Vending Machine Persuasive Speech

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A high schooler asks to be excused from class to go to the vending machine to buy a drink. The vending machine only has four options: water, diet coke, apple juice, and PowerAde zero. Frustrated, the high schooler leaves with nothing to drink because the parochial vending machine did not have his favorite Arizona tea. Although some argue that it is the duty of the government to take care of its citizens and their health, regulating what food and drinks a citizen can consume is an infringement of their rights. Those who oppose believe that the government should be able to regulate what foods and drinks a child is able to purchases on school premises because students simply “know no better”. As we can see in the ABA School Beverage Guidelines, …show more content…

If the government is able to take away our right to eat whatever we want to eat, what’s next? Will the government start telling us how to dress? Will the government start telling us how to talk? Will the government start telling us what to think? It is our right as citizens to the “pursuit of happiness”, and if someone’s happiness is getting fat, such as Bradford’s “’fantasy’ to gobble her way to … someday weigh 1,000 pounds” (Li), then so be it; that citizen has every right to do so. In addition, the risks of being obese have drastically declined with new science and technology. Diseases caused by obesity, such as diabetes, have much higher life expectancy rates than ever before. Diabetes patients are able to live generally similar lives to those without diabetes, all thanks to new discoveries in the medicine industry. With the government instilling regulations, it would criminalize innocent acts. For example, if the government would ban a certain drink, anyone who possesses this drink can potentially be arrested just for carrying around a drink. The government should not make people who are overweight or people who enjoy “junk” foods feel like criminals. Society does that job for them, with “’fat’ [becoming] a catchall phrase for negative emotions”

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