Caleb Corbin

EN 102

Summary/Response Essay

16 February 2021

To Eat or Not to Eat

There was a kid by the name of Kamren who loved eating at McDonald’s. He ate there

every day, and sometimes two or three times a day. The Big Macs started catching up with him;

before he was 15, he weighed over 300 pounds. Kamren had been told that too much

McDonald’s would make him obese, but he did not expect it to happen. David Zinczenko

explains in his article “Don’t Blame the Eater” his experience with obesity and fast-food

restaurants. Zinczenko states fast-food restaurants are at fault for children becoming obese and

diabetic, correctly noting the restaurants are more abundant than places to buy healthy food and

they try to hide the calorie amount in foods; however, he incorrectly believes the restaurants and

food in those restaurants need warning labels.

Zinczenko wrote his article “Don’t Blame the Eater” to explain why it is fast-food

restaurants’ fault for people at young ages becoming obese or diabetic. Zinczenko shows facts,

stating the old percentage of diabetes-related obesity. In 1994, only five percent of diabetes cases

were related to obesity, but now the number is closer to 30percent. Zinczenko also states that

sometimes fast food is the only option for children when their parents are working late and they

need food to eat. He also discusses the abundance of fast-food restaurants compared to places to

buy healthy foods when he says, “Drive down any throughfare 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 grapefruit” (Zinczenko 392). When someone goes to a

fast-food restaurant, the menu often has a calorie count of the item, but Zinczenko believes the

restaurant tricks people with those calories. For example, he explains a restaurant’s chicken salad

listed at 150 calories, but that number does not include the noodles and nuts that come with it; it

also does not include the dressing. Zinczenko quotes, “One company’s Web site lists its chicken

salad as containing 150 calories. . . If you pour what you’ve been served, you’re suddenly up

around 1,040 calories” (393). Stating that the calories the restaurant shows customers, is not

always what they get.

Fast-foods are easy foods to eat on the go, so it is good to have a lot of them. “Drive

down any throughfare 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

grapefruit” (Zinczenko 392). Basically, Zinczenko is saying that when driving down any main

road in America, someone would be more likely to see a McDonald’s than a place to buy healthy

foods. I agree with this quote because when I am driving on highways, I usually see more

fast-food restaurants and gas stations than grocery stores. In most towns, there are more fast-food

restaurants than grocery stores; for example, Chillicothe has roughly 17 fast-food restaurants

compared to the six grocery stores. Fast-food restaurants usually take the spots throughout cities

that most people would see while having vibrant signs. This does not leave much room for

grocery stores to attract business.

These restaurant foods usually have a lot of calories, which makes them unhealthy, but

the restaurants try to hide the calories sometimes. In the article, Zinczenko states, “One

company’s Web site lists its chicken salad as containing 150 calories. . . If you pour what you’ve
been served, you’re suddenly up around 1,040 calories” (393). This quote is saying fast-food

companies try to hide the number of calories a customer is eating by separating the calories over

many ingredients that come with the meal. I agree with this statement because restaurants will

give people everything at once, but on the menu, there will be the number of calories for only

one part of it. For example, at McDonald’s the menu shows the caloric information for pancakes,

but that information does not include the calories with butter and syrup or the side of ketchup

that someone would get with their fries.

Many items that are considered dangerous often have warning labels on them, but

fast-food products do not. According to Zinczenko, “Without such warnings, we’ll see more sick,

obese children and more angry, litigious parents.” In this quote, he is saying if fast-food items do

not get warning labels, then there will be more sick and obese children, which causes their

parents to become angry. I disagree with this because the people that constantly go to fast-food

restaurants should already know that the food is not good for them without needing a warning

label. The label would not stop people from eating fast-food because they already know what

they are putting into their bodies.

Zinczenko states that it is the fast-food industry’s fault for creating obese and diabetic

kids, correctly stating that there area lot of fast-food restaurants in towns all over America and

they hide the calorie amounts in their foods; however, he incorrectly states that the food needs

warning labels. Fast food can cause obesity and diabetes if it is eaten every day as Kamren did. It

does not matter if there is a warning label or not.

 Work Cited

Zinczenko, David. "Don’t Blame the Eater." They Say I Say with Readings, by Gerald Graff et

al., 2nd ed., New York, W.W. Norton and Company, 2012, pp. 391-94.