Don T Blame The Eater Analysis

Daniel Weintraub the author of “The battle against fast food begins in the home”, believes that parents are the ones that have the best chance to fight childhood obesity. I completely disagree with his argument. Even if the parents are responsible enough to teach their child healthy habits, the kids might still eat fast food on their own time because the parents probably don’t follow their children everywhere. It also doesn’t really matter if they don't become obese a kid if as soon as they leave high school or their parents homes since they’ll have more freedom and their parents won’t be around to tell them what is healthy to eat and what isn’t.

As soon as the kids become adults and leave their parents they may become overweight and
become obese because without parents there telling them what to do fast food becomes an easy quick, cheap way to get food. If they decide to go to college most teens will gain weight quickly because they will most likely rely on fast food as their main food source and they will also probably not do any exercise because they will be to busy with school work and they might have a job. During that time it is hard for a teen to stay healthy and eat good nutritious meals.

Parents aren’t the ones to blame because they are cannot force their children to eat healthy and also it is hard for them to get them the necessary nutritional food.
When the parents take their kids to eat fast food to no fault of their own are they being lied to about how much calories are in their meal. In “Don’t Blame the Eater” by David Zinczenko it says “...one company’s Web site lists its chicken salad as containing 150 calories; the almonds and noodles that come with it(an additional 190 calories) are listed separately. Adding a serving of the 280-calorie dressing, and you’ve got a healthy lunch alternative that comes in at 620 calories.” So even if they get them a so called “healthy meal” without knowing it they are getting themselves or their children an unhealthy meal. It has also become harder for a parent to find a healthy alternative for their children because you can find a fast food place just about anywhere but you can’t find that many stores that sell organic foods and even then they are pretty expensive for a parent to get. It can be difficult for a parent to make sure that their kids get a healthy diet if they have a low income or have little to no time to make food. You can’t blame a parent for the lack of nutritional value of the fast food industry because just like Shannon Brownlee’s article “It’s portion distortion that makes America fat” states that “ Fast food wasn’t any healthier back then; we simply ate a lot less of
it.”

It is hard for a parent to get there kids to eat healthy foods because the fast food industry has advertisement that is targeted at kids and at a young age they are being show all these food industries.
David Barboza’s article “If You Pitch It, They Will Eat” states that “Now it’s Nickelodeon, movies, video games, the Internet and even marketing in schools.” So even as a parent you can’t make your kids stop watching TV or do anything about schools promoting fast food. Even if the parents send their kids with healthy foods they would still prefer to eat fast food like McDonald's or Pizza Hut. Exercising does help you stay healthy but watching TV or playing video games all day doesn’t necessarily make you gain weight because most people when playing video games become really focused on the game and forget to eat and keep on playing without wanting to get up and eat junk food. According to Barboza’s article “According to a survey by the C.D.C., about 20 percent of the nation’s schools now offer brand-name fast food.” So it would be very difficult for a parent to keep their child unexposed to the campaigns that these fast food industries are targeting at kids. In certain cases obese children exercise a lot yet they are still not able to lose weight. The parents can’t be to blame because just about everything is unhealthy except vegetables and even now there have been studies that processed meat can lead to cancer and even vegetables contain GMOs and other things. Even some
items that are diet or no fats are still loaded with sugar and are still considered unhealthy without even thinking about it. So for a parent even though what they would be cooking is better than fast food it may still lead to long term effects that can harm their children.

Some people do believe that it is the parents that are the ones responsible for their children's health. As stated in Daniel Weintraub’s article “The battle against fast food begins in the home” says “It is the parents-not the government, not the fast-food companies, not the video-game manufactures- who are responsible for teaching kids healthy eating and exercise habits.” Parents are the ones that have make their kids have healthy diets and to feed them less fast food but parents have been lied to by the fast food company and even though fast food isn’t healthy some options like salad that don’t seem as bad are still a lot of calories because their is no law about fast food franchises having to list the calories of their meals. Also parents can’t force their kids not to eat fast food and because all the advertisements targeted at children it is hard for kids not to get the occasional McDonald’s or Taco Bell on their own time with friends or by themselves. Also it can be hard for a parent to have enough money or time and fast food is there as an unhealthy and cheap diet. Eliminate fast food and it sure does help with some obesity problems but when it comes down to it there are too many other unhealthy alternatives that are now just about everywhere like candy, soda, chips and quick meals like foods that you can easily microwave.

In conclusion I feel that parents can’t be to blame for the number of obese kids in the US because it is hard for a parent to find a healthy alternative to fast food because you can find an unhealthy fast food place just about anywhere but if you want to find a quick healthy meal that isn’t homemade is very difficult and a parent would rather give their kids fast food then have them not eat anything until they arrive or are able to prepare a meal. Parents letting kids sit in front of the tv or play video games all day doesn’t always affect a kid because most of the time you don’t feel hungry while you play video games because you don’t think about eating and some kids that are obese exercise and it is still difficult for them to lose weight because most foods today have tons of sugar and are still unhealthy even though the label says it is diet or 0 grams trans fats. Even recently there has been an announcement by the World Health Organization or WHO that processed meats can cause cancer so even a home cooked meal can lead to a bad diet for a parent’s child. So even if you take away fast food Americans’ still have a long way to go to make America a healthy place because there's a lot of sweets like candies, soft drinks and pastries that contain a lot of sugar so parents have to worry not just about fast food but also other dangerous products that contain sugar and other unhealthy items. So if parents want to make sure that their children are completely healthy they have to be vegetarians or eat organic foods and that would be very expensive. Parents have too many things that they have to try to fight against and they can’t worry about every little thing that they buy so the government needs to start placing laws to help parents know what are they consuming and what exactly can harm their families and make them obese.