Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Option A: Response to Radley Balcko’s “What you Eat is your Business” and David Zinczenko's "Don't Blame the Eater"



Summary:
In Radley Balko’s opening paragraph, he addresses a three-day television event that would be broadcasted in June (2004) on ABC news. The aim of this premiere is to get Americans thinking about their own weight while simultaneously pushing government into a position of control involving the weight and health of its citizens. Government control over what people snack on (especially what children are eating), new requirements for nutritional labels on foods in the marketplace, and an increase in outdoor recreational opportunities are all on the agenda. From the tone of his paper you can tell that Balko finds this government intervention to be ridiculous. Though he later mentions that government should have some role in controlling this obesity crisis (i.e. providing financial incentives for people to maintain a healthy lifestyle), he does not feel that the government is taking the proper steps in resolving the situation.
Fighting obesity should start with personal responsibility and this responsibility is something that should be fostered in the minds of our countries citizens; this is Balko’s primary focus for his argument. He says that government should not have a say in what is placed on market shelves, the finger should not be pointed at the suppliers for giving its consumers what they are asking for, and as human beings, we should know better than to eat ourselves into an unhealthy state. He thinks that we should be held personally responsible for what we eat, after all, with personal liberties come responsibilities. .
Balko blames the government for two reasons. First, as mentioned above, he says that the government has failed to create responsible citizens and, as a result, is sidestepping this problem through increased government intervention (making it more difficult for its citizens to act irresponsibly instead of making its citizens more responsible). Second, he blames the government for the state of our healthcare system, and, in turn, blames the healthcare system for further civil irresponsibility since there is no financial incentive for people to want to take proper care of themselves.  In fact, he argues that rather than provide incentives, the government is creating a standardized health care cost. As a result, people who choose to be obese and take poor care of themselves (and are in poor health as a result) are paying out the same amount of money for health care as people who are working really hard to keep in shape and stay healthy. In other words, responsible people are paying for irresponsible people and no financial rewards are being granted to them. So why should a responsible person continue to be responsible? Their medical expenses would cost the same regardless.
The stance Balko takes is specific to obesity; he is only focusing on people who are overweight and unhealthy due to unhealthy eating and exercising habits. He wants insurance companies to be allowed to weed people out based on their lifestyles and to raise health care rates for people with unhealthy lifestyles, while lowering the rates for healthy lifestyles. To him, uniform health care rates are not the answer. Balko also suggests that Congress should allow more people access to health and medical savings accounts. With this system, people who are not using up their health care benefits but continue to pay into the health care system would be awarded the leftover money. The money would be placed into a retirement account, and would be thus returned to the person who earned it. Balko thinks that this system would give people a reason to stay healthy and also a sense of individual responsibility. He says that people are more likely to make the right choices when the consequence is upheld by the person who makes the choice.
To support his point, Balko presents examples of political figures and the initiatives they have taken in fighting obesity. For example, he mentions the $200 million dollars that President Bush set aside to fight obesity (Balko 396). He goes on to mention Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown and Senator Joe Lieberman who have motioned for high calorie food taxes, and he also mentioned Congresses interests in requiring menu-labeling in restaurant and Hillary Clinton’s written article to gain more government control over health care. His beginning paragraph, as summarized in the first paragraph above, gives a few examples of how government expenditures to fight obesity have been invested (healthier restaurants, outdoor recreation, news programing, etc.).
Radley Balko is a libertarian, a senior editor, an investigative writer, a columnist, and a blogger. He writes for Reason magazine and Fox News. He has previously had publications in the Washington Post and Playboy. Based upon his previous works, Radley Balko is a pretty well established rhetorical writer. This article was published by the Cato Institute on Cato.org in Washington D.C. on May 23rd 2004. The Cato Institute is a libertarian organization that stresses limited government intervention and control over human liberties and the market place.  Based upon his previous work and his acceptance by the Cato Institute as a writer, he appears to be pretty credible. This article is written in a simple, easily accessed way which is clearly targeting the general public; the American voting community. Some preference seems to be given to healthy, in shape Americans who are likely also upset over standardized health care. Having been published in Washington D.C., however, this article is also targeting government officials and influential political figures who may take his words into consideration.
David Zinczenko takes an opposing stance to that of Radley Balko. Zinczenko says that obesity is a public issue and he supports this statement with facts regarding a 20% increase in Type 2 diabetes from 1994 to 2002. He says that with this increase costs to treat diabetes has gone up by about 97% since 1969 (Zinczenko 392).  Balko’s article is more focused on the “money and politics” side of things, and it seems to ignore many of the trials that Americans face on a daily basis. He makes no reference to American health care statistics.  Balko seems to mock government requirements for nutritional labels and government intervention in what can be sold at restaurants or store shelves. These are some of the very things that Zinczenko says would actually help people make better choices. Zinczenko is more sympathetic and understanding of “human nature” because he knows what it is like to be reliant on fast food for your every meal, he understands the reality of poverty. Zinczenko brings up a very good point regarding the issue of food deserts in cities and how much more accessible and affordable unhealthy foods are compared to healthy ones. He additionally argues that most fast food restaurants do not make nutritional charts readily available for consumers, they instead target children, and unlike drugs and alcohol, unhealthy food can be consumed by anyone of any age and there are not warning labels. This approach makes it easy for young children to fall victim to an unhealthy lifestyle before they are even of age to be legally responsible for themselves. When there are nutritional labels, Zinczenko also reminds the reader that these labels can be misleading and complicated as if they are designed to trick the consumer.

Response:
There are a lot of things to be considered in regard to obesity and health care and when it comes to foods and ethics behind how farm animals are raised for fast food restaurants, there are even more things that could be considered (that is another story). The foundation of America is pretty solidly based upon fast food restaurants today. Having worked at a couple of these restaurants, I know what it is like to have to look very hard to find a nutritional pamphlet. From this perspective, I can see how people are upset about what they do not know about the foods they are consuming. I personally have had my struggles with unhealthy foods, and I find it frustrating that it is near impossible to find foods at the store or at a restaurant that have only healthy ingredients added. I have even heard it told that many of the added preservatives and dyes in United States foods are actually banned in other countries because of their potential health ramifications.
I believe that Balko is correct to some extent; obesity is a personal battle, just like drug and alcohol reliance. The health consequences of obesity should be a person’s own responsibility, not the responsibility of the general public. There are plenty of other public health issues that those funds could be used for. Obesity is a choice in most, but not all cases and for those cases, it is preventable. The consequences of eating unhealthy foods should rest on the shoulders of the person doing the eating. I love Balko’s idea of investing the leftover health care money from each person into a retirement account for that individual person. Why take away money from a person who has earned it? The money could be used as an incentive for that same person to be healthy and take care of themselves. The money does not have to be awarded straight back to them, but it could be locked up in the form of a retirement account which would help them out later in life and reduce their government reliance in old age. Many people do not have retirement accounts, and this could really help solve that issue.
Zinczenko has a few key points as well. He says we need to find healthy solutions to food deserts, that we need healthier restaurants (especially fast food), and we need to ban some of the preservatives and dyes that we use in our foods. Many European countries supply foods that have been modified in very few ways, and I think we should try and be a little more like them. Not only would this help to lower obesity and obesity related health care costs, but it would make us a healthier nation as a whole. The only way a change like this could be made is through government intervention and higher food standards and requirements.


A great documentary about how much food is wasted in America can be found here. The documentary is called Dive and it is about a guy who lives almost entirely off of dumpster diving. 



To see more about where food in America comes from here is a sneak peak to the documentary Food Inc


Also, most of the food produced in America stems from corn, it is the staple of what we eat as Americans, but it provides little nutritional value over all. Most animals can't even digest it properly. Corn contributes greatly to our overweight society. The documentary King Corn is an excellent one to watch to learn more about how food is produced in America. Below is the movie trailer.






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