Response Essay to David Zinczenko's "don't Blame the Eater"

Response Essay to David Zinczenko's "Don't Blame the Eater"

I found it hard to find David's thesis in his essay "Don't Blame the Eater". In the beginning paragraph he seems to suggest that we are to blame for making poor eating choices when he jokes, "Isn't that like middle aged men suing Porsche for getting speeding tickets? Whatever happened to personal responsibility?". However, his anecdote about being someone who packed on quite a bit of weight because of a broken home and a busy parent, coupled with a lack of choices seemed to contradict his opening paragraph.

The rest of the essay goes on to detail some of the statistics surrounding type 2 diabetes with 1994's study by the National Institute of health. He makes a correlation between these stats and another study by The Center of Disease Control and Preventions study of health care costs. The study stated that "only 5 percent of childhood cases were obesity related" as of 1994, but "today, according to the National Institute of Health, Type 2 diabetes accounts for at least 30 percent". It is always funny to me to read these kinds of statistics. In this case they seem to align the writer against the food companies, and they sure do sound provocative. I feel we forget about all the other factors besides fast food that probably play more of a part in these statistics. What did little David do in his spare time as a child? Like David I grew up, being raised by one parent, as a latchkey kid. I often ate at McDonalds, Wendy's, Burger king, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. The thing is, I'd walk home from school, which was about 2 miles, and spend most of my day on the handball courts or riding my bicycle around town visiting my friends. I was extremely active as a kid. I was thin as a child and in my teens, I maintained a weight of about 180 of lean muscle, all the way into my mid 20's where I am still the same weight, but sadly not quite as muscular. Mind you I eat at home now and eat fast food maybe once a month, but with age most people become less active because of the different tasks we have in a day. I knew plenty of children that had both parents at home and had three healthy meals a day, and were obese. I never saw these kids on the bike path with my other friends, or on the handball courts, basketball courts, baseball fields, or most of the time, even outside for that matter. These were the kids with the awesome computer games, and Nintendo's that my father couldn't afford to give me. So where is the personal responsibility?

I wasn't impressed by the statistics listed in David's essay, or the calorie information of a chicken salad. When I was growing up, I would burn through 1000 calories in a few hours gallivanting around with my friends outside. What are these kids doing these days? Not to be rude, but lazy, inactive kids get fat no matter what they eat. Where is the statistic that shows that more and more kids are sitting inside playing video games and watching T.V. all day instead of playing sports and exercising in this essay? I found one from WebMD article