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Don't Blame the Eater
tee
DAVID ZINCZENKO
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If ever there were a newspaper headline custom-made for
Jay Leno's monologue, this was it. Kids taking on
McDonald's
this week, suing the company for making them fat. Isn't that
like middle-aged men suing Porsche for making them get speed-
ing tickets? Whatever happened to personal responsibility?
I tend to sympathize with these portly fast-food patrons,
though. Maybe that's because I used to be one of them.
I grew up as a typical mid-1980s latchkey kid. My parents
were split up, my dad off trying to rebuild his life, my mom
working long hours to make the monthly bills. Lunch and
dinner, for me, was a daily choice between McDonald's, Taco
Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken or Pizza Hut. Then as now, these
were the only available options for an American kid to get an
DAVID ZINCZENKO, who was for many years the editor-in-chief of
the fitness magazine Men's Health, is president of Galvanized Brands, a
global health and wellness media company. Zinczenko is the author of
numerous best-selling books, including the Eat This, Not That and the
Abs Diet series. He has contributed op-ed essays to the New York Times,
the Los Angeles Times, and USA Today and has appeared on Dr. Oz,
Oprah, Ellen, and Good Morning America. This piece was first published
on the op-ed page of the New York Times on November 23, 2002.
462
Don't Blame the Eater
tallow
teenage
affordable meal. By age 15, I had packed 212 pounds of torpid
on my once lanky 5-foot-10 frame.
Then I got lucky. I went to college, joined the Navy Reserves
and got involved with a health magazine. 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:
saying why it
of lifetime obesity. And the problem isn't just theirs
Chapter 7
For tips on
They've crossed under the golden arches to a likely fate
matters, see
it's all of ours.
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Before 1994, diabetes in children was generally caused by a 5
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.
Not surprisingly, money spent to treat diabetes has skyrock-
eted, too. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention esti-
mate that diabetes accounted for $2.6 billion in health care costs
in 1969. Today's number is an unbelievable $100 billion a year.
Shouldn't we know better than to eat two meals a day in
fast-food restaurants? That's one argument. But where, exactly,
are consumers—particularly teenagers—supposed to find alter-
natives? Drive down any thoroughfare 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 a grapefruit.
Complicating the lack of alternatives is the lack of informa-
tion about what, exactly, we're consuming. There are no calorie
information charts on fast-food packaging, the way there are
on grocery items. Advertisements don't carry warning labels
the
way
tobacco ads do. Prepared foods aren't covered under
Food and Drug Administration labeling laws. Some fast-food
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463
on request, but even
purveyors will provide calorie information
that can be hard to understand.
healthy
For example, one company's Web site lists its chicken salad
as containing 150 calories; the almonds and noodles that come
with it (an additional 190 calories) are listed separately. Add
lunch alternative that comes in at 620 calories. But that's not
a serving of the 280-calorie dressing, and you've got a
all. Read the small print on the back of the dressing packet and
you'll realize it actually contains 2.5 servings. If
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
you pour what
super-size Coke.
Make fun if you will of these kids launching lawsuits against 10
the fast-food industry, but don't be surprised if you're the next
plaintiff. As with the tobacco industry, it may be only a mat.
ter of time before state governments begin to see a direct line
between the $1 billion that McDonald's and Burger King spend
each year on advertising and their own swelling health care
costs.
And I'd say the industry is vulnerable. Fast-food compa-
nies are marketing to children a product with proven health
hazards and no warning labels. They would do well to protect
themselves, and their customers, by providing the nutrition
information people need to make informed choices about their
products. Without such warnings, we'll see more sick, obese
children and more angry, litigious parents. I say, let the deep-
fried chips fall where they may.
"Don't Blame the Eater." From The New York Times, November 23, 2002.
Reprinted by permission of the author.
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