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What You Eat Is Your Business Radley Balko Analysis

478 Words2 Pages

Homework #2 “What You Eat is Your Business” In Radley Balko’s article “What You Eat is Your Business”, Balko argues that obesity is the responsibility of the individual, not the government or anybody else for that matter. He argues that obesity should be more so a matter of personal responsibility instead of being looked at as a matter of “public health”. After reading Balko’s article, his position is pretty clear. He is completely against obesity being a “public health” crisis. What a person consumes, unhealthy or healthy, should not be anybody’s business but their own. He is also against the public paying for others unhealthy choices. Balko states, “It’s difficult to think of anything more private and less public concern than …show more content…

I do support Zinczenko’s position that the fast food restaurants should be held accountable, but I find Balko’s argument about personal responsibility to be equally persuasive. They each make really important points. I agree that fast food companies play a huge role in a lot of health risks, in today’s society, but I cannot agree that they are the only ones to blame. Nobody is forcing me to purchase that ten piece chicken nugget meal from McDonalds instead of getting something from Wholefoods that I can cook, it’s a choice. Everything that we do in life is a choice. It takes more than eating to become obese. Balko States, “We’ll all make better choices about diet, exercise, and personal health when someone else isn’t paying for the consequences of those choices.” People in today’s society don’t take accountability for their unhealthy choices because they don’t have to, the government makes it okay not to. Personal responsibility should be primary in our nutrition choices. The government shouldn’t be trying to control what we eat, but they should instead be giving us a healthier, affordable alternative. It’s not okay that we lack healthier alternatives, nor is it okay that we lack information about what we’re consuming, but it is definitely not okay us to look at everything possible to blame without even looking at

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He also states that the government should allow the citizens to access their health care funds account to support his conclusion, that, people will be more responsible for their health if someone else isn 't paying for their health problems. However, Balko fails to to provide evidence for to support his claim. Even though the problem of obesity is important, the Shorthorn should not publish "What You Eat Is Your Business" because it poorly argued and not interesting. Radley Balko’s central claim is that the government should not interfere in public health and diet. According to him people have no incentive to maintain their health when public money funds health care.

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In the end, David Zinczenko should have mentioned my points in his writing. He should have addressed some of my reasons in his writings because fast food restaurants are spending millions of dollars on advertisements, he should have mentioned some benefits of eating healthy, lack of parent’s involvements, and fast service is being provided by the restaurants. If we add these all up, then it’s all our fault that we are eating junk food on daily bases because at the end you have to make decisions for this kind of situations. You could be healthier if you will make a right decision then you will live a healthy life because junk food is high in sugar, sodium and many other things that is harmful for your health. It’s all your choice to make right

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He, however, was able to find a way to turn his life around by making healthy choices when he started college and joined the Navy Reserves. Zinczenko mentions in his article, that consumers did not have access to "calorie information" and even if they had such information, it is always hard to understand. For example, he says that if your read the fine prints on the back of the dressing packet, you will realize that it actually contains 2.5 servings rather than one serving, which means that as a consumer, you are actually consuming 620 calories and not the stated 280 calories per dressing. In addition, he made mention of several statistics of childhood obesity which have led to the increase in diabetes due to the increased number of fast food restaurants. Although Zinczenko makes a compelling argument about the "eater is not to blame", his lack of evidence to support his assumptions weakens his overall point.

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