Don T Blame The Eater By Radely Balko

In the article “What You Eat is Your Business” by Radely Balko, he talks about how the government should stop making laws and policies about anti-obesity. David Zinczenko wrote an article called “Don’t Blame the Eater”, according to Zinczenko, he thinks people need to be more responsible in the way they eat. Both believe that it is the people’s problem the obesity rate is increasing more and more each year.

Balko makes a bold statement by saying “We’re becoming less responsible for our own health, and more responsible for everyone else’s. Your heart attack drives up the cost of my premiums and office visits.” (Balko 467). What he means by this is, because of the health problems that come with obesity, for instance heart disease, stroke, high

It seems ridiculous at first, but then he talks about himself when he was young, that when his family split up and his mother had to work long hours to cover the bills just to make ends meet, he had no choice but to eat fast food for lunch and dinner, just because his mother didn’t have the time and little money. When he was 15 years old, he weighted 212 pounds and was only 5’10. But his life completely changed when he joined the Navy Reserves and learned how to manage his diet. He also says most teenagers that lived like him when he was young won’t have the opportunity to change their life like he did. But will be stuck in the never ending hole of constantly eating fast food every day, because that’s all they know. Zinczenko includes information gathered by the National Institutes of Health that says “Before 1994, diabetes in children was generally caused by a genetic disorder---only about 5 percent of childhood cases were obesity-related, or Type 2, diabetes. Today, according to the National institute of Health, Type 2 diabetes accounts for at least 30 percent of all new childhood cases of diabetes in this country.” (Zinczenko 463). As you can see, because of the growing fast food industry food it is causing more people to become obese and then passing those hereditary traits on to their