What You Eat Is Your Business By Randy Balko Analysis

“The Cato Institute’s” Policy analyst, Radley Balko, in his article “What You Eat Is Your Business,” talks about the idea of obesity and whose fault it is. Balko’s purpose is to convey the idea that obesity is the individual’s responsibility, not the government’s or anyone else’s for that matter. Ultimately, Balko’s “What You Eat Is Your Business” has a strong hold on ethos, pathos, and logos, making for a successful and persuasive article.

David Zinczenko's article "Don't Blame the Eater" discuses with regard to a series of health-related topics involving food that most people and, particularly, young individuals eat today. The article is meant to raise public awareness concerning the risks associated with consuming particular foods. These respective risks are generally ignored because companies selling the products refrain from emphasizing the exact effects that consuming their food can have on someone's health. The reality is that cheap foods are an appealing alternative for young people who are more concerned about the quantity than the quality of the foods they eat.

Balko’s next thought is that, we are more responsible for everyone else’s health and less responsible for our own. He said, “Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest has said, “We’ve got to move beyond ‘personal responsibility.’” The largest organization of trial lawyers now encourages its members to weed jury pools of candidates who show “personal responsibility bias.” The title of Jenning’s special from last December—“How to Get Fat Without Really Trying”—reveals his intent, which is to relieve viewers of responsibility for their own condition. Indeed, Jennings ended the program with an impassioned plea for government intervention to fight obesity.” This evidence is sufficient, representative, accurate, and relevant. He is quoting a public health figure and recent media coverage of initiatives promoting increased government involvement in public health. The next claim Balko has is that, “the best way to alleviate the obesity “public health” crisis is to remove obesity from the realm of public health.” He has great ideas, but his evidence isn’t supported by facts or numbers that show that his idea would solve the

America is suffering from a national eating disorder. Men, women, and children are eating more unhealthy than ever and paying the price for it. Obesity has become one of the top causes of death, after cigarettes. This begs the question, who’s to blame for all of this? Whether you believe it is the responsibility of consumers, companies, or the U.S government the truth is that it is no one and everyone’s fault. The obesity epidemic in America is a complex problem with complex causes, but its solutions are rather simple.

The rising rates of obesity in the 1990s were stimulated by the transformation of the American lifestyle caused by new policies, technological advancements, and changes in activity levels. When President George H. W. Bush signed the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) in November 1990, it gave the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to require nutrition labeling on most foods. The nutritional data this law requires is beneficial for most Americans, but uneducated individuals who do not know how to interpret it are at a disadvantage. Although the FDA mandated nutritional facts to be printed on food labels, it did not require Americans to be educated about basic health issues. This not only allowed them to continue to consume all types of food without knowledge of health implications they can develop, but it also resulted in the absence of nutritional education. The proliferation of nutrition facts across the nation emphasized the importance of eating wholesome foods and developing healthy eating habits.

Recently, American culture observed a kick in health food and exercise. Even so, our nation’s reputation continues to include obesity and junk food as common traits. The main culprits in the American diet come wrapped in a package. Preservatives, sweeteners, and dyes hide within most of the foods we eat. Even meats, vegetables, and “health foods” contain these things, but why? Efficiency in production and consumer appeal persuade businesses to include these ingredients. We have taught ourselves to ignore labels and warnings as long as the product tastes good. It should be easy to educate ourselves about various ingredients, but nothing could be further from the truth. Everyone on the internet expresses a different opinion: random people that

Supposedly responsible for regulating food consumption and health standards, the USDA and FDA set forth criteria that food processing companies must abide by to successfully keep food safe for consumers. However, I feel as though these government organizations, in combination with greedy corporations, are failing at their jobs, leaving consumers to fend for themselves in food safety. For this exact reason, we, as a society, deserve the right to know what is in our food; our daily nourishment is simply not something meant to be feared or questioned. Food labeling and daily advertising are essential tools that aid in avoiding such horror, providing even slightly more insight to purchasers. Information provided through these tactics should be honest, approved, and reliable, requested by the consumer upon desire for making wise decisions; major corporate businesses, in no way, shape, or form, should be granted permission to decide what types of information should be disclosed, as their secretive nature could possibly interfere with this aspect of food safety greatly. Similar to how everyone deserves to be informed of the nourishment they are providing themselves, I also believe that access to healthy food should be available to everyone, making it a basic right. As long as people are willing to work and process the healthy food we eat, they also should be able to partake. Overall, my opinions and beliefs on the food industry will never be what they once were; they will forever be distorted by the lucrative, profit-seeking motives guiding major food corporations across the

Shown in the article “Debate Spark Food for Thought on the Role of the Government in Curbing Obesity” by Charles Reyman, says that “Obesity costs upwards of $150 billion a year. More than half of that is paid by government through Medicaid, Medicare and (federal) employee health insurance claims.” the same article by Charles Reyman says that “Our food environment has changed dramatically over the last thirty years in a way that makes healthy eating seem like swimming upstream… We are not saying that personal responsibility is not the most important thing, but there is more to it than that. Obesity is a societal problem, and we all have a role to play in addressing: parents, individuals, health professionals, organizations, food companies, manufactures of sporting goods, and, of course, government.” In the other article called “Keep the State off my Plate” by Julie Gunlock, says that children in San Francisco must cross the Bay Bridge in Oakland if they want a free toy with their chicken nuggets. I think that is a great idea because then the children will have to work for what they want and still stay

The recent increase in obesity levels just goes to show that individuals need to be more responsible when it comes to deciding what to eat for lunch or dinner. As everyday consumers, it is the eater’s job to make sure that what’s going into the body, healthy or not, is balanced by every day exercise. No one other than the individual can be held accountable for problems such as weight gain or diabetes. In the article Don’t Blame the Eater, author David Zinczenko writes “ But most of the teenagers who live, as I once did, on a fast-food diet won’t turn their lives around: They’ve crossed under the golden arches to a likely fate of life-time obesity” (4). Zinczenko states that although he was on a one-way train to Obe-City, he was still able to turn his life around because he felt it was his responsibility. Much like people around the ages of 18-26, Zinczenko was gorging himself in fried chicken and pizza, however, unlike everyone else he was able to admit that he was the main cause for excessive weight gain. Personal responsibility is the first of many steps that Americans need to take in order to escape the obesity

So, therefore, some claim that the only acceptable method to regulated food with labels. Besides “Obesity is a serious health problem, but government regulation is not the way to solve it.” (Marlow, Abdukadirov 2015). “Government paternalism is a flawed approach that relies on interventions that have poor checks and balances for their effectiveness.” (Marlow,

Over the past hundred years, the production of food has drastically evolved; the quality of food has declined due notion of quantity over quality. Furthermore, the declining quality of food is in correlation with the declining health of the consumer’s. Producers are more concerned with mass producing their product at an economical rate, even if it means sacrificing the quality of the food, which ultimately wind up inside the body of the consumer. The only solution to the issue at hand is if the government manages how food is produced in the United States. Adversaries to the notion that the government should become more embroiled in the food industry say that the government is already strict in managing the food industry others say that they

In the American supermarket, we have access to an array of food products. These products, in most cases, appeal to our baser needs to eat items rich in flavor. For example, McDonald’s commercials prey on our weaknesses; depicting a slender man or woman of reasonable attractiveness eating their product, a succulent hamburger composed of what they claim to be fresh ingredients. Many people assume that these items, because they are sold in the supermarket, are generally healthy but this is far from the truth. In reality, the corporations producing the food we consume have a blatant disregard for the healthiness of the product nor the consumer. The major food corporations that produce these products pose a threat to our health, attested by the

When we eat food, we consume it with thought of it providing nutritional support. Suddenly it has become easier to obtain by just driving though a drive thru and ordering meal instead of it being home-cooking with no thought of where it came from. People believe that the food they eat is giving them nutritional value but in truth it is only doing more harm than good. While some may argue that it is ultimately the responsibility of the consumer because no one is forced to eat, but the main problem it to stop eating a western diet that America has been accustomed to diet or not. Because of the amount of processed food causing chronic diseases, inflation of the pricing of the health care industry, and the constant fact that food is readily available without properly knowing what they’re eating, it is not publics fault for obesity it’s the food industry fault.

A small number of mega food companies dominate the food industry in America, and the world; they’re committed to increasing profits and market share despite known health risks such as cancer, obesity, and diabetes, which are associated with the processed foods they produce. In fact, they chemically engineer their food to ensure consumers crave it. Newly developed Sustainable Development Goals aim to reduce non-communicable diseases such as cancer, obesity, and diabetes by the year 2030. Consumers should support legislation requiring cancer and other health risk warning labels for processed foods and begin to make more informed choices on what they purchase.

America is directly feeling the aftershock of having the overwhelming amount of fast food restaurants and bad diets as the millennial’s are dying from obesity or related diseases. A well known disease is called obesity, an excessive accumulation and storage of fat, which is linked to health problems. Obesity as while for additional corresponding diseases have recently increased over the years. The misconceptions of diagnosing Obesity by just appearance is no longer the case in this society. Food industries have shown food nutrition however, are still discreet about how much or what is within the meal creating a person to intake more than the recommended calories. The government is not enforcing law regulations allowing these food industries to manipulate consumers. The availability of education can allow consumers to become more aware of this issue. The individual responsibility is needed to produce a healthier lifestyle by knowing the risks,and understanding the issue that taking place. This problem is due to lack of individual responsibility, little government involvement, and no education, now it is up to the 18 to 25 year old to save their generation before it’s put endanger due to obesity.