ESSAY 3 ARGUMENT NARRATIVE
Jeffrey Gallegos
Andrea Graham
WRT 101
10 December 2014
Count Your Blessings Not Your Calories
Have you ever walked through parts of life then suddenly one day you realize what you were doing could have been detrimental to yourself all along? Most of the time you won’t even realize what you had been doing was wrong until somebody points it out to you, or you look in the mirror one day, and it hits you. This is my story about the realization of what could have been the stereotypical American health problem for many children in this country today. We’ve all seen this play out, the kids with the monstrous bellies opening their new toy from a McDonald’s happy meal. Looking back, I would have never known it was going to shape such a large part of who I am today. Inside the blue walls of Thornydale Elementary was where I realized I was becoming an America’s poster child for the war against childhood obesity. First lady Michelle Obama would have been paralyzed with fear for the rest of her days had she spent one day with me back when.
My grandma Moomoo would pick me up from school in her old beat up white 92 Ford Explorer, complete with the cow spotted steering wheel cover that I thought fit her nickname perfectly. When I heard the clanging of metal from the school bell at 3 o’clock, I would hop in Moomoo’s car like Luke from Dukes of Hazzard. We would then head to the nearest burger joint to grab a cheeseburger and a Coca Cola. These after school cheeseburgers became routine for us and became an almost everyday activity I could look forward to when getting the midday munchies. I saw absolutely nothing wrong this and soon enough I was packing on the pounds. It became a problem when my parents intervened, and that's when they decided it was time to cut down on the happy meals and get me in shape. The fast food was eliminated which I thought sucked at the time, but I still kept gaining weight for some reason. My family chalked it up as my metabolism, and I was still a
Andrea Graham
WRT 101
10 December 2014
Count Your Blessings Not Your Calories
Have you ever walked through parts of life then suddenly one day you realize what you were doing could have been detrimental to yourself all along? Most of the time you won’t even realize what you had been doing was wrong until somebody points it out to you, or you look in the mirror one day, and it hits you. This is my story about the realization of what could have been the stereotypical American health problem for many children in this country today. We’ve all seen this play out, the kids with the monstrous bellies opening their new toy from a McDonald’s happy meal. Looking back, I would have never known it was going to shape such a large part of who I am today. Inside the blue walls of Thornydale Elementary was where I realized I was becoming an America’s poster child for the war against childhood obesity. First lady Michelle Obama would have been paralyzed with fear for the rest of her days had she spent one day with me back when.
My grandma Moomoo would pick me up from school in her old beat up white 92 Ford Explorer, complete with the cow spotted steering wheel cover that I thought fit her nickname perfectly. When I heard the clanging of metal from the school bell at 3 o’clock, I would hop in Moomoo’s car like Luke from Dukes of Hazzard. We would then head to the nearest burger joint to grab a cheeseburger and a Coca Cola. These after school cheeseburgers became routine for us and became an almost everyday activity I could look forward to when getting the midday munchies. I saw absolutely nothing wrong this and soon enough I was packing on the pounds. It became a problem when my parents intervened, and that's when they decided it was time to cut down on the happy meals and get me in shape. The fast food was eliminated which I thought sucked at the time, but I still kept gaining weight for some reason. My family chalked it up as my metabolism, and I was still a