LaTaisha Harris
Professor Lanier
English 1102
7 September 2012
Don’t Blame the Eater It is 5 o’clock and you’re heading home from a long day at work. While sitting in the car you’re thinking about what you should cook for dinner. You have been on your feet all day and you have a headache so you decide to just stop and get fast food. According to David Zincenko, he says it is societies fault that America is becoming obese and that we should not blame the eater. I beg to differ and we should blame ourselves for the choices we make. These days I personally feel like America has become lazy. People are so caught up in their careers and other important matters that their duties at home are forgotten about or thrown off on someone else. Some of us were raised learning that the woman of the house did the cooking for the family. That meant you took time out your day to prepare and cook a meal for the whole family. That did not mean get in the car and go drive to the nearest fast food and order dinner. Based on personal observation from working in a fast food restaurant not many people cook dinner anymore. It is more convenient for them to just stop and have someone else make their food then take time out there busy schedule to cook dinner. We as Americans cannot complain about spending too much money and not being able to save if we are constantly going out to eat every day. If we actually took the time to go grocery shopping and cook dinner you would be surprised how much money you would save. Over time you spend more money eating out every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner then you would grocery shopping once or twice a month. Knowing this we cannot blame child obesity in America on fast foods. We have to blame ourselves because as parents we are the ones buying them the fast food every day and telling them to eat it. It is the choices we make as adults that will affect our youth in the long run. If you are a parent constantly buying fast food for your child you cannot get upset when your child becomes obese. If you see your child gaining weight that should tell you to stop buying them fast food every day and do something different. If you choose not to do anything and continue to buy fast food you have no right to get angry when the doctor tells you that your child has diabetes. Do not blame the doctor or the fast food restaurants only blame you for not seeing the warning signs. I am not saying it is completely wrong to eat out at a fast food restaurant. I am only saying that we should be able to make the choice on how many times a day we eat there. If you already stopped at Burger King on your lunch break, this means you do not turn around and order KFC for dinner. Doing this every day or every other day, of course weight will be gained then causing hazard to your health. For example, I have been working at Taco Bell for five and half years and I can personally say that some of the same customers have been eating there every day for those five years. All of those days spending money at Taco Bell could have been saved by just staying at home and cooking dinner. It is funny to me how some of them eat the same thing day after day but have the nerve to complain about their weight or not having money for something else. The Fast Food companies are not to blame for no one’s health issues. They are simply doing their jobs as a business. They are not forcing anyone to buy and eat their food that is a choice they make as an individual. Even if their advertisements do not carry warning labels people should have enough sense not to eat fried and high calorie food every day. I think it is wrong for people to sue fast food companies because they gained weight. It was you who