The Foundation for Economic Education’s article called “Fast Food and Personal Responsibility” by Ninos P. Malek talks about how ridiculous on how fast food restaurants are getting sued for humans becoming overweight. He goes into more detail by saying it’s personal responsibilities on what you eat every day. On the flip side, another article entitled “Don’t Blame the Eater” by David Zinczenko from The New York Times talks about why you should blame the fast food chains and not the person eating the one thousands calorie fast food meal.
The two articles are opposing each other and arguing who to blame for the situation. The article I agree with is “Fast Food and Personal Responsibility but it’s less effective to the readers because it lacks logos, over use of pathos, and lacks relevant modern solutions. The comparison of the two is that “Don’t Blame the Eater” is a better all-around written article which provides everything the readers want to know about but some might readers may not think it’s true. The other article is not as well written and has its ways on getting the reader in other multiple reasoning’s.
Each author goes different ways on writing the paper, Zinczenko is more organized and thought out as Maleks argument is more sarcastically written. The first comparison between the two articles is that the article “Fast Food and Personal Responsibility” over uses pathos while David Zinczenko uses it just right in the comparison article. Pathos is when an author tries to get an emotional response out of the reader. While over using pathos an article may cause you to stop reading or become. Malek uses many different examples of pathos in his article “Fast Food and Personal Responsibility”.
One example was when he states, “The ridiculous claim that corporations are responsible for people’s health problems is nothing new. Remember the lawsuits against the tobacco companies? If you smoke let me ask you this: did an employee from one of the tobacco companies put a gun to your head and make you smoke a cigarette? I didn’t think so. People who are dying because of smoking-related illnesses have nobody to blame but themselves” (Malek). He provides this example to make the audience feel a certain way to side with him rather than the opposing argument saying it’s the fast food restaurants fault.
He continues on by putting the two and two together by stating this flawed analogy, “It’s the same for people who eat poorly. I have never seen Ronald McDonald with an M-16 forcing people to buy Big Macs. A person has to drive to McDonald’s, order a Big Mac, and eat it on his own” (Malek). He goes on and on about how it’s the person’s responsibility for eating what they eat and tries to get an emotional response out of his reader. Another example of over use of pathos is when he concludes by saying, “Will ice cream companies be next? What about candy companies? And, God forbid, Starbucks!
Caffeine may be bad for us, right? And all that whipped cream and caramel syrup in those Frappuccino’s can’t be good for us” (Malek). On the other hand, David Zinczenkos article used pathos not as much to clear his point. He scatters pathos around his article but in a way it’s not over used. At the beginning of his article he mentions his parents were split up, his mom worked long hours to make the bills, and his lunch and dinner for him were between McDonalds, Taco Bell, KFC or Pizza Hut. He put that at the beginning of his article for his audience to get emotionally involved and feel what he had to go through.
Another important example he used of pathos that was in the article was when he states, “”I learned how to manage my diet. But most of the teenagers who live, as I once did, on a fast-food diet won’t turn their lives around: They’ve crossed under the golden arches to a likely fate of lifetime obesity. And the problem isn’t just theirs— it’s all of ours” (Zinczenko 463). At the end of his statement he puts the problem isn’t just their fault its all of ours. This is a perfect example of pathos because he is saying the reason the kid is getting that way is because all of us are not doing anything about it.
Zinczenko used just enough pathos appeals to keep the reader interested without over using it. Secondly, Ninos P. Malek didn’t use much logos which would have made his article more reliable to his readers which causes it to be less effective. With using more logos appeals causes the article to be more affective to the audience. In “Don’t Blame the Eater” by David Zinczenkos, he uses many examples of logos which comes out to be a well written article. Logos is when an author appeals logic, and is a way of persuading an audience by reason.
David does just that to get the audience to continue reading his article. One example of logos in his article is when he states, “Before 1994, diabetes in children was generally caused by a genetic disorder— only about 5 percent of childhood cases were obesity-related, or Type 2, diabetes. Today, according to the National Institutes of Health, Type 2 diabetes accounts for at least 30 percent of all new childhood cases of diabetes in this country” (Zinczenko 463). He puts this in his article because he wants readers to see the actual facts on how kid’s health problems are these days.
This goes back to the other article without having any logos within the article it doesn’t allow the audience to see the facts behind it. That’s why most readers are going to side with the article with logos rather than not with logos appeals. Lastly the difference between the two articles is that Malek’s article lacks relevant solutions while Zinczenko has plenty solutions to provide. In the article “Fast Food and Personal Responsibility”, Malek talks a lot about people making themselves obese since they are the ones eating the Big Mac every day.
The reasoning he has behind that is people have the opinion to eat something healthy or not healthy it’s their choice. The main thing Malek forgets to talk about is the solution to stopping people from becoming overweight and eating fast food meals every day. All he says is it’s the eaters fault and no solution to the problem is mentioned. With doing so his argument and question would maybe never get solved unless they stopped eating it on their own. On the other hand, Zinczenko has multiple examples on how to stop the problem around the world.
A couple examples he mentions in his article is to find an alternative restaurant rather than fast food and make the fast food restaurants have information charts of all the details. He says it’s still hard to understand the information charts sometimes by saying, “For example, one company’s Website list its chicken salad as containing 150 calories; the almonds and noodles that come with it (an additional 190 calories) are listed separately. Add a serving of the 280-calorie dressing, and you’ve got a healthy lunch alternative that comes in at 620 calories. But that’s not all.
Read the small print on the back of the dressing packet and you’ll realize it actually contains 2. 5 servings. If you pour what you’ve been served, you’re suddenly up around 1,040 calories, which is half of the government’s recommended daily calorie intake. And that doesn’t take into account that 450-calorie super-size Coke” (Zinczenko 464). So you never know what you’re getting into when you go to a fast food restaurant even though you think it’s sometimes not that bad. He ends with saying, “Without such warnings, well see more sick, obese children and more angry, litigious parents.
I say, let the deep friend chips fall where they may” (Zinczenko 464). Malek didn’t provide any solutions to the problem as Zinczenko provides some input on trying to stop this disaster. Overall usually most people agree to the topic on which article is better written but this is not the case. The article written by Ninos P. Malek talks about people becoming obese because of themselves. He is less effective than Zinczenko because he lacks logos, over use of pathos, and lacks relevant modern solutions. While Zinczenko uses an average to get the point across making his article more reliable.
I disagree that the stronger written article is not the right way accomplish the disaster for obesity, I agree with Maleks points. Even though Malek has an okay written article some people like me may still agree. It’s not always the case that the article written better is always the one you agree with. People should care about this topic because it’s not healthy for kids at young ages eating fast food every day. Everyone should try to figure out a way to stop this obesity disaster and join along. If everyone comes together to try to stop this, I am confident it can be accomplished and less people would have health problems.
