David Zinczenko's 'Don T Blame The Eater'

In recent polls, the United States is the 27th fattest country in the world with 66.3 percent of the population being obese or overweight. But why? Could it be because of the rapidly rising food change? A disease that makes you overweight? What about the lack of self control spreading through the world? Whatever the answer, there are serious health problems occurring and if something is not done soon more and more people will continue to die of causes that could have been avoided.
In David Zinczenko’s article “Don't Blame The Eater”, he tells of a story of when he was younger. With parents who hardly provided for him, young Zinczenko did not have much of a variety to choose from nor did he much money to buy a well rounded meal. McDonald’s,

Some fast-food purveyors will provide calorie information on request, but even that can be hard to understand” (page 463-464). Tobacco companies are required to carry warning labels, food in grocery stores are required to inform you on what you are consuming, but fast food doesn’t come with any warning labels even though a high percent of Americans consume it every day. Although it may be a bit excessive to put warning labels on all obviously bad choices a person can make, Zinczenko makes a fair point in stating that a person is more likely to run into a McDonald’s while driving down the street than a produce stand. “Shouldn’t we know better than to eat two meals a day in fast-food restaurants? That’s one argument. But where, exactly, are consumers- particularly teenagers- supposed to find alternatives” (page 392). Speaking from experience, David Zinczenko, knows just how hard it is to want to eat healthy but not have to resources or options to do so. He predicts that if there isn’t a change in the fast food industry more American kids will become sick, obese children and more angry

State legislatures and school boards across the country have begun banning snacks and sodas from school campus and vending machines...Congress is now considering menu-labeling legislation, which would force restaurants to send every menu item to the laboratory for nutritional testing” (page 396-397). In a rebuttal, the article ‘What You Eat Is Your Business’ Radley Balko states that politicians and government officials are working so much on ways to manipulate and infuse healthy eating and living habits in all Americans that they are taking away the ability of ownership and responsibility, we Americans, fought for. “This collective ownership of private health then paves the way for even more federal restrictions on consumer choice and civil liberties. A society where everyone is responsible for everyone else’s well-being is society more apt to accept government regulations” (Page 397). Balko introduces the claim that Americans are becoming less responsible for their health and well-being, and more responsible for everyone else’s. Health Care policies in the United States has been pushed so far into the public sector that the health and well-being of a person is no longer their responsibility but now the responsibility of the government and health care officials. Balko then begins to state that the more control we give government officials with our health care, the more obligated they will feel