Ulibarri 1 Adrian Ulibarri Daniel Baird English 1010-093 February 17, 2014 Response Paper You hear it every

day, the advertisements telling you how juicy and delicious some fast food burger will taste. Corporations say catch phrases like, You know what goes great with a cheeseburger? More cheeseburgers. (Wendy's) This is an attempt to make us, the consumers, feel comfortable with overeating. Now, I know people will say that its our responsibility to keep track of what we eat and not overindulge. How can we track our intake if we dont even know what it is that were eating? While fast food restaurants do have information concerning the calorie and fat content of their food, its almost never readily available to the consumer. I recently read an article by David Zinczenko called "Don't Blame the Eater" that discusses problems related to fast food diets. After reading Zinczenkos article my eyes were opened to the appalling truth about fast-food restaurants and the role they play in our societies obesity and Type 2 diabetes problems. Zinczenko mentions his time in the Navy reserves and how the nutrition and diet training he received there helped him turn his life around. He says that most people don't have access to the same training he received and that the lack of education contributes to the problem. I agree with the lack of education about health and nutrition, many of today's youth only have a trivial idea about proper diet. I personally didn't know the difference between a calorie and a carbohydrate until I was almost nineteen years old. I wasn't formally educated on nutrition until I entered the Marines. I was disgusted to find out just how unhealthy my diet had been when I

Ulibarri 2 was younger. Zinczenko also points out that in the past, Type 2 diabetes was an extremely low percentage of all diabetes cases. Today, Type 2 diabetes accounts for over thirty percent of all cases. The healthcare cost to treat diabetes has gone up from 2.6 billion in 1969 to a whopping 100 billion dollars a year. He believes this drastic increase in healthcare costs has been caused by people eating at fast food chains. Zinczenko is surely right to make this claim, our society now runs on fast-food. My uncle was actually diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and eventually died at the age of 46 from a massive stroke. One of his daily rituals was to have a hamburger and fries. Another point he makes is that there is a lack of information coming from fast-food chains. Many fast-food corporations dont have calorie and nutrition information posted about the food they serve as compared to food items you would find in your local food exchange. He says that even when calorie and nutrition information is posted, it is often misleading. If you read the fine print you may notice that each item is cataloged and listed separately. So that healthy 190 calorie salad you think youre eating is actually just one part of a 1,490 calorie meal after all the toppings and sides are included. (Zinczenko) I myself have fallen into the trap of believing I was eating healthy portions when I was actually eating double my daily intake of fat and calories. I have found counting calories for a healthy life style and eating fast-food are contradictory terms. David finishes up his article by stating his belief that fast-food companies should provide nutritional information for all of their products to help protect all parties involved. Without this information he believes that the obesity problem will only get worse. I agree with him; however, I don't think that will be enough. While I feel that education and information are key to

Ulibarri 3 controlling our growing nutrition and obesity problems, I believe that even if fast food companies disclose information about their products, it won't make these foods any less dangerous for the people who consume them. I feel that fast food ought to be classified in the same category as cigarettes in that it should be illegal to sell to minors. I know this belief brings in to question the rights of the consumer to live their lives the way they want and I don't believe there is anything wrong with having a burger and fries every once in a while. The problem I see is when parents who are either too lazy or ignorant to ensure that their children eat a proper diet, set their children up for failure and an early death from a whole plethora of food related ailments that could easily be avoided. Until every adult has been properly educated on how to live a healthy lifestyle with a well balanced diet, I don't believe that any one should be allowed to feed their children fast food. I believe that if legislation was passed to stop minors from eating fast food that adults in our society would finally wake up and realize just how dangerous and improper a fast food diet can be. It's extremely important that something change in regard to how fast-food is represented and distributed. If left unchecked, fast-food corporations will continue to exploit the ignorance of their consumers while the bodies of the unwitting and uneducated continue to pile up.

Ulibarri 4 Works Cited Wendy's. Wendy's International, LLC, n.d. Web. 13 Feb 2014. Zinczenko, David. "Don't Blame the Eater." They Say/I Say: the Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. Ed Cathy Birkenstien, Gerald Graff, and Russel Durst. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. 391-394. Print.