Zinczenko claims that “Many single parents claim that working long hours and having low income contributes to why their children eat the way they do” (153). Since children aren’t getting enough attention and care from parents many children turn to food for comforting. Children are away from their parents and have to make their own decisions when it comes to dinner time. They take the easy way out and order high calorie foods at cheaper prices. Their choices of fast food diets are poorly based on the amount of money parents give their children.
She has noticed an epidemic, especially in children ages 2-5, because this is where it begins, and the fact children are doing less exercising and forced to eat life threatening foods. A scientific journal is not needed to understand that fried foods and just add water and/or microwave meals are probably not the healthiest for you. Michelle Obama is the first, first lady, no pun intended, to actually join the legislative fight on agriculture, and school services as they pertain to what American children are eating. She also has influenced how certain people can purchase foods. For example, families on public assistance are only allowed to buy certain foods, healthier options, if they would like to use the governments help to feed their families.
The geography of childhood obesity is largely the geography of poverty. There's no pretending that differences in income and education are huge factors to obesity. Families that live in low-income areas, like inner cities, don’t have the money to buy healthy foods, nor do they have the access. The nonprofit “The Food Trust”, states that there are 23.5 million Americans that live in communities without grocery store access. These kids grow up eating fast food, believing it is real food, which is more than likely a belief they will continue into
Kyle Close English 100 Professor Potratz 4, December, 2013 Poverty and Starvation In the united states there are about 4.6 million people on food stamps that are unemployed and go threw a day to day fight and struggle to stay alive and provide food for their family. Ever since the 1980s America has slowly see the decline of the middle class. Americas economy is getting better but is still not good. Parents go through a daily fight and struggle to keep food in their family's stomachs, keep them healthy, and trying to find a job to provide for their family. Food stamps used to be able to help people but it seems today they are causing more of a problem.
\The Rise of Hunger at the Los Angeles County Area Though it is a sad truth, U.S. citizens in the Los Angeles County are not being ale to eat, causing hunger. Author Alexandra Zavis's article from LA Times, “Hunger touches more than 1.7 million in Los Angeles.” Zavis had claimed that definite amount of people cannot afford to feed themselves or their kids. Study that found, most people are struggling and cannot offer plentiful food for a healthy lifestyle for all the household members because of the qualifications of getting federal nutrition welfares. Zavis says more than half of Californians do not qualify for food stamps by the low income families that argue to what they can make on the end of the days, one of the examples Zavis explains
Dara Pierre English 101-IN Why not blame the eater?? There is an inherent responsibility that each of us to undertake and making healthy food choices is one of them. In David Zinczenko’s article “Don’ Blame the Eater”, published in the New York Times, he argues that fast food vendors are responsible for the growth of obesity and diabetics in young adults. He contends that fast food vendors like McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bells and Pizza Hut are really the only options for young adults that are affordable. Consumer’s are responsible for their selection in foods and if they chose to consue products that give no nutritional information that is on them.
Society may have a part in making the children obese, but it is solely the parents who fail to guide the children properly that make them obese. Parents should recommend healthy food choices for their children, because they are the one who are buying the food. “According to a survey done by ACNielsen, only 1% of parents blamed manufactures, 7% blamed advertising on TV, 9% blamed the child, 10% blamed fast food companies, and surprisingly two-thirds of parents blamed themselves” (Iannelli 1). Parents must set an example for their children, how can they expect their children to eat healthy and exercise if they are not doing it themselves? Back in the day before microwaves, it would take parents an average of 3 hours to prepare dinner, but now it is mostly prepared in less than 15 minutes.
Many factors contribute to childhood obesity, from genetics to simply over feeding. If the problem is the latter, reconsider what you are feeding your child, or simply how often you feed them. If it is the first, talk to you family practitioner. America has become almost dependent on fast food. With jam packed schedules, we don’t allow ourselves time to make healthy meals at home.
“The core problem is that cooking is defined as work, and fast food is both a pleasure and a crutch. People really are stressed out with all that they have to do, and they don’t want to cook,” says Julie Guthman, associate professor of community studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz (Guthman). The scientists working behind your instant snack is what’s plumping the country everyday. Eric Schlosser of PBS explained the use of additives in food and their effect on people who ate there. “The flavors of childhood foods seem to leave an indelible mark, and adults often return to them, without always knowing why.
That’s why on January 22, 2003, a class-action lawsuit against McDonalds was dismissed (Anderson, 2003; Berman, 2003). “If a person knows or should know that eating copious orders of super-sized McDonald’s products is unhealthy and may result in weight gain, it is not the place of the law to protect them from their own excesses,” said U.S. district judge Robert Sweet about the lawsuit (Berman, 2003). Other law makers agree. What are being called “common sense consumption laws” have been voted into law in 20 states (Fast food’s yummy secret, 2005). The federal government is now beginning to do the same.