Obesity By David Gratzer Summary

Fast-food is cheap. Fast-food is tasty. But most importantly, fast-food is fast. As many consumers partake in a busy lifestyle with no time to cook healthy meals at home, these characteristics have greatly captivated the American population. Furthermore, some poverty stricken families cannot afford to cook inside their homes, leaving fast-food as one of their only options. But the price to pay for this cheap, tasty, and fast alternative could cost someone their health. It is no secret that fast-food meals are an unhealthy choice that can lead to obesity and other health concerns, so what is the cause of the fast-food epidemic? David Gratzer ineffectively argues that the consumer is to blame for their obesity, while David Zinczenko, as well

According to Gratzer, this is referred to as the McVictim syndrome. In his article, Gratzer says, “McVictimization teaches Americans to think that obesity is someone else's fault — and therefore, someone else's problem to solve.” However, obesity is a preventable condition that can be controlled by the consumer. He suggests that “Just as a little more weight causes more damage over time (to joints, to cardiovascular systems, to organs), a little less weight can produce dramatic health benefits.” Even if the changes were small, it would still combat the obesity epidemic; since falling ill to the McVictim syndrome only harms Americans further. However, this approach is ineffective because Gratzer does not explain how Americans can lose this extra weight and does not provide alternative meal options for lower class citizens. He does not take into consideration that some consumers do not have access to healthier meals, or nutritional education to make a diet

Growing up with an absent father and a hardworking, single mother, Zinczenko’s primary meals consisted of fast-food items, as that was all his mother could afford. As he mentions the various restaurants he ate from, he notes that “Then as now, these were the only available options for an American kid to get an affordable meal.” As a result to the lack of healthy, cheap alternatives, he developed an obese lifestyle at the age of fifteen. Zinczenko then mentions the fact that “There are no calorie information charts on fast-food packaging, the way there are on grocery items. Advertisements don’t carry warning labels the way tobacco ads do. Prepared foods aren’t covered under Food and Drug Administration labeling laws. Some fast-food purveyors will provide calorie information on request, but even that can be hard to understand.” In other words, becoming educated about the foods being consumed is more complex than it appears. Changing a diet involves additional work than just curing the McVictim syndrome, as Gratzer suggests. Instead, Zinczenko effectively advises fast-food restaurants to provide nutritional information and warning labels on packages because he was once in the shoes of a frequent