Don't Blame the Eater
Don’t Blame the Eater
Dear David Zinczenko, In the essay “Don’t Blame the Eater”, fast food restaurants were blamed for childhood obesity. If healthier alternatives are not available the obesity rates in children will increase and all consumers of fast food will suffer health wise. These fast food restaurants provide convenient but unhealthy meals for people without warning them of later consequences. This essay was persuasive because of the examples and statistics used to prove that it is not the eater’s fault but fast food company’s. Many teenagers don’t have a choice but to eat fast food if their parents are never home to provide food for them or if they don’t know how to cook. This could very well lead to obesity and you would know from firsthand experience. When you were young your parents split up and you stated, “Lunch and dinner, for me, was a daily choice between McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken or Pizza Hut.” Sometimes teenagers can’t control what happens in their home and they have to do what’s most convenient for them to survive. This produced a connection with you and other teenagers who have to deal with the same problems. Eating large amounts of fast food does not only make people overweight but could also ignite serious health problems like diabetes. You argue that only about 5 percent of children with diabetes were obesity-related, or Type 2, diabetes before 1994. You proved this by providing statistics about childhood diabetes from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). According to NIH, “Type 2 diabetes accounts for at least 30 percent of all new childhood cases of diabetes in the country.” This validates how fast foods have a bad effect on children’s health. If they continue to eat these foods almost all cases of diabetes could be obesity-related. It’s not the child’s fault that they are obese or have diabetes but the restaurants that are providing the unhealthy foods they are eating. In this case you could even blame
Dear David Zinczenko, In the essay “Don’t Blame the Eater”, fast food restaurants were blamed for childhood obesity. If healthier alternatives are not available the obesity rates in children will increase and all consumers of fast food will suffer health wise. These fast food restaurants provide convenient but unhealthy meals for people without warning them of later consequences. This essay was persuasive because of the examples and statistics used to prove that it is not the eater’s fault but fast food company’s. Many teenagers don’t have a choice but to eat fast food if their parents are never home to provide food for them or if they don’t know how to cook. This could very well lead to obesity and you would know from firsthand experience. When you were young your parents split up and you stated, “Lunch and dinner, for me, was a daily choice between McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken or Pizza Hut.” Sometimes teenagers can’t control what happens in their home and they have to do what’s most convenient for them to survive. This produced a connection with you and other teenagers who have to deal with the same problems. Eating large amounts of fast food does not only make people overweight but could also ignite serious health problems like diabetes. You argue that only about 5 percent of children with diabetes were obesity-related, or Type 2, diabetes before 1994. You proved this by providing statistics about childhood diabetes from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). According to NIH, “Type 2 diabetes accounts for at least 30 percent of all new childhood cases of diabetes in the country.” This validates how fast foods have a bad effect on children’s health. If they continue to eat these foods almost all cases of diabetes could be obesity-related. It’s not the child’s fault that they are obese or have diabetes but the restaurants that are providing the unhealthy foods they are eating. In this case you could even blame