What You Eat Is Our Business By Radley Balko

What You Eat Is Our Business
The government maintains many things in our nation, branching from the highest and lowest of problems. While some see this as a good thing, there are others who see government regulation in a bad light. One instance of regulations that seem unnecessary is the control of healthy eating and dieting. Many ask the question, should the government get between the consumer and their Triple-Patty Supreme? Radley Balko is against policing the food choices consumed by others and believes they must be held fully responsible for what they eat. ‘If they bought the obesity combo, it’s their problem not mine’ is the mentality here. Though Balko’s argument has points, his general idea that the consumer is to blame is unfair to

Marion Nestle knows better than anyone how they design a system to get consumers to buy the items they want them to buy. In “The Supermarket: Prime Real Estate” she talks about the strategies implemented to get them to push the “buy” button. In her article, she explains that layout of your local Food4Less has put thought in every corner of their store. They “place the highest-selling food departments in the parts of the store with the greatest flow of traffic” (Nestle 499). Pop into the store for some milk? You must pass through the cookie aisle to get there, maybe even pick up a pack of chocolate chip cookies since it’ll go great with your milk. Most markets even place the packs of water bottles in the same aisle as the sodas, because why drink water when you drink something with more flavor? But why does Nestle refer to this as prime real estate? Because it’s designed to put the most profitable foods in the prime spaces, which includes junk food. Often the things we label as junk food are advertised in a way where they create demand for them. They create demand for them by pairing these long-lasting foods with cheap prices sure to make you happy when you don’t have much to spend. But Nestle states the clause “If you buy more, you are likely to eat more” (502). Which in turn makes you gain weight and become less healthy. But it’s seen as the problem of the customer, not the

He provides no further outside source towards his ideas except his own. The only quotations he provides is the examples of the government influencing companies towards selling their customers food that won’t completely up their cholesterol every time they get a to go order. While previous examples like Zinczenko have experienced being poor with not much of a choice, Balko is a man who feels disconnected from the situation all together. He fails to consider why consumers would be subjecting themselves to a life of obesity and just concludes that they just have no self-control. This knocks down his credibility as not only a writer being unable to look at the different views to strengthen his argument, but also his credibility of being a well voiced opinion regarding