Friday, September 11, 2009
Kara and Kelly "Obesity: Much of the Responsibility Lies with Corporations"
Our group agrees with Yves Engler that corporations across the world aren't helping the obesity rates across the nation. Our main focus is the children who are being targeted. "The main reason that people are consuming more, especially unhealthy products, is the food industry's relentless advertising, especially to children"(Engler, 175). Kids are at school a big portion of their lives and they are filled with vending machines with pop, candy, and chips. A lot of parents try to avoid exposing their children to junk food. This becomes a problem when they see vending machines placed all over the schools, in addition "Cutbacks to physical education budgets have not helped"(Engler, 178). A study in the 90's showed that over 93% of children surveyed thought that Ronald McDonald knew what was best for their health. Radley Balko, author of the article "What You Eat Is Your business" states that there is nothing more private and of less public concern that what we chose to put into our bodies (159). We find this hard to believe when 40% of McDonald's advertisement is geared at our youth (Engler 175-176). Paul Campos argues that being overweight isn't so bad as many view it to be and maybe what we need is to just relax (Campos 206-209). We find this to be an absurd view as it is not to our benefit to be overweight, obesity is associated with more than 30 medical conditions and should not be taken lightly as these conditions do in fact impact children. We believe that the overall solution to this problem is reducing the intense advertisement towards our children and rather promoting healthy eating and the benefits of physical activity.
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We are not done with this!! Still need to add works cited and editing is not completed.
ReplyDeleteI think you've done a great job here so far. I like how you both explain your position and then reply to two opposing arguments. I do think you could have more of a conclusion here. And don't forget that you don't need commas in your citations. On the whole, though, this is good work.
ReplyDeleteI like what you have written on the whole. It's nice to see you mention other reasons for obesity in children (i.e. cut backs in physical education). I think the parts that you used from other authors could be more relevant, mainly the Balko portion you used from page 159. I didn't see how it related to fast food targeting children, which is what the rest of your argument is about. I do see that you connected it by talking about McDonald's advertisement geared to youth, they just don't seem to support each other (or maybe I'm missing something).
ReplyDeleteNice post and I m really impressed from your work. Its really good job done by you. volunteer program ontario
ReplyDeleteI like that you have a clear thesis statement and resourceful examples to back it up. I have small kids and I really understand the struggle of parents here when my kids want to go play in the playground, and I do not want them to each those fatty foods. Besides the issue of missing the work cited as you mention, your article has a little issue with in text citation. For example, (Engler 175) not (Engler, 175) and (Campos 206-09) not (Campos 206-209). Furthermore, I would like to see a bit mention about the responsibility of soft-drink companies and in-door playground in McDonald.
ReplyDeleteYou make a strong argument in favor of your reading by concentrating on the effects of marketing on children after all, if anything is going to sell an argument isn't it concern for children? I also liked how you collectively shared your view with statements like "we believe" making it very straightforward and expressing no uncertainty. You may want to review how you are introducing quotations and find a way to introduce them that is a little smoother. You did a nice job with this assignment so far.
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