teachers. Look at our healthcare system…why do so many companies offer their employees health insurance through HMOs (Health Maintenance Organization) or PPOs (Preferred Provider Organization)? These are both network programs which require you to use certain doctors, but these doctors have contracts to accept what the insurance is willing to pay as full payment minus a co pay or deductible from the patient, thus cheaper for the company to fund. With these institutions and organizations being all about the business of making money, how can we honestly expect them to be responsible for or care about the well-being of our children? They are targeting our children! You need not even pay too close attention for it to be obvious. Just take a look at a Happy Meal advertisement and the 2.5 million Happy Meals sold each year. As working parents, especially single parents,
In the article “Don’t Blame the Eater”, author David Zinczenko, the editor -in-chief of Men’s Health magazine comments on the lawsuit against McDonald’s which is initiated by the overweight children’s parents. He claims that fast-food industry should accept full responsibility for a serious public problem: leading American kids to obesity. Zinczenko supports his claim with his personal experience to show how the fast-food chains marketing on them with low price. He also said it is not easy for those obese kids to turn their lives back. He believes this should be considered as a public health problem because their obesity causes the society huge public health losses. Zinczenko insists that if fast-food industry doesn’t take actions quickly, it is only a matter of time for them to become the next tobacco industry.
In the essay, “Don’t Blame the Eater”, David Zinczenko, editor-in-chief of Men’s Health magazine, discusses the recent lawsuits against fast-food chains. He does not deny that there should be a sense of personal responsibility among the public, but has sympathy for the kid consumers because he used to be one. Zinczenko argues that due to the lack of nutritional facts and health warnings, it’s not so ridiculous to blame the fast-food industry for obesity problems.
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.
David Zinczenko’s impartial essay, “Don’t Blame the Eater”, questions if children should be suing fast food companies for making consumers obese. He starts out by connecting to those who have found their way into unhealthy eating styles, but luckily for him, he found a way out of there. Furthermore Zinczenko compares the rate of diabetes in children in the 90s to the 2000s, it was significantly lower as compared to present day. He then goes back to the issue that the youth has, being un-employed and young and only having access to the cheap fast food, should they still be to blame? The next topic that was brought up was the lack of information that fast food franchises provide, Zinczenko points out the fact that on the countless television
With obesity rates increasing at a high rate, David Zinczenko, author of “Don't Blame the Eater”, tells his readers about his argument about how it's not the fault of the children consuming so much fast food. He works as a nutrition and wellness editor for ABC News. Before working for ABC News he was also an editor-in-chief of Men’s Health magazines as well as editorial director of Women’s Health magazines. Past jobs and the job he has now put him in an appropriate position to publish his thoughts on obesity. His intended audience for this essay are the fast food industries and also the people who laugh at the children for trying to sue for being obese. Zinczenko has written an effective argument by establishing himself as an authoritative
David Zinczenko’s article “Don’t Blame the Eater” states how he was obese as a child and that it was not his fault. He then goes into detail about diabetes and how teens are the main consumers of fast food. The title of the article “Don’t Blame the Eater” summarizes Zinczenko’s attitude of the article. Throughout the article he is blaming fast food joints for obesity and type two diabetes. Zinczenko also makes another point about fast food restaurants lacking on nutritional information on their food products.
“Don’t Blame the Eater” by David Zinczenko, emphasizes the relationship between obesity in children and fast food restaurants. As a child, Zinczenko ate at many types of fast food restaurants, because his parents were too busy to cook for him. He had the option to eat at fast food because his neighborhood was invaded by them, eventually that contributed to his obesity and “by age 15 he had packed 212 pound of torpid teenage tallow won my once lanky 5 foot-10 frame” later he learned how to have a healthy diet. This essay offers important information about diabetes he said “ before 1994 , diabetes in children’s was generally caused by a genetic disorder, but today according to the National Institute of Health, type 2 diabetes accounts for at
In the article “Don’t Blame the Eater,” David Zinczenko argues that today’s fast food industry is to blame for obesity. Zinczenko says that when he was a child lunch and diner for him was a choice between “McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Kentucky, Fried Chicken, or Pizza Hut,” those are largely the only options for kids today. Lawsuits are being held against these big companies. Even though fast food restaurants are cheap and affordable, it’s very hard to find a healthy food that is cheap as fast food. On the other hand, it’s a person’s choice on whether choosing to eat at a fast food restaurant or buying himself a salad at the supermarket. Instead of getting a burger for three dollars, why not go to the grocery and get whole wheat bread, ham, and
Zinczenko explores the issue that parents are not teaching their kids how to cook, which contributes to his argument that America is unhealthy. Zinczenko clearly states “Without such warnings, we’ll see more sick, obese children and more angry, litigious parents” (Zinczenko 393). Through out his article he shows why children are becoming more and more obese it is because of fast foods appeal. It is cheap, affordable, and easily accessible for children to get. A child can simply walk just about anywhere and will see a Mcdonalds, or Taco Bell. It would not be bad if fast food was good for you but when each meal is an unreasonably large amount of calories then this is where the problem lies. In our very busy, and lazy society families have began to allow their kids to buy Mcdonalds every day, but then wonder why their kid has begun to gain a large amount of weight.
In David Zinczenko’s article “Don’t Blame the Eater” he emphasizes the role of fast food industry on how it increases the health and obesity issues among children worldwide. Throughout his article, he argues against the manipulation of the fast food company that may cause serious health issues toward consumers. In order to prove that the fast food industry is at fault, he uses ethos to gain credibility through personal experience, pathos to show his emotion with the tone of the article, and logos to support his claim in data he provided.
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.
When someone thinks of various fast food restaurants, they often think of quick and easy way to obtain food. However they do not stop to think about how it is affecting their health. Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser exposes to the public that various fast food restaurants, such as McDonalds, are detrimental for your health. He does this by showing the reader how unhealthy the food is to the public, as well as showing us how they make their food more desirable to buy to the general population. The one problem that arisen from fast food restaurants is the increase of childhood obesity since the beginning of fast food.
Obesity has become increasingly more prominent in American society. It is also a major health issue affecting many adults and children in the US every year. In his article "Don't Blame the Eater," David Zinczenko sympathizes with children who are suing McDonald’s making them fat. In his own experience as a “latchkey kid”, he knows how easily fast food makes teenagers put on weight with a steady diet of fast food meals. Zinczenko argues that both lack of fast food alternative companies and lack of providing nutrition information contribute to childhood obesity.
In his article “Don’t Blame the Eater,” David Zinczenko argues that today’s fast food chains fill the nutritional void in children’s lives left by their overtaxed working parents. With many parents working long hours and unable to supervise what their children eat, Zinczenko claims, children today regularly turn to low-cost, calorie-laden foods that the fast food chains are too eager to supply. When Zinczenko himself was a young boy, for example, and his single mother was away at work, he ate at Taco Bell, McDonald’s, and other chains on a regular basis, and ended up overweight. Zinzenko’s hope is that with the new spate of lawsuits against the food industry, other children with working
Fast food has a harmful effect on society because it can cause obesity. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry believes obesity “Overweight children are much more likely to become overweight adults unless they adopt and maintain healthier patterns of eating and exercise.” (parag. 1).The causing and treating of obesity is complex but it is the most recognizable disease. Consistently eating fast food and a poor can lead to obesity in anyone. The risks of obesity include an increased risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease. According to the American Heart Association, fast food “Studies have shown that over the past four decades, consumption of food eaten away from home has also risen alarmingly” (parag. 8). This means that fast food is high in fat, sugar, salt, carbs, calories, saturated and trans fats. This type of eating leads to a higher body mass index or gained weight. Children and adolescents are at a