Posted: July 18th, 2019
A Persuasive Essay About the Influence Television Has on Children
Obesity is a growing problem, and it is time for parents to step up to the plate and take responsibility for child obesity. Daniel Weintraub uses an emotional appeal, the article “The Battle Against Fast Food begins in the Home”, to mandate parents to take responsibility to protect their children against obesity. He states that even though the fast-food companies and the government contribute and influence childhood obesity, ultimately it is the parents’ responsibility for obesity in their children.
He provides several good points showing how parents are the ones to take the blame for the increasing problem. I believe that parents are indeed responsible for child obesity. Weintraub makes several good points on how parents should take responsibility and avoid obesity in their children. He does this by commanding parents to teach their children good habits, especially good, healthy eating and exercise habits. Also, he states that parents should protect children against bad things.
In this case, fast-food is considered a bad thing since it does not only make children obese but causes a variety of medical conditions as well, so parents need to step up and protect their children against fast-food. Lastly, he believes that parents need to take responsibility since they are in the best position to educate their children. According to Daniel Wientraub, “It is parents–not the government, not the fast-food companies, not the video-game manufactures–are in the best position to fight the epidemic of overweight children. As you can see Weintraub believes that there is no one to blame for childhood obesity but the parents. Weintraub makes several good points, which induces parents to take responsibility and action for the matter. Even though Weintraub makes a good argument, he has a few weak points, because his opinions are too simple when there is more to it than what he presents. For example, Weintraub does not provide any sort of statistics, facts, or references. Also, you could argue that teachers, not parents, are in the best position to teach their children since they are well educated in the field of health and nutrition.
After all, teachers are required to teach health class in school. Lastly, the whole article is just an emotional appeal in which Weintraub goes to the extremes and exaggerates. Weintraub says, “We have laws against leaving a loaded weapon where their children can find it and use it to hurt themselves or others. But no one seems to want to tell parents that they need to protect their children from unhealthy foods and from sloth. ” Clearly, he exaggerates because it is almost absurd to compare the dangers of a firearm to the dangers of a french-fry.
Overall, I agree with Weintraub and believe that parents are the ones responsible for childhood obesity. First of all, parents’ poor eating habits have a great influence in child obesity. Parents need to educate themselves in the nutrition field, to be able to offer a good, healthy diet and correct portion sizes to their children. Secondly, the lack of discipline by parents also contributes to obesity in their children. Parents are easily manipulated by their children, and as a result children get what they want.
Parents need to make their children get some sort of exercise as well. Lastly, parents’ economic issues might lead them to buy fast-food, but fast-food is not as cheap as it seems. When you add up all the numbers it is inevitable to notice that the difference between fast-food and home cooked meals is minimum. According to a Yale survey, seventy percent of the cause to the rise in childhood obesity rests with the parents. As you can see, statistics have shown that parents are the responsible ones for obesity in children.
Evidently obesity among children is a huge, dangerous problem, which parents need to take action of and help their children. It is a must for parents to teach their children about proper eating habits. Disciple also influences a child’s obesity and parents need to get a bit strict with their children. Lastly, economic issues should not lead parents to buy fast-food because it is not that cheap and very unhealthy. I believe it is time to stop blaming others. Parents need to get well educated, so they can provide good eating habits and decrease the growing problem of obesity in children.
