Junk Food: Should the Government Regulate Our Intake

Akeem Kornegay

ENG 112,

Mr. Phillips

11 March 2015

Essay 1

“Junk Food: Should The Government Regulate Our Intake” is about a humble man named Mayor Bloomberg standing up for the people of his city. Mayor Bloomberg is putting his foot down to help the adults and children of New York City avoid obesity. According to the writers of Energy Today Magazine,” This is an age of modern living, superior technology, luxurious day-to-day, exaggerated money and last but not the least trending obesity. Growing number of cases of obesity has made it into a fully grown social problem. Child obesity is a much talked about topic in today’s era. What could be the cause of this? The modernization of our living has took us to the top of the ladder on one side and it drenches us in a hollow pit called obesity.” In 2012 Mayor Bloomberg made a proposal to restrict the sales of certain kinds of drinks, and in September it was approved, but didn’t go into effect until 2013. Of course many people in the city didn’t agree with this, but little do they know that the law may actually work. According to the creators of healthy.gov,” Good nutrition, physical activity, and a healthy body weight are essential parts of a person’s overall health and well-being. Together, these can help decrease a person’s risk of developing serious health conditions, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer. A healthful diet, regular physical activity, and achieving and maintaining a healthy weight also are paramount to managing health conditions so they do not worsen over time. Most Americans, however, do not eat a healthful diet and are not physically active at levels needed to maintain proper health. Fewer than 1 in 3 adults and an even lower proportion of adolescents eat the recommended amount of vegetables each day. Compounding this is the fact that a majority of adults and adolescents do not get the recommended amount of physical activity.” If the adults stayed on the kids as well as themselves to have good nutrition and some type of activity to maintain a healthy body weight obesity wouldn’t much of a problem. But as you can see it isn’t just about the weight it’s about the cost of the sugary foods and drinks we are consuming.

 Y. Claire Wang gave best results considering the processes of penny per every ounce in beverages that are sweetened. Yes the money part is important, but being that my argument is about obesity my concern is the 24 percent of cut backs of consumptions, which around that time would have been 4,650,746.88 people to be on a healthier diet than before. The government still has not made an effort to make it easier to afford healthier foods. Maybe the government should look into lowering the price on the healthy foods and raising the price on the sugary foods. Humans go crazy over cheap items at the grocery store, so maybe if they saw cheaper vegetables the kids and the adults will learn to maintain their weight and health. Daniel Leiberman states that, “a lot of the foods did not have enough sugar to even give any effect like a carrot.” For technology in general has brought many negatives but in this case has become a starchy devil. Making it quicker and easier to make these unhealthy foods. Even though it is a good argument to tax the junk foods and drinks, in other states that is being done, but people still are aren’t caring about how expensive it is.