Is Obesity the Government's Responsibility?
Here's a link to the podcast we listen to today. There's a fascinating debate being presented here. In the current economic reality we face in America, can we afford to have even more government programs directed towards obesity? Is it the government's responsibility to regulate and tax companies that produce unhealthy food? Is it a company's responsibility to self-regulate in producing unhealthy projects or is it the consumer's responsibility to make healthy choices and display restraint?
It's a tough debate and I think the willingness to discuss this in class will certainly yield an interesting debate online. Discuss your impressions of the podcast and comment on the comments of others.
I found Dr. Satcher's approach to humor to be very clever. However, his argument for the role of government in preventing obesity was not very convincing. He presented a case that contained a myriad of facts, but lacked a real incentive. (I also agree with Mr. Ferencz that his voice is somewhat lethargic and boring.) I think that John Stossel's case had a better approach. He argued with his own opinions and proposed that the control of obesity would result in a too totalitarian government. I agree with Stossel and think that by removing the statistics from his debate and presenting his opinion, he was able to better facilitate his opinion. Pamela Peeke's argument was also very persuasive. I believe that her confident voice played a great role in her argument. She argues that the government's programs and involvement in obesity still affords voluntary choice. After listening to these first three debaters, I still believe that obesity is not the government's business, although I found the opposite case to be convincing as well.
ReplyDeleteThe first speaker although his voice seems somewhat boring, he does bring up interesting points and his view point shows us what the government found and what it is trying or tried to do about obesity. The second speaker spoke of how government can't control our eating habits no matter what it does without going into becoming a totalitian yet his point also shows that what the government can't control, we also can't control. For example, the NYU studies show that the government tried to control it by giving us information however many choose to ignore them but even without the government's intervention, many would still choose foods with too many calories.
ReplyDeleteTo respond to the third speaker, (this may should a bit opinion based) majority of the people who wanted government control over their diet is because they know they can't control it themselves, and they don't want to try to control it. So while they are going for the 4th slice of pizza or that extra course of meal, they can blame the government for their overweight. However she does bring up interesting points such as it shouldn't be just the government working on this issue but everyone. She brought up the problem that theres not enough choices for people to make more healthy choices however lets look through the supermarket's view point, they need to make money and by offering those choices don't ensure that people will buy them and it doesn't lower the price that our country's supply and demand place on them. Since healthy, and organic food supply is low and the demands are high thus the price is high and for those who are poor, they can't afford it and if the supermarket still supply it, but they can't make any money if no one can buy them. The government supporting side makes the arguement that the government needs to control our diet and yet the school lunch programs that the GOVERNMENT supports gives out unhealthy choices to students, and blames the students for chosing them. The 4th speaker went off on a tangent that only states that people cant find a good way to loss weight and managing it however there is such a way, as a person living in New York, i can say that New York is a perfect example of that, instead of going to the gym or digging through books for dieting solutions. Just walk instead of driving all the time and change the diet to more healthy choices and of course there isn't a need to ban unhealthy ones but just some self control and eventually people will reach that desirable weight. I myself have gone through the same process whereas i was overweight through elementary school and started becoming aware and changing my lifestyle and played sports for 45 mins a day, so that now i am at a weight that is considered acceptable by todays social standards.
The debate started out with Dr. Satcher going for the motion. I found his argument to be invalid because he seemed to use his previous position as Surgeon General as one of the reasons why the government should interfere with our eating habits. He said that because he was Surgeon General and knew what the government was doing, we could trust them taking over our diet. He also said that children are getting problems that only obese adults used to get. First of all, I believe that the children are the responsibilities of the parents. After all, aren't the parents the ones that feed and monitor the children? The government shouldn't have to interfere into parenting.
ReplyDeleteThen came up John Stossel's argument against the motion. I found his argument to be more persuasive than Dr. Satcher, who seemed to be just putting in factual information to the audience rather than trying to persuade everyone. Mr. Stossel's argument was very persuading- especially the part where the referred the government as being totalitarian. He even quoted Mussolini, saying that "everything within the state, nothing outside" was what a totalitarian government was doing. But, this is what our government sounds like. It's trying to control what we eat and spending so much money that we have a huge amount of national debt. What convinced me to go against the motion was when Mr. Stossel said that people already have so much information on their food. When we go to a restaurant or even a fast food chain, we can see the nutritional facts. We can see how many calories each food has, and if we go online, we can even see how much fat, protein, carbs, etc, the food has. It's the people's responsibilities to control and look out for themselves. The government can't baby sit us. This is the twenty first century, where most people in the United States know that fast foods are bad for them. So why not do less damage to yourself and control what you eat before the government can step in?
-Caroline-
Well, it is common knowledge to the average Stuy student that fast foods are bad. We know how many calories they contain, how their fat is bad, and also many other things about fast food that the "common" people would not know. I have not taken a poll, so I would not really know, but that's what I would consider to be true. I would bring back a point that Mr. Ferencz said in class, Many people might know fast foods are bad, but how many people have the time to cook it? How many people would go and gather all the ingredients and make it themselves, when they could have someone else make it for them? I know that you could say, Go to a restaurant then! Well, not many people today have the time to go to a restaurant. Restaurants take a much longer time to make their food compared to like, McDonalds. Also, not many people can actually control what they eat. They might really want to, but their impulse would make them go for another one. Take Frank Bruni in Born Round for example. He had tried to stop. He actually knew that he was going to be more large if he didn't start eating healthily, but he kept it off until a long time into the future. Frank didn't actually go to a gym until his friend suggested it.
DeleteI do agree that the government shouldn't interfere, because our decisions should make who we are. Even though we have so many freedoms, we still have so many restrictions. One restriction is time. We never have enough time to do things. Take a Stuyvesant student for example. Most of my friends would stay up until after midnight to finish their homework. They know its bad, but they still procrastinate. They can't control it.
That brings us back to the argument about food. We can't see EVERY nutritional fact of ALL our food. Take McDOnals for example, you would only see the calories, StarBucks too. Also, do you even know what the nutritional fats mean? Like, if they say 10 grams of fat, would you be thinking, "I need to run 5 miles this weekend." I don't even know if 5 miles would burn off 5 grams of fat. It might even burn off more. Just hearing nutritional facts don't really mean anything. It just means that we see numbers and when we see big numbers in the wrong places, we TRY 'HARD' not to go for those foods. Apparently it doesn't always work that way.
Dr. Satcher, the first speaker, says that the government must be involved in solving the "problem" of obesity. He states that there are healthy issues that occur because of being obese and that obesity is now an epidemic.
ReplyDeleteStossel, the second speaker, makes a good point that the government is getting too involved in this matter and is using more and more of our taxpayer money to create money to stop obesity, where, instead, we can use less money by controlling our intake ourselves. His argument, in general, was not very solid although he made a few strong pointers here and there on his position [in the debate]. But, nonetheless, he still also brings up the argument of gaining help through force or doing it voluntarily. He says that we (the people) want freedom in our choices, so there should be no government forcing us. Going along with this argument, I believe that even if we wanted it to be voluntary, we don't have the time to do so. For child obesity, there is no one to necessarily encourage them to become thinner because that has a bad affect, as many parents always tell their children to "be yourself", they cannot criticize their child for that very thing: being themselves. There is also the case that there are some who are moderately obese, and so don't care until they come to a point in their life where their life begins to revolve around appearance. The point was also brought up that many people that are considered obese through the BMI system are not seen as obese through the public eye.
Peeke, the third speaker, uses the argument of force vs. voluntary and instead believes the government is voluntary. She says that the government creates the programs and it is our decision or not whether to use those programs to our advantage or reject them and blame the government for wasting the money. If we think there is no personal benefit through it, we reject it. Peeke does argue that the Let's Move program initiated by Mayor Bloomberg and 500 other mayors has worked. She also points out that there is now research in a new type of science that is studying on how to change gene expression so as to get rid of the stress involved in obesity, though I believe she did not necessarily mention that it was funded by the government.
Campos, the final speaker, makes another good point that the government could be seen as dysfunctional in the eyes of others because they're trying to make people thinner. He argues that a problem associated with obesity, hypertension, can be solved through taking inexpensive drugs and physical activity, rather than millions of public funding on programs that some people would most likely not have the time to use or participate in. I agree with his point that stress of people involving obesity should not have to be dealt with by the government, as argued by Peeke, since by telling people that they are obese only creates the stress for them.
I think the point Stossel brought up of our choices being forced or voluntary is important. Pulled out of its context (where it is used to argue that there should be no government intervention), the idea of the government's programs on obesity can be seen as forceful or voluntary, depending on who is asked. For those who want to become thinner, believing they are fat, they take it as a voluntary action. For those who believe they are insulted by being considered fat, they think it is forceful, as it is like rubbing salt on a wound.
- Tiffany| Period 4
DeleteThe first speaker talked about how the government has to help the people with their health issues which was already addressed in 2001. He suggests the 30 minute exercise and BMI measurements. Which was later countered with the other sides argument that the BMI is not accurate and may be mentally stressful to those who know it. This stress might actually cause even more obesity problems. Later when asked for data's of the correlation between the actual obesity he talks about some experiment for small step weightloss that makes them healthier. The funny thing is if the BMI says you're obese losing those 4 pounds aren't going to put you in the healthy zone. Still though that is suppose to make them "healthy".
ReplyDeleteThe next person I think is what was called a liberatarian meaning he thinks that the government is just too invasive. He really doesn't make too much point. All I hear him say is facts about money and how the government is getting more and more invasive even to the point of food. In terms of health he doesn't give much fight but he does bring up the points about how money used for these programs are being wasted. He brings up the point that governments keep using that money for more programs and programs but that doesn't actually help. I believe he is right in the way that the government can spend that money more efficiently. The programs the government keep funding aren't working but they just keep pouring more money to it.
The next speaker says that she is a physician and how she sees that people are getting more fat. Also she talks about how stress can be related to this. She wants the government to fund more playgrounds which will encourage more people to go outside. Also because of the lack of knowledge from not having a television people don't know how to lose that weight they gained. She then gets countered because their are now more and more of the programs that tell you the calory of the food you eat but even so the people don't really change from that. They become aware that these calories are bad but still eats it any way also producing stress because of that stress. What I found interesting is that there is a program that researches this and that some people have managed to keep 60 pounds off for 6 years. That was from just walking and having a better life style. The debate later focuses on the point of how the life style can actually effect the weight and if it really works.
The last guy is bringing up interesting controversial issues about the BMI the "normal" body weight and how it doesn't work. His argument is based on the fact that are obese people really in that much danger. Later in the debate he tackles the BMI by saying that he is actually considered in the high zone of overweight and might just drop dead any second because of the health problem. He suggested that the obesity doesn't even have a relationship with health problems. He was also the one that keeps talking about making people thinner which the 2nd speaker kept countering with the fact that this is about the health and not the weight of the people. Also the one that says that we have too little data about why this is happening.
Dionis Wang period 4
Stossel said that what we choose to intake is our decision and that we should appreciate the freedoms our government gives us. Sure, its nice to have freedom, but not in this case. Obesity is such an epidemic in the U.S, because we cant control ourselves if theres a fast food chain on every other block. We cant control ouselvse if going to McDonalds will save us a few dollars. Food is an enemy to many people, and I think that its the government's job to step in. Our government is supposed to protect us, and in this case it needs to protect us from ourselves. It should advertise more againist fast food and force these companies to change their ingredients. Also, the government should advertise more healthy eating and build more playgrounds and television programs.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that money should be a problem because after all, people's lives are on the line. Obesity leads to so many diseases. If people are dieing because of this why cant the government fund hel for these people instead of waste money on useless things like war and space travel.
Also, I completely disagree with Campos. He sugeested that people use inexpensive drugs. These could have side effects and not every person whose overweight wants to take these. You can't force someone to ake them because itll do them harm. If the government tells these people that they are overweight, it wont necessarily hurt them because the government can provide programs or relief at the same time. Also, I laughed when he said that physical activity can be used as a cure. It really cant because these people dont have time to exercise, which may be one of the reasons they became fat afterall. How can these exercise if they dont feel comfortable with the way they look outside and how will they have any motivation at home.
Money could actually be a problem. If you are in Period 4, you would've heard a guys minutes, Davids, I think, and he said that organic foods cost much more than foods that we would normally buy. Organic foods cost about 3 to 4 times more. Even though people's lives are on the line, that doesn't mean that they can use money they don't have, right? Also, you may say wars are meaningless, but President Obama is not a psychopath. He wouldn't go to war for nothing. No one goes to wars for nothing. It may be a trivial cause, but it was still a reason. Also, space travel may help us because everyone things Earth is going to be 'gone' soon. Well, that's just my opinion, it might not be true.
DeletePeople not exercising is not always the case. There would be usually 15-30 minute breaks from work sometime. Not everyone would work every day and every minute of their life. Everyone has breaks. Its just that people spend their breaks doing things that they consider 'leisurely' and not things that they have to 'sweat' on.
I don't agree with you that the government is supposed to protect us in the case of food. Wars? Yes. Medical? Probably. Food? Our choice. Some people may not have self control, but there has to be some unhealthy food out there. If there isn't, people would illegally make it. Take drugs for example, when the government outlawed alcohol, people, like the Mafia, just snuck alcohol in. People who would want unhealthy foods would just get it illegally. It might be hard, but even if its outlawed, we would still be able to get it from somewhere.
Daniel Kim Pd. 9
ReplyDeleteMoney is actually a big problem in this debate. Different foods cost different amounts, for example the organic foods cost much more food than regular food. People would rather buy easy five dollar cooked meals at McDonald or any other fast food restaurant. I believe that the government is a huge factor in the problem of obesity in America. If the government can change the amount of money involved to buy organic foods than Americans can be influenced to buy more organic foods. Obesity is a huge problem that the government can change. However, the people can also change their life styles to help change the problem of obesity. Simple daily life activities such as walking or running can help the people that are obese lose weight and stay healthy. I believe that in the end, Obesity is not only the government's fault, but the people of America's fault. If they both work together they can change obesity.