“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 …show more content…
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,
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
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
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.
Fast food, in today’s society, has become a major part of individuals’ lives. For it’s easy, quick and cheap food. While any meal with low preparation time can be considered to be fast food, typically it is referred to as low quality, prepackaged foods that have little preparation time. Through further research of fast food restaurants and their role in the obesity epidemic in America, it lead to further conclusions on the need for changes that must be done in order to combat obesity. There are, however, multiple individuals who feel that the fast food industry is simply taking a toll on Americans and their health. For instance, the article “Don’t blame the Eater” explains the battle of fast food chains in America, and the major causes of this epidemic. Obesity in America, costs the United States about 147 billion dollars annually. In a recent article, Author Eric Finkelstein, a researcher for Triangle Park conducted a study in which explains the multiple causes and affects of fast food chains and its role in creating an unhealthy society. Considerably, “The Effect of Fast food Restaurants on Obesity”, an in depth article written by authors Janet Currie, Stefano DellaVigna, Enrico Moretti and Vikram Pathania, share their studies and findings on how fast food chains are indeed a major player in obesity across the country, as well as a leading player in the up rise in health related illnesses. There is a connection between neighborhood scarcity and fast food industries.
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
Childhood and teenage obesity has been an issue in America for more than twenty years now. The percentage of obese children has nearly doubled in this time, according to the article “Is Your Kid Failing Lunch?”. Today’s generation of kids is recorded as the fattest generation in history. One of the main causes of this is believed to be fast food kids are exposed to every day in school lunches. Schools are now starting to serve fast food in their lunches as more kids demand it, causing an increase in the schools profit. Outside of that, Americans are currently spending more than $100 billion a year on fast food. Each day one in four Americans will eat at a fast food chain (Beaver). This is easy to believe as the global fast food industry spent
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.
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.
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
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.
“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
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 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
David Zinczenko is the editor-in-chief of Men’s Health magazine. In his essay, Don’t Blame the Eater, he argues that fast-food restaurants are unhealthy and that they are causing health issues in many teenagers, specifically obesity. He provides an example in his essay that describes his experience with fast-food in his earlier life. Zinczenko himself writes, “By age 15, I had packed 212 pounds of torpid teenage tallow on my once lanky 5-foot-10 fame.” At the age of 15, he was not worried about the calories or fats from foods that he was eating and every day he was going to a fast-food restaurant: “Lunch and dinner, for me, was a daily choice between McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken or Pizza Hut.” Zinczenko began controlling his diet and realizing that the fast-food restaurants were not healthy for his body.
In this world, we are living in. fast food restaurants is taking over the world. In this society, we live in. Where the food industry is taking over Where peoples don’t really have time to cook a home cook meal fast food places are a quick fix to the problem. You might not be home could be on the road from playing sports. Or a singer that travel. on a family vacation or just have a busy schedule that you don’t have the time That’s why in this world peoples settle for fast food restaurants. That’s why it is a big debate in today society. You can’t really blame the fast food because it is a personal choice. Some say fast food is the reason for obesity. I disagree there are many other causes obesity not just fast food. health problems can be a reason for weight gain. but peoples always think it is restaurants fault. I do believe that everybody is responsible for their one health. According to David Zinczenko, don’t blame the eater the author talks about why children shouldn’t eat too much fast food which is not healthy for them to eat every day. Children doesn’t pay attention when they consume the junk food. Because it tastes good. He does believe that the fast food places should provide food labels so kids will know what they are eating and what is inside of the food. Which can lead to weight gain if it is eaten every single day. He states in the articles by proving the nutrition information people need to make informed choices about their products. he was against fast