What You Eat Is Your Business By Radley Balko Summary

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In “What You Eat Is Your Business,” Radley Balko tackles the issue of who is responsible for fighting obesity. Balko argues that the controversy of obesity should make the individual consumers culpable for their own health and not the government (467). As health insurers refrain from increasing premiums for obese and overweight patients, there is a decrease in motivation to keep a healthy lifestyle (Balko 467). As a result, Balko claims these manipulations make the public accountable for everyone else's health rather than their own (467). Balko continues to discuss the ways to fix the issue such as insurance companies penalizing consumers who make unhealthy food choices and rewarding good ones (468). This forces the community to become responsible …show more content…

By researching the wants and needs consumers, food companies have obtained several methods to manipulate them. In “The Supermarket: Prime Real Estate,” Marion Nestle explains that supermarkets hire social scientists to study the emotions and unconscious minds of consumers to help them promote their business (497-498). Researching is done in order to better understand their clients and execute the best methods to control them. Nestle explains that researchers constantly interview shoppers to get a better sense of what they like to shop for (498). When researchers get an insight into what customers are interested in they can incorporate that information into supermarkets themselves. When supermarkets offer memberships to customers and those customers receive benefits, supermarkets also benefit with information from the consumer. Through a membership, supermarkets are able to carefully record each customers’ buying habits (Nestle 498). As customers apply for a membership, they unknowingly help companies get a better idea of how to use the unconscious mind to promote their sales. However, supermarkets do inform the consumer on the use and purpose of a membership within the terms and conditions. Supermarkets also give the shopper the responsibility to choose whether they want a membership with the store or not. Although supermarkets do inform the consumer, they …show more content…

Customers are faced with temptation by products every time they go to store. They decide whether to go with a cheaper price or a higher price for products that they need. By doing so, they are exhibiting their personal responsibility to make their own choices when purchasing products. Through these purchases, supermarkets in the U.S. profited $350 billion from food products in 2005 (Nestle 502). These profits favor the supermarkets greatly and allow them to continue selling products that appeal to consumers and increase their sales. Supermarkets are in business to boost their customers to buy more and never to buy less (Nestle 503). In Nestle's essay, a supermarket manager claimed that he does not force his customers to purchase Pepsi in larger quantities in his P&C Market since he also offers it in smaller quantities (503). Nestle provides a table that shows the prices for each Pepsi-Cola quantity available in the store. The table shows that it is cheaper to buy a larger quantity of Pepsi-Cola than to buy a smaller quantity that is almost double the cost. When buying a larger quantity, consumers are more likely to drink more of the Pepsi-Cola and take in more calories (Nestle 503). The manager responded by saying that if the customer desires smaller quantities they should be willing to pay more and it is not the store's problem (Nestle 503). However, when customers are

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