Compare/Contrast Essay Analysis

Natalia Wingo

Mr. Jorgensen

Writing 1010

10/2/15

Mary Maxfield: Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating

Summary: This article is about the American obsession with being healthy yet we are more unhealthy than France. Maxfield mentions that, though there are many scientific findings about what we should do to be healthy, we culturally resist with a skewed version of the truth. We wish to not be animalistic with our eating habits; we visualize this as a “feeding frenzy” of sorts that we believe is only right for animals to do. But Maxfield says that we should eat what we want. But, we must stay mindful of our culture and its hidden interests.

Claim: The claim is that we should trust our bodies to keep us healthy and eat what our body says to eat.

Quotes: 1. “Staying mindful of that culture (and critical of the hidden interests that help guide it) can free us each to follow a formula we have long known but recently forgotten: Trust yourself. Trust your body. Meet your needs.” (446)

2. “The problem is that our understanding of health is as based in culture as it is in fact.” (444)

David Zinczenko: Don’t Blame the Eater

Summary: Zinczenko believes that it is not the eaters’ fault for becoming obese. He believes that fast food restaurants are the cause for childhood obesity rather than anything else. The calories are hard to find and when you ask, it’s still difficult to get the full grasp of the calories. Zinczenko believes that fast food chains should have warning labels much like tobacco companies do. He also believes that the fast food industry is vulnerable to many lawsuits against them.

Claim: The claim is that fast food industries are at fault for obesity.

Quotes: 1. “Drive down any thoroughfare in America, and I guarantee you’ll see one of our country’s more than 13,000 McDonald’s restaurants. Now, drive back up the block and try to find someplace to buy a grapefruit.” (463)

2. “As with the tobacco industry, it may be only a matter of time before state governments begin to see a direct line between the $1 billion that McDonald’s and Burger King spend each year on advertising and their own swelling health care costs.” (464)

Radley Balko: What you Eat is Your Business

Summary: This essay is about how obesity doesn’t just affect you, it affects everyone. Balko says that an obese person’s hospital bills for a heart attack will not go up, but rather down, due to other people’s tax dollars. He feels that this is wrong, and that the government should take obesity off as a “public health” issue. It is no one else’s fault that someone became obese. Balko believes that people will become healthier when other people aren’t paying for the consequences.

Claim: The claim is that obesity is not a public health issue and isn’t other people’s issues to deal with.

Quotes: 1. “Our government ought to be working to foster a sense of responsibility in and ownership of our own health and well-being.” (467)

2. “We’ll all make better choices about diet, exercise, and personal health when someone else isn’t paying for the consequences of those choices.” (469)

Though these three essays were all about similar topics, they are all slightly different in their own ways. A similarity are the themes. A few differences are how they approached the subject of eating, how they feel the dilemma should be fixed, and who the people at fault are.

The essays all have similar themes. They each speak about obesity and how it is affecting America. But, even though they are similar, that doesn’t mean that they are completely the same. For example, Maxfield’s essay focuses more on trusting your body to make the right decisions rather than over or under eating. Zinczenko relies more on how fast food industries are at fault for America’s constant weight gain. And Balko cares more about how other people’s tax dollars should not pay for an obese person’s medical bills.

Each of the authors of the essays approached the subject of eating differently. Maxfield approached it with a lot of facts and quotes from other authors. It almost had a bohemian feeling to it, with a lot of “go by how your body does things naturally.” For example when she said, “Staying mindful of that culture (and critical of the hidden interests that help guide it) can free us each to follow a formula we have long known but recently forgotten: Trust yourself. Trust your body. Meet your needs.” (Maxfield 446). I feel like this quote really shows how she feels like listening to your body’s natural needs is more important than other things. Zinczenko, I felt, was a lot more passionate about his writing compared to the other two. He had experience with obesity, being as he was obese when he was younger. I feel like I respect his opinion a bit more because of his experience.His quote “But most of the teenagers who live, as I once did, on a fast food diet won’t turn their lives around…” (Zinczenko 463). Balko seemed more angry in his work. He did not agree with the government taking control of our bodies and health. He also felt as if obesity should not be counted as a “public health” issue. He did not want to have his tax dollars pay for another person that is obese. He felt that people who are obese lack responsibility when it comes to their weight. As he says, “Our government ought to be working to foster a sense of responsibility in and ownership of our own health and well-being.” (Balko 467) He doesn’t agree with the government taking away the responsibility of our weight by making it a “public health issue” and making other people pay for their issues.

Another difference each author had was how the dilemma of obesity should be solved. Maxfield believed that the best way to not be obese was to follow what your body needed. That not all diet plans worked for certain people, but not to shun them entirely as they can help. Zinczenko was more adamant about fast food companies labeling their products with the health risks and calorie intake when you eat something of theirs. As he said at the end of his essay, “Without such warnings, we’ll see more sick, obese children and more angry, litigious parents.” (Zinczenko 464). Balko, on the other hand, believed that the government should stop taking people’s tax dollars and paying for the obese people in America. He thinks that obesity is not a “public health” issue, so therefore it shouldn’t be paid for by other people. So his answer to the dilemma was, “We’ll all make better choices about diet, exercise, and personal health when someone else isn’t paying for consequences of those choices.” (Balko 469).

And of course, each author had someone to blame about this obesity crisis. Maxfield blamed our culture. Though she did say that the food industry, nutrition science and journalism all had roles to play in the confusion of healthy eating, she ultimately said that our culture is to blame. As she quotes, “Culturally, however, we resist these scientific findings in favor of a perspective that considers fatness fatal and thinness immortal. Our skewed views of fatness then facilitate skewed views of food.” (Maxfield 445). Zinczenko on the other hand, blames the fast food industry itself, for not explaining the consequences of eating at their stores. While Balko believed that it was the government at fault for not making obese people realize that the mistake is theirs.

Works Cited

Balko, Radley. “What You Eat is Your Business”. Cato.org. Print. 23 May 2004.

Maxfield, Mary. “Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating”.

<http://www.missmarymax.wordpress.com>

Zinczenko, David. “Don’t Blame the Eater”. New York Times. 2002.

Reflection

I had a hard time finishing this. The topic was something I just didn't care about which I think made it harder for me to finish it. Though I think I did a fairly decent job, I know it's not perfect or the greatest thing in existence at all. But I did try to make it as good as possible.

#English #Fall2015