Responsibility over Convenience

Responsibility > Convenience

In, "The battle against fast food begins in the home" (Weintraub, 2002) Weintraub's main argument is that parents are to blame for the overweight children's epidemic. While many writers think that the fast food companies are the biggest to blame for this problem, Weintraub believes that at the end of the day it comes down to parental responsibility. His reasoning is that parents are responsible for teaching healthy eating habits to their kids. Also, parents have the responsibility to keep their kids active and exercising regularly. Both of these points are very valid. It is up to the individual to eat badly or not, just like it is up to the parent to teach good eating habits or eating fast food habitually. People need to stop putting the blame on fast food companies, and start putting the blame on themselves. In school, we always talk about taking responsibility for our actions. To accomplish this, parents need to step up to the plate and turn around this epidemic.

Weintraub states, "We have laws against parents' leaving a loaded weapon where children can find and use it to hurt themselves or others. It is time to get parents to take the same responsibility to protect their children from unhealthy foods and lack of exercise." Weintraub is suggesting that parents should treat keeping their kids healthy as if it were a law. That is a good way to think about childhood obesity. Parents are truly risking their own kid's lives' out of their own pure laziness. It isn't the fast food companies fault just because they are convenient. Fast food companies make money off the laziness of the customer. If the customer was not lazy, then the fast food companies would lose money, and Americans would lose weight. No one denies that fast food makes someone gain weight, but it isn't the company's fault that you are buying their product, it comes down to personal responsibility. If America put it on their agenda to eat homemade meals with healthy options, it would only make sense that the overweight epidemic would decrease.

Other than healthy eating, to stay healthy you truly do have to exercise. I always hear stories from my dad about his childhood. Him and his friends were never home, they were always fishing, biking, running, playing sports, and so much more. Nowadays when people hang out with their friends, they go over and play video games or new technologies that do not deal with exercise. There are so many ways to exercise that it should be almost thought of as a law to get your children involved. If parents get their children involved in sports, it could start a hobby that could lead to a healthy child. If I didn't play sports growing up, I wouldn't have any of the friends I do, or the body that I have attained. I stayed healthy because of exercise, and parents should take responsibility and do the same