Preview

Obesity and Government Control

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
902 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Obesity and Government Control
Obesity and Government Control
In today’s society there are many Americans who are either overweight or obese and have diabetes. David Zinczenko in “Don’t Blame the Eater” argues that fast food companies ate to be blamed for the obesity that is now very common in the US. Radley Balko argues in “What You Eat is Your Business” that the government is responsible for the obesity epidemic that the US is found in today. The government should have some in not all control or regulations on what the people of the country decide to eat. With no control the US is headed for a nation of overweight, obese, diabetic, and unhealthy people.
Before the early 1990’s, diabetes found in children were usually because of genetic disorders and around five percent of the children were obsess or had Type Two diabetes. According to the National Institute of Health, about thirty percent of the children population has Type Two diabetes. Because of the increase in the amount of people who are being diagnosed with diabetes, the amount of money spent on health care costs is a surprising one hundred billion a year. Since 1969 that has been a dramatic increase of about ninety-seven billion. (Zinczenko)
Zinczenko argues that many fast food restaurants don’t give information on the calorie count their food contains. Unlike grocery items, there aren’t many fast food companies that provide their clients with the calorie information on their food labels. By not giving out this important information, consumers aren’t aware of the unhealthy consumptions. Although this is a good point, we as humans are smart enough to know that if we walk into a fast food restaurant, the food we buy isn’t going to be the healthiest and that if we eat this type of food twice a day every day or even every other day, we will eventually put on a great amount of weight and make our body vulnerable to health risks such as diabetes. The government should make it a law for restaurants such a McDonald’s, Burger King, and



Cited: Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. "Don 't Blame the Eater." They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. 391-94. Print. Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. "What You Eat Is Your Business." They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. 395-99. Print

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In the Introduction to “They Say I Say”: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing, Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein provide templates designed to guide students in academic discussion and debates through writing and also have students engage in critical thinking which in turn makes the writing task easier to complete. Specifically, Graff and Birkenstein argue that the types of writing templates they offer takes writing beyond the traditional five-paragraph essay and engage students in writing styles of debate which requires the writer to listen to others and effectively respond in agreeance or disagreeance. As the authors put it, “the underlying structure of effective academic writing – and of responsible public discourse – resides not…

    • 460 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Burro Genius

    • 13815 Words
    • 56 Pages

    Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. New York: Norton, 2007.…

    • 13815 Words
    • 56 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Shouldn’t we as a consumer know better than to eat more than one meal a day at a fast food joint (Zinczenko 392)? Zinczenko implies that today’s Americans eat fast food purely because of its convenience, but the underlying tone of his article keeps hinting at the fact that the fast food industry is at fault. He clearly explains that there is a lack of nutritional labeling on fast food that leads to consumers being misguided to what they are really eating, which could lead to increased health issues in adults and children. For example; if you order a chicken salad with a large Coke to drink you are actually ingesting more than 1,490 calories (Zinczenko 393), which is half of the governments recommended calorie…

    • 784 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Cited: Milne, Celia “Pressures to Conform.” Strategies for Successful Writing: A Rhetoric, Research Guide, Reader and Handbook. Ed. Reinking, James A. et al. Toronto: Prentice Hall, 2007: 221-24.…

    • 1197 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the preface of “They Say/ I Say”: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, the authors furnish certain types of writing templates geared toward cuing students to think cognitively as well as critically; ultimately producing a writing style that is unique and creative to the individual. Graff and Birkenstein maintain that the templates they offer “help students make a host of sophisticated moves” in their writing “that they might not otherwise make”. In addition, not only can the templates spark subconscious thoughts and ideas in students, but they can help the more experienced scholars as well. Whereas others regard their own beliefs to be…

    • 376 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    "The beauty is we don't need to be 100% of the way there. If we get 20% of the way there, we will change the health status of our kids for a generation.” These were Michelle Obama’s words assuring Americans that with government involvement, change is possible. According to the National Institute of Health, obesity is the second leading cause of preventable death in the United States. Currently, nearly two-thirds of Americans are overweight and 34% of those are obese. Furthermore, a recent article published by the Institute of Medicine has shown that our eating habits are greatly affected by our environment, and in order to reverse this crisis, all levels of society will need to make a change- especially our government. By origin, a government’s innate duty is to ensure the wellbeing of its people, which in this case certainly includes our health through our diets. Moreover, they have incredibly influential access (or even complete control) over critical aspects of our diet. The government’s power over our diets already feeds into schools, food subsidies, and infrastructure, so their influence must begin to feed us in a way that is beneficial.…

    • 591 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    America’s obesity can be an argument that has many sides to it. The one that is the most straightforward and logical is that us as americans are bringing this upon ourselves. We know the kinds of foods that are good and healthy along with the foods that are bad, fattening, and unhealthy. We try to blame fast food restaurants and grocery stores for serving us foods that are unhealthy. In reality, we know. We try to blame those companies because we don’t want to blame ourselves. As much as we are told what is good and bad for our bodies, we tend to ignore that and keep eating those unhealthy products. America is blaming the fast food industry for obesity, when in reality, it comes down…

    • 940 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    One of the most controversial debates of this generation is on who is the blame for the obesity epidemic. More specifically, who is responsible for obesity: the individual who is obese or the government and fast food corporations? In Radley Balko's essay " What You Eat Is Your Business" and in David Zinczenko's essay "Don't Blame the Eater," the main ideas that are presented both reflect upon obesity and personal responsibility. The main point that Balko wants to get across in his essay is that obesity has become part of "public health" which has forced us to pay for the health problems associated with the obese. Whereas the main point that Zinczenko wants to address is that the government has not tried to help the problems related to the convenience of fast food restaurants and the lack of nutritional information for kids, which he sees as the main reason for obesity. Balko's and Zinczenko's essays have few major comparisons and many significant differences. Their biggest likeness in their arguments is that their is definitely a personal responsibility associated with obesity and that the government plays a role in society's unhealthy eating choices. Balko believes that people should hold all the personal responsibility for what they eat and the role it plays in their health, instead of people having to pay for the consequences of others' bad choices. Whereas, Zinczenko thinks the fault doesn't lie only within the obese person, but lies within the convenience of fast-food restaurants and the lack of education about unhealthy eating.…

    • 1663 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    America is one of the richest, most technologically advanced and powerful country in the world, but it is also known as home to the most obese population in the world. It is because of the environment that is filled with fast food stores. As David Zinczenko says in his essay “Don’t Blame the Eater”, “Drive down any thoroughfare in America, and I guarantee 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.” (p392). Paraphrasing this quote, it says how easy to get fast food and how hard to find fresh food in the same place. Now, fast food is almost unavoidable. Regulating advertisements to include warning labels about…

    • 1102 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Davies, P. (2012). Me me me: The use of first person in academic writing and some…

    • 5058 Words
    • 21 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    That Matter in Academic Writing with Readings, edited by Gerald Graff, Birkenstein, Durst, W.W. Norton and Company, 2017, pp. 506-537.…

    • 1208 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cited: ""They Say / I Say": The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing with Readings (Second Edition) [Paperback]." "They Say / I Say": The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing with Readings (Second Edition): Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, Russel Durst: 9780393912753: Amazon.com: Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Nov. 2012. <http://www.amazon.com/They-Say-Academic-Writing-Readings/dp/0393912752>.…

    • 1057 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    They Say I Say

    • 1155 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In the introduction to “They Say/ I Say”: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein provide templates throughout the first six chapters in the book. The writers specifically designed these templates to make it easier on the write on how to write a professional and well written paper. It structures and expresses your own writing in words you couldn’t think to express. A unique feature is the way they present the templates, it help you enter a world of successful thinking and organization in your piece. The most important formula that was given to use is “they say…; I say…” which gives the book its title. This formula simply means that don’t only express your ideas with “I say…” but also responding to other people’s ideas with “they say…” This formula doesn’t only paraphrase our own ideas but also closely listens to what others say about the idea. You should enter a conversation with an argument so readers and listeners are more hooked on the discussion. An argument is key to a conversation.…

    • 1155 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Obesity In America

    • 402 Words
    • 2 Pages

    According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, approximately one-third of Americans are obese. There are several culprits to this alarming increase such as lack of exercise, failure to research nutrition information, and modality of convenience. Author of the book, “Fast Food Nation”, Eric Schlosser states the expenditure on fast food annually by Americans, has increased from six billion to 110 billion dollars in the span of approximately three decades. Schlosser correlates the increase of consumption to increase of Americans becoming obese. As mentioned earlier, fast food availability is only one aspect of the poor health epidemic. There are not enough valid grounds to prove the increase of obesity and diseases such as diabetes. The employees of the tobacco industry are not slipping cigarettes into the pockets of civilians forcibly. Similarly, these fast food corporations despite their sophisticated marketing are not completely directing individuals to consume their foods. Individuals have the freedom of choice and should be aware that their choices may lead to…

    • 402 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As of 2010, more than one third of children and adolescents in the United States were overweight or obese, and obesity has become a major problem in the United States. Some blame the obesity epidemic on fast-food restaurants, others blame it on the person consuming the food, and others blame the government. All of these are factors in the problem, but the government can make a difference in reducing the rising issue of obesity by providing school-age children with healthy but enjoyable eating options in their schools, putting more restrictions and regulations on fast-food advertising, and requiring fast-food restaurants to show obvious and clearly stated nutritional facts.…

    • 865 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays