Don’t Blame the Eater Essay

In his article â€Å"don’t blame the eater† Zinczenko blames the food industry for the obesity epidemic. Zinczenko opens his articles with a personal story about growing up eating fast food because his parents split up, his mom had to work and he had no other options. He goes on to give statistics on childhood diabetes due to obesity. Zinczenko then insists that â€Å"complicating the lack of alternatives is the lack of information about what exactly we’re consuming. over all Zinczenko is advocating changes in the fast food industry because he believes there is a direct link between obesity, monies spent on fast food advertising and the costs of health care. I agree with Zinczenko that the fast food industry needs to change by as Zinczenko put it â€Å"providing the nutrition information people need to make informed choices about their products†. However I question his claim of not blaming the eater & that the food industry is to blame for today’s rate of childhood obesity. After all I do believe as Zinczenko states â€Å"shouldn’t we know better than to eat two meals a day in fast food restaurants? † Growing up my parents divorced and, like Zinczenko, I was a latch key kid. Everyday my parents made sure my brother and I had lunch for school and dinner that night. As a parent today I understand the pressure of taking care of things, kids, school, work, extracurricular activities, laundry, making dinner and then trying to squeeze in quality time with the family and possibly a social life. With all that going on we always have a choice. I make my family and what they eat a priority, so I make it a point to buy health easy snacks like fruit, yogurt, cheese sticks, and granola bars. Don’t get me wrong we buy and eat cookies, and on a Friday night dinner is takeout. But the rest of the week I make it a priority to cook and eat at home. This means planning ahead, it may mean I cook in advance during a really busy week, we will have leftovers once a week and the crockpot at times is my best friend. I do it because the health of my family is important to me and I choose not to feed them fast foods. Over all I believe it is the responsibility of the individual and the parents of children to make the right choices and to educate themselves and their children about making the right choices and typo educate themselves and their children about healthy eating habits. Hopefully with education and the help of government regulations we can help guide people into making better choices and help fight disease due to obesity, after all as Zinczenko said â€Å"the problem isn’t just there’s – it’s all of ours. â€Å"