Thursday, September 10, 2009

Jared & Amanda & Kayleigh Group 1 Zinczenko

Our group was assigned Don’t Blame the Eater by David Zinczenko. Don’t Blame the Eater is the far more superior article compared to Fat as a Feminist Issue by Susie Orbach, Being Fat Is Ok by Paul Campos and “Lawsuits Against Fast-Food Restaurants Are an Effective Way to Combat Obesity,” John H. Banzhaf III . In the article Zinczenko makes an excellent point. His parents were split like many parents are. Since his dad was off trying to pursue his own happiness and Zinczenko’s mom was work long hours trying to make ends meet David was forced to find his own lunch and dinner. The only meals he could afford were coming from fast food. Zinczenko says that, “Drive down any street in America, and I guarantee you’ll see one of our country’s more than 13,000 restaurants. Now drive back up the block and try to find some place to buy a grapefruit" (Graff 154). This is a valid point because when somebody drives into Forest Lake what do they see? Taco Bell, McDonalds, KFC, Burger King, Culvers and White Castle. How many fresh fruit stands? ZERO! Alright, so one decides to go to one of those major chains to order a salad, that’s not healthy for you either; take a chicken salad, the chain claims it contains 150 calories, but those who look further see that it contains 1,040 that 150 calories does not include the 190 calorie almond and noodle packet or the 700 calorie dressing (Graff 155). He also points out the difficulty of finding calorie information charts and warning labels on fast-food products, and even when they are found, they are often misleading or inaccurate. David’s points are correct: how can we be expected to eat healthier if we cannot find a damn healthy place to eat? Furthermore, how are people to know the extent to which these foods are bad for us if we cannot easily access the nutritional information, or if, when we do, they do not inform us of exactly how many traditional servings are in one of the fast-food restaurant’s heaping super-sized servings?

Compared to the piece that Zinczenko wrote, other pieces in the book did not stand a chance. Fat as a Feminist Issue is a piece that tackles the gender side of obesity. The issue with this explanation of obesity, however, is that it is completely based off of personal view. While all good writing should include an argument that appeals to a readers emotions, this piece only appeals to the writer’s emotions. Susie Orbach says that, “Feminism argues that being fat represents an attempt to break free of society’s sex stereotypes" (Graff 201). This may be how she feels about being fat, but I’ve never spoken to a woman who has had such an explanation before. Susie takes too much time twisting her opposition’s words, making them sound chauvinistic and like they’re ‘bringing the woman down’ instead of even admitting that it may be outside of a woman’s choice to be overweight. Susie Orbach on the experience of being a woman in today’s society, states that “the relegation of women to the social roles of wife and mother has several significant consequences that contribute to the problem of fat” Though being a wife or a mother can be stressful, these roles cannot be blamed for causing obesity, as obesity is seen in women and men. (Orbach 202). Orbach is simply overcomplicating the issue at hand; the reason is not derived from social issues in our society, as these issues have always been present, though a surplus of fast-food restaurants at our fingertips have not always been present.
Being Fat is OK has taken a similar approach. Paul Campos, the author of the piece, has admitted to being clinically overweight. He believes, however, that being overweight is not that bad. He supports this thesis by explaining that the data that supports a correlation between overweight and early death is limited, fragmentary, and often ambiguous. He also says that fat loss is unhealthy for someone. And lastly, he explains that fat people cannot choose to be thin (Graff 208). However, he only uses one source throughout his paper to support his arguments. It’s becomes very clear to the writer that he is biased towards the idea that fatness is completely out of his grasp. He says this right out when he concludes his paper with, “As things stand, the American diet industry is a $50 billion-a-year scam that provides its customers with totally ineffective cures for an imaginary disease (Graff 209)”. An imaginary disease? Well, Paul, one study found that this ‘imaginary disease’ is a very high risk factor in developing ischemic heart disease (IHD), a disease that causes pain in the chest and sometimes death (Suadicani). Another study found that overweight and obesity kills just about as many men as smoking does (Farham). So Paul, you can go ahead and eat that. In his essay “Lawsuits Against Fast-Food Restaurants Are an Effective Way to Combat Obesity,” John H. Banzhaf III gives a few proposals that Congress might consider to regulate the fast-food industry. One of his suggestions is to “require that all fast-food restaurants provide more nutritious alternative menu choices” (Banzhaf 165). This would not help at all; fast-food is fast-food because it is fast. Healthy food cannot really be prepared in mass quantities in a healthy way; thus, even the healthiest foods we gain a sort of “fast-food” quality, probably in the form of preservatives. The only way to combat obesity is to eliminate some of the obnoxious amounts of fast-food restaurants and provide more nutrition information on the foods sold at fast-food restaurants.

Works Cited:

Farham, Bridget. "Overweight and obesity in late adolescence increase adult mortality.(Abstracts)." CME: Your SA Journal of CPD 27.4 (April 2009): 182(2). Health Reference Center Academic. Gale. Century College Library. 9 Sept. 2009

Graff, Gerald, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel Durst. They Say, I say. New York; New York 2009. Print.

Suadicani, Poul, Hans Ole Hein, Finn Edler von Eyben, and Finn Gyntelberg. "Metabolic and lifestyle predictors of ischemic heart disease and all-cause mortality among normal weight, overweight, and obese men: a 16-year follow-up in the Copenhagen Male Study.(Report)." Metabolic Syndrome and Related Disorders 7.2 (April 2009): 97(8). Health Reference Center Academic. Gale. Century College Library. 9 Sept. 2009

9 comments:

  1. I like the group’s way of using resources, and I think the examples are effective. For the thing to improve, I have few suggestions: I would rather give a thesis statement about the given reading and argue why the group believes in it; then, when encounter the opposing viewpoints, I would rather state what those viewpoints opposes to the given reading’s viewpoint and choose a formal style to refute it. For me I feel like in some places, the author of the opposing viewpoints have been attacked personally: because Campos admitted he is overweight, he has bias and his reason should not be trusted. May be it is because of me, that is how I feel that Campos’ article was, in a way, analyzed.

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  2. I think you do a very thorough job here. It seems like you cite a lot of resources and go over the opposing perspectives quite well. I particularly like the way that you challenge Orbach's view. I might spend a bit more time talking about what Zinczenko says and what's correct about it; it seems like you spend a lot of time at the end her replying to those opposing views. This isn't bad, but, obviously, proving the author correct is goal #1.

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  3. I would like to respond to Cam briefly. I wrote the section analyzing Campos' arguments, and you hit it right on the nail. Campos does have a bias because he is considered to be overweight. That is the fact of the matter. However, I feel that if he had really looked into the matter instead of citing one source, he would find that there are plenty of sources that say there is a direct correlation. I was not trying to attack him personally, but I felt the way he defended the problems of being overweight served his bias exclusively. And also, since he is a writer, he is influencing the readers of his content negatively. Someone may read his argument and even though they are clinically overweight, may just say 'to heck with it' and stop caring when they could make a change for the better.

    It is because he influences others with is writing that I attacked him in this way. I may need to stress that in our post. I hope that helps explain why I tackled the topic in this way. :]

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  4. Thanks for your explanation. Although I concede that Campos's article does not have many citation and it makes him as one man against the world, I still insist that it is an interesting article and in a way, Campos and Zinczenko have a agreement in their line of argument. As the name suggested, Zinczenko argues that do not blame the eater, but blame the temptation of fast food chains; similarly, according to Campos, do not blame fat people as if it is their fault that they are not thinner.

    Another thing that I want to bring to the attention is although, according to the graph, Campos is obese, he works out, and stay healthy, too.

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  5. I like that straight away you mentioned the articles you believe are inferior. Your group is very convincing in their argument. It's hard not to agree when you can drive around your own neighborhood and see exactly what you explain in your argument (tons of fast food but no grapefruit). You did a great job taking the other articles head on and showing their weaknesses. While I personally like the sarcasm, people might think you are making personal attacks on the other authors. I also think you need a stronger conclusion rather than just abruptly ending your argument.

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  6. You guys did a wonderful job! You guys really used the reading to prove your point. I like how you picked at each authors biases and used them to make your argument stronger. The style that you guys wrote in really helped bring to life what you were saying, meaning the use of sarcasm. Your ending threw me off a little. You guys did such a good job at making your examples clear, and then just ended with paul eat that? I was expecting more. I did laugh when I read it, but after reading the information prior to the ending, I know you could have created a much stronger ending. Other then that you guys did a fantastic job.

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  7. This is very good The way you pointed out that there were fast food restaurants everywhere, very strong point of the reading. Good job in having one of the authors facts and then stating your own opinion following each fact. This is one thing I really got out of Composition 1, looks like you did as well.

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  8. First off I need to say hats off to your entire group. This was very enjoyable, and easy to read. The use of sarcasm as humor was a nice creative touch. It helped with flow of the blog, and it keeps the readers attention. You had a nice solid thesis statement which showed your stance, and you had solid evidence to support it. I personally didn’t notice any citation errors, or grammar issues. Excellent job and thanks for the laughs

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  9. You guys did an amazing job! You used all of your resources and you organized them very well. I like how you didn't only mention them once, but some of them you mentioned a few times. I like the description you gave about the article about the feminst, that it was targeted towards the writers emotions, not the readers. I was trying to think of a good way to describe that problem but couldn't come up with it and you got it.

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