They Say/I Say: Part 2

Exercise 2:

Essay 1:
          In David Zinczenko's "Don't Blame the Eater" he clearly states his opinion that it is not fast food industries that are making people fat, it is the people's fault for buying the high-calorie food. He believes the people are not trying to be healthy and look at the food they are eating, they are just buying the cheapest things that look appealing and not bothering about the health affects, such as Type 2 childhood diabetes and obesity.
          Despite many people's belief that there are no healthy cheap alternatives to fast-food restaurants, there are. Most grocery stores have a deli that will make sandwiches with the person's favorite choices on it, with green vegetables that are freshly grown and not just made to look healthy. The grocery store also contains a lot of good deals for fruits and vegetables that give people the needed vitamins and minerals to help fight off bad health problems, such as obesity. By simply buying the necessary ingredients to make a sandwich, whether it is roast beef, turkey, ham, or even tuna fish, those added vitamins can help a person have more energy to go throughout their life. Places such as Costco sell food in bulk, allowing a person to have many snacks around the house that can be thrown into purses and backpacks. There are healthy alternatives to fast food, the main problem is that nobody wants to change their habits getting quick cheap food.


Essay 2:
          Is being overweight a genuine medical problem, or a cultural stereotype? The main problem in America is the obesity rate, the problem is that most homeless people, are too fat in America. Looking at it carefully, I have determined that it is a cultural stereotype that comes from our society.
          A common advertised cultural experience, is staying up late and getting little sleep. The young, the old, the wealthy, the poor, everybody does it at one time or another, for all different reasons. Staying up late, more importantly not getting enough sleep, actually causes our body to gain weight. The first reason is with the little bit of sleep, our bodies think that something is going on in the environment and they want to prepare, so they take all the extra energy and start packing it on, to prepare for whatever comes ahead. The second reason is, a person tends to eat less healthy. If a teenager goes to bed late after school, a sports game, a party, or anything else, they are tired the next day, just as a business man who stayed up late trying to get a contract to go through, or a nurse who was at the hospital. Regardless, the emotional tiredness that comes from the lack of sleep causes us to go to comfort foods, foods high in sugar, salt, and fat. We eat more and more of those, the extra calories then to pack on and we end up with more weight than when we started. Since most people in America stay up late though, we eat unhealthy to try to get short bursts of energy, and become fat because of it. Most people around the world get up early and go to bed early, especially in countries such as Africa and India, you do not find many fat people there because they wake up early and go to bed early for hard work.
           Another cause of obesity is a person's work. A person may be too busy to go to the gym or for a bike ride, and therefore are unable to burn the extra calories and take off the weight. Most people also work at a job that involves sitting in a desk and dealing with people on the phone or paper, jobs do involve people walking around, but not a lot of them use that to their advantage.
           Health care today also allows a person to have their fat removed whenever they want, allowing major health problems to be stopped, and their life to lengthen. With today's medicine, we can stop many problems that would have been to much a hundred years ago and give people a sense of superiority.
           The last reason I believe that obesity is a cultural stereotype is because we have advanced technology. A person with by pressing a button, can talk to a person on the other side of the world. They can shop for clothes without leaving their room, they can have a garden watered automatically, the abilities that we used to have to do manually, are now done by some buttons. They have the technology to rob banks, without leaving their house and to take other people's identities without having to meet them. With this, all the manual labor diminishes to a very small amount.
           As much as the facts point to obesity being a health problem, even though it is, it is also a cause of society. People enjoy the easy route, even when it affects them personally. It is hard to find a obese person in an agricultural society where physical labor is their life, unlike America whose life is too party and have fun.