Jeremy Diaz
Eric Drown
English 122
October 21, 2018
When reading the “XXXL: Why are we fat” article a big question appeared to me. I wondered how we can get big corporations such as Mc Donalds or Burger King to change their ways. Would we need to cut them out of our diet a little or should we boycott them completely? Many other questions came to mind and I continued to search for the answers in the article.
I thought to myself if people were to boycott these fast food places, I would have to find a way to convince them that the food isn’t good for them. But some people don’t care about how good the food is so then I realized I would have to prove to them that these fast food industries didn’t care about their health. There are multiple examples of this within Kolbert’s article one of the main one’s being that the calories in the food has increased over time. Kolbert provides evidence of this with research that states “Before Mcdonalds discover the power of re-portioning, it offered just a small bag of french-fries which contained two hundred calories. Today a small order of fries contains two hundred and thirty calories.” This is a clear sign that they don’t care about people’s health and wellbeing. They feel as if they put more into the food that people will instead feel like they are getting a bargain and continue to eat at their restaurant and making them money. I feel like if people realize this is who they are buying from and supporting then they will feel a sense of urgency to discontinue their support of this food chain.
But that’s just for McDonald’s. What can I do to continue to convince people to not eat elsewhere? Well the answer is that they have an addiction. The definition of an addiction is the fact or condition of being addicted to a particular substance, thing, or activity. In other words, it is something that you feel you can’t live without. Kolbert introduces Kessler to elaborate on this. Kolbert argues “Foods like Cinnabon and Starbucks strawberries and cream Frappuccino are like drugs.” He also compares this to the addiction of gambling. It is similar to high risk high reward. People know that there is a high risk to gambling but they do it anyway because if they are successful there is a high reward. For food there is always the reward of enjoying the taste of what you are eating but at the same time you are putting your health at a high risk. Hopefully by hearing about this some people who can’t stop eating these unhealthy foods everyday will try to reach out for help. People sometimes know they need help but struggle to go out and seek for it.
The last way I would try to convince people to stop eating fast foods is based on the recent rapid weight gain. What I have come to realize from Kolbert’s work is that people are gaining weight at an unhealthy amount and nobody can find out why. They went back and checked genetics to see if there had ever been a time period before when people gained weight at as an unhealthy amount as we’ve seen in recent years and there is no correlation. The only major change we can see in now and back then is that we now have fast food. Therefore, this could be the cause for major weight gain. Back then people actually had to do hard labor to have good food. If you wanted chicken, you had to raise it and then kill it yourself. On top of that you would have to take all the feathers off and cook it yourself. Now people just go to the super market pick up a pack of ribs and throw it on the grill. In other words, it takes little to no work to get the food you so desperately want. So, I encourage people to at least find the healthiest way to prepare food and cook it ourselves. Yes, it is more time consuming and a little more expensive, but I think having a better body and feeling healthy is worth the investment.
In conclusion I think people will see that they need to cut back on all the fast food they are eating if not cut it out of their diet completely. Everyone deserves to be healthy but you can’t accomplish that if you are not eating properly. One day I hope we can reach a place where getting a meal isn’t about money or time but about others health and well being.
Hi Jeremy,
When you look at the structure of this essay, it looks like a variation of a 5-paragraph essay: 3 points in support of a claim.
As you work to revise it, use what you learned in the Pollan-Singer paper about setting up a conversation in the first paragraph (use some variation of the Template of Templates on p. 11 of They Say/I Say, but with more emphasis on setting up a problem to be explored rather than providing an answer).
Then as you rework your body paragraphs, try introducing some “naysayers” into how to change corporate behavior. Ch. 6 of They Say/I Say has some templates and advice on introducing naysayers.