Delaney Kerr - Is Fast Food the New Tobacco?

         Japan, Germany, Canada, and Switzerland; these nations are some of the fittest countries in regards to health and weight in the world. Although they may not be winning any violent wars, they are winning the battle against the obesity epidemic in a way that the United States has not yet developed. What's their secret? They all utilize and practice socialized or universal medicine. 

        Socialized medicine allows a nation's government to organize citizen's tax dollars in a way that allows for all citizens to be granted free or reduced-price access to medical care. Additionally, it allows the government to control and regulate the freedoms of advertisements, nutritional education, and healthcare. In doing this, the government focuses on the health of the nation, centering around the overall "public health" (Balko 2004, p. 396). Allowing the government the ability to evenly distribute wealth amongst all people is the key to success in regards to battling obesity. In the current American economic system, Americans pay in large part for their own medical bills, often causing lower income citizens to lose the ability to make frequent doctor's visits. Additionally, lower income regions of the country have less access to adequate education, and tend to be more obese on average due to their lack of anatomical and nutritional knowledge. By forcing the government to step in and evenly distribute the wealth amongst the people of the United States, we create a more even playing field for all Americans, and battle obesity as a collective, rather than on an individual basis. 

        Additionally, low income regions of the United States tend to advertise unhealthy foods to poor people, which creates a vicious cycle of obesity amongst the lower and working class in the United States. Cheap, fast food is almost exclusively advertised to the poorest groups in America. Drive through the inner city, or through the middle of rural Pennsylvania, and the one thing you will see on either of those roads is a fast food restaurant. Most rural and urban regions are incredibly poor, and lack proper access to healthy foods in grocery stores and restaurants. These people cannot afford quality meals, thus creating an obese public in poor regions of the country. The best way to fight obesity on such a large scale is to utilize the government's power, by enacting laws that prevent companies from "marketing to children a product with proven health hazards and no warning labels" (Zinczenko 2002, p. 391). 

    If, as a society, we place the blame of disease on the people of a nation, we allow the government to get away with murder. Holding the government accountable for the proper education, health, and treatment of its citizens is a civil duty as an American. The socialization of American medicine allows nations to take great strides in the protection of the collective, rather than the care of only the elite, opulent, and exclusive. Therefore, it is critical that the American government take control of their nation, and begin to take real action against a disease that is slowly killing millions of Americans each year. 


Left: Obesity vs. Income
         Right: True Universal Care vs. Current Standard

Comments

  1. Michelle RosenOctober 22, 2023 at 11:31 AM

    Great angle to take to show your opinion in this argument. Nicely written

    ReplyDelete

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