Obesity Is Cause from the Lack of Responsibility

America is one of the richest, most technologically advanced and powerful country in the world, but it is known as home to the most obese population in the world. WHY? Is it because of the lack of personal responsibility, the fast food industry, or the government involvement? All fours authors, Radley Balko, Yves Engler, Eric Schlosser, and Dr. Richard H. Carmona express their own point of view about their ideas on the causes of obesity? They all believe that the cause is due to the lack of responsibility people put in for themselves and their families, especially their children. Radley Balko, the author of the essay, “What you eat is your business” writes about how Americans should be responsible for their own health. He is stating that “the government has been working on a series of responsibility and ownership of our health and well being, but we are just doing the opposite of it. (Balko, 158) He implies that the government provides health care for us and pays for our treatments but we are not cooperating into keeping ourselves healthy. In other word, he is making a point that the government should stay out of people personal life and let them deal with it themselves. Eventually, we pay for whatever we want to eat but most of the time we do not care about what we consume, whether it’s healthy or not. Balko points out that “our well-being, shape and condition have increasingly been deemed matters of “public health” instead of personal responsibility. (Balko, 158) We are becoming more responsible for other people’s health than our own. To take a case in point would be how a man with a heart attack would not change his diet from eating cheeseburgers in order to prevent another heart attack. In short, then, Balko agrees that to deal with obesity, Americans should return back to individuals and take control of their own life. We tend to realize more of our responsibilities when there is no one to care for us. We make the better choices for ourselves

Cited: Balko, Radley. “What You Eat is Your Business.” They Say I Say: With Reading. New York and London: W.W Norton & Company, Inc., 2009. P. 157-161 Carmona, Richard H. “The Obesity Crisis in America” January 8, 2007 http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/news/testimony/obesity07162003.htm Engler, Yves. “Obesity: Much of the Responsibility Lies with Corporations.” They Say I Say: With Reading. New York and London: W.W Norton & Company, Inc., 2009. P. 172-181 Schlosser, Eric. “Your Trusted Friends.” They Say I Say: With Reading. New York and London: W.W Norton & Company, Inc., 2009. P. 182-199