Good Thing Critique
Critique of "Too Much of a Good Thing"
"Eating too much food is a bad thing (Steam, n.d.)." says Greg Crister in his op-ed essay "Too much of A Good Thing" featured in the Los Angeles Times (July 22, 2001). Crister raises the issue of child obesity as a growing epidemic plaguing America and the world and proposes that in order to fight this crisis the American public needs to stigmatize the idea of overeating. By stigmatizing overeating children will be less likely to overeat, thus having positive a effects and reducing the percentage of children affected by child obesity. Crister proposes a valid solution to the problem; however he does not take into consideration the negative externalities that may occur from such a stigmatization …show more content…
The results yielded those children less than 5 years, ate the same portion regardless of the serving they were given, while those over 5 years often ate more as the portions increased, which the researchers indicated provides an opportunity to influence children's eating habits. Crister then continues to along this round stating that another study has was shown that children 6 to 12 years, who were offered health guidance, were less overweight 10 years later than those children that received none. Despite such data, opposing research into the area of child diets has stated that children should not be placed on diets. He then counter claims this by stating that in fact there is evidence, published in "Pediatrics" health journal, that a healthy supervised diet has no negative effects on a child’s growth.
Many parents believe that restricting children's eating habits is an antiquated notion of days gone by. They believe that children should be allowed to make mistakes, however Crister makes note that in a world where such companies as McDonald's spend billions of dollars in targeting children it is easy to make bad
"Eating too much food is a bad thing (Steam, n.d.)." says Greg Crister in his op-ed essay "Too much of A Good Thing" featured in the Los Angeles Times (July 22, 2001). Crister raises the issue of child obesity as a growing epidemic plaguing America and the world and proposes that in order to fight this crisis the American public needs to stigmatize the idea of overeating. By stigmatizing overeating children will be less likely to overeat, thus having positive a effects and reducing the percentage of children affected by child obesity. Crister proposes a valid solution to the problem; however he does not take into consideration the negative externalities that may occur from such a stigmatization …show more content…
The results yielded those children less than 5 years, ate the same portion regardless of the serving they were given, while those over 5 years often ate more as the portions increased, which the researchers indicated provides an opportunity to influence children's eating habits. Crister then continues to along this round stating that another study has was shown that children 6 to 12 years, who were offered health guidance, were less overweight 10 years later than those children that received none. Despite such data, opposing research into the area of child diets has stated that children should not be placed on diets. He then counter claims this by stating that in fact there is evidence, published in "Pediatrics" health journal, that a healthy supervised diet has no negative effects on a child’s growth.
Many parents believe that restricting children's eating habits is an antiquated notion of days gone by. They believe that children should be allowed to make mistakes, however Crister makes note that in a world where such companies as McDonald's spend billions of dollars in targeting children it is easy to make bad