Friday, February 5, 2010
Obesity: Much of the Responsibility Lies with Corporations
Yves Engler believes that food corporations and even capitalism itself are a major cause for the obesity problem in America. With the astronomical amount of money spent on advertising it is no wonder people are eating more. Engler states fast-food outlets promote their larger portion size and it is shown when people are served larger portions they eat about thirty percent more. The government needs to start putting marketing limits on junk food and fast-food companies. They could also subsidize healthy products and provide increased funding for physical education programs. If what you eat is your business, Radley Balko says to put more emphasis on personal responsibility, this makes sense, but the points Engler makes about regulating junk food and giving people clear and defined healthy alternatives are far more complete, and as a whole would give people the tools to be more responsible. In Fat as a Feminist Issue, Susie Orbach states that women rebel against society’s stereotypes by becoming overweight. Engler’s approach to marketing would take care of this by regulating the very marketing that can make women feel they need to rebel. If the marketing had less emphasis on image and more emphasis on how to live healthy, this would promote a more beneficial message. Over all Engler makes perfect sense in his views on obesity. If healthy alternatives were as present as fast food, people would have the opportunity to live a healthier lifestyle.
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[If what you eat is your business, Radley Balko says to put more emphasis on personal responsibility, this makes sense, but the points Engler makes about regulating junk food and giving people clear and defined healthy alternatives are far more complete, and as a whole would give people the tools to be more responsible.]
ReplyDeleteQuite a run-on sentence.
One thing I noticed right off the bat was your lack of citations. It was rather hard to discern who you were quoting. As a result I was distracted as I read and had to reread it in order to see what your argument was. Also, I didn't notice that you were trying to prove that Engler had the better argument. In a way I saw it, but it didn't appear to be the clearer message. Also your summary of points only emphasize one - healthier alternatives. Maybe try elaborating and being a bit more direct with what you saying and who you are quoting. I think that would fix most of these issues. I think you have a really great start here. Engler had a lot of different ideas about how to solve the obesity problem, and I think that breaking it down to a concise format would be very difficult.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jessica that the lack of citations makes the argument difficult to read. Also the thing that stood out to me the most was the quote “The government needs to start putting marketing limits on junk food and fast-food companies.” Not only did I find this statement to go against our freedom as Americans, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if the government encourages these fast-food corporations to be as profitable as possible. I would imagine that when the largest corporations in America are thriving, paying taxes and employing hundreds of thousands of people, than our economy is most likely doing well in addition.
ReplyDeleteI am also in agreement with those who have commented before me - I think you need to carefully look at your posting to make sure you put the proper citations in place. Without that, it's hard to know which thoughts are yours, and which thoughts belong to the other authers we looked at. I see that you listed the authors & article names in your posting, but I think that you need to put your "works cited" listing underneath your blog posting as well. I thought you did a nice job of outlining the opinions of several authors.
ReplyDeleteI do believe strongly that it is our own choice to stop at a fast food joint and grab a quick burger and fries, but at the same time if I saw more advertisements for a health food store or healthy fast food restaurant I might be inclined to stop there instead. In you post you state many different opinions form other stories, I would like to hear more form the author of the story you were assigned to read though, yet very interesting summary and review.
ReplyDeleteI would have to agree with Tara on this one. I would like to see more information from your author than what you have written. I think you stated very well what your two inferior authors’ have written and they flow smoothly within your paragraph. Nicely done on the whole just maybe fatten it up a bit more with some more statistics or quotes from your author. Then also maybe you can correlate some of your ideas from those statistics or quotes.
ReplyDeleteSince this is an English class, here are a few pointers to help your writing:
ReplyDelete1) Start with a sentence that makes a strong argument of your creation. Use the first paragraph to tell readers what to expect in your paper, without quoting any sources.
2) In a paper of this length, your next paragraph should contain all the information supporting your argument. Cite your sources!
3) The third paragraph should give the opposing view. Then try to compare the "pro" and "con" views. Cite your sources!
4) Wrap up your paper. This paragraph should be similar to your introduction.
You might look on amazon.com for a book about writing research papers. Try to use an active, not passive, voice when writing.
For example:
Engler states fast-food outlets promote their larger portion size and it is shown when people are served larger portions they eat about thirty percent more.
Should be:
According to Yeves Engler, author of XYZ Book, fast food outlets promote larger portions sizes. When people are served larger portions, they eat about 30% more.
In terms of your argument, look at the role of subsidies in the role of our food production systems. Government pays for production of cheap, unhealthy food through these subsidies. Google “Corn Subsidies” for more information about this topic.
I'd like to see a little more on this topic. Looks like the cited work was missing? I like what you say in the ending about marketing more healthy alternatives to fast food. If you could expand more on that I think it would help clarify your assignment. Good reading. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI believe your group did a really nice job. You got right to the point and your message was clear. I understand who you are supporting and why. The one thing you could work on would be the works cited page, but I think you got that point from everybody else. I like what Tara said, if we saw more advertisements for healthy food than junk food, we’d probably be eating healthier. Just before I came to the computer I saw a commercial for the chocolate Reese’s. It had a huge Reese’s and said “Come get one”. Immediately I wanted to jump in my car and go buy some because they looked so good. That’s when I realized what huge influence TV ads have on us. It’s pretty scary if you think about it.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there are many things that lie in the hands of the corporation for others being obese, but for the most part it is the people who are obese faults at hand and not the corporation. Self control needs to be taught for those obese people to not give into the advertising and stop temptation when it arrives. Although corporations should stop marketing the values sizes and look more closely on the healthy items on their menu for marketing.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the idea behind your posting was a good one. I would have liked to read more information from the author. I agree that is was hard to read without the citations in it. It was difficult to pull apart the post and figure out which opinions were yours and which were the authors. I would like to say that after reading your entire post it is easy to see where you stand on this subject. It is scary to think that we are so impressionable and can give in to companies whether they be food or clothing based on a commerical or other advertisement.
ReplyDelete