Eating: Personal or Public? Essay

I am writing this essay as a rhetorical analysis of Radley Balko’s article â€Å"What You Eat is Your Business† and making a recommendation for or against publication in The Shorthorn based on the request from my editor. I believe the rhetorical appeals that Mr. Balko makes in his article will be somewhat persuasive to the readers of The Shorthorn as he makes some valid points. However, most members of the UTA community have a previous understanding about the obesity epidemic that is plaguing this country and may not completely agree with his arguments. Obesity is a major concern in the United States because of the prevalence of heart disease, liver and kidney failure, and sleep abnormalities that plague a large portion of the population. It is a hot topic and debated regularly. The main argument is whether obesity should be a personal issue or whether the government should take action to modify individual’s health choices, essentially forcing a healthier lifestyle on the population. Balko’s central claim is that the government should make the cost of obesity a private matter with incentives for individuals to maintain a healthy lifestyle as opposed to making the public pay for the poor life decisions of some of the population. He believes that â€Å"Instead of manipulating or intervening in the array of food options available to American consumers, our government ought to be working to foster a sense of responsibility in and ownership of our own health and well-being.† Balko insists that we are becoming less re sponsible for our own health and more responsible for everyone else’s. It is a trend that he believes will not foster positive changes since there is no incentive â€Å"to put down the cheeseburger† if the government is paying for the individual’s anti-cholesterol medication. Balko maintains that a society where everyone is responsible for everyone else’s well-being is a society more apt to accept government restrictions such as what McDonalds can put on its menu, what Safeway or Kroger can put on grocery shelves or holding food companies responsible for the bad habits of unhealthy consumers. He believes that a growing army of nutritionist activists and food industry foes are egging the process on and that the best way to alleviate the obesity â€Å"public health† crisis is to remove obesity from the realm of public health. He asserts that if policymakers want to fight obesity, they should halt the creeping socialization of medicine, and move to return individual Americans’ ownership of their own health and well-being back to individual Americans. His plan includes freeing insurance companies to reward healthy lifestyles, and penalize poor ones. Another idea he expresses is that Congress should increase access to medical and health sa vings accounts, which give consumers the option of rolling money reserved for health care into a retirement account. Balko believes that these accounts introduce accountability into the health care system, and encourage caution with one’s health care dollar. His assumption is that â€Å"when money we spend on health care doesn’t belong to our employer or the government, but is money we could devote to our own retirement, we’re less likely to run to the doctor at the first sign of a cold.† While readers of The Shorthorn may accept Balko’s rationale, they may not agree with his principle argument that obesity should not be part of the public sector. The readers may believe that some people need to be restricted in order for change to occur. If McDonald’s has to be regulated in order for an individual to make a healthier lifestyle choice then that is what needs to happen. If it takes government intervention to enforce changes in obesity levels of the population then so be it. I think readers of The Shorthorn would tend to agree with Balko’s suggestion t hat Congress could make available medical and health savings accounts but they would see that the realistic chance of that happening is pretty slim. The pharmaceutical and medical markets would be highly against losing revenue because of the incentive to go to the doctor less. Since there is a lot of money and influence (political support) from the pharmaceutical companies, there is less likely to be a change in the handling of obesity from the public sector to the private sector. Balko does not make any attempts to address any counterarguments. He expresses his displeasure with the current state of affairs and gives his opinion on what should be done to fix it. He does not give any mention to the positive aspects of the government’s proposed anti-obesity measures. To the readers of The Shorthorn, it would have been nice to see him address these points as it would make his argument more valid and believable. Balko attempts to establish credibility by referencing different aspects of the government’s plan to battle obesity and how he believes it is not the correct technique. He gives his own opinion but fails to demonstrate how he has come to those decisions. Throughout the article, Balko’s rationale is based on his personal biases and feelings. He does reference some minor facts in his article such as â€Å"President Bush earmarked $200 million in his budget for anti-obesity measures. State legislatures and school boards across the country have begun banning snacks and soda from school campuses and vending machines. Sen. Joe Lieberman and Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, among others, have called for a â€Å"fat tax† on high-calorie foods. Congress is now considering menu-labeling legislation, which would force restaurants to send every menu item to the laboratory for nutritional testing† however for the majority of his article there is no empirical evidence demonstrated. While his ideas do make a lot of sense, some of the options he has put forward are improbable and the readers of The Shorthorn are most likely going to want to see that he can demonstrate a more mature argument (accepting and understanding of governmental involvement in obesity) before he can establish his credibility with them. Balko appeals to the emotions of his Shorthorn readers by using visual stories and explanations that help his cause. Early in the article, Balko uses imagery and strong stories to get the reader’s attention. He talks about the television show â€Å"How to Get Fat Without Really Trying† by ABC News and the outrage that show generated in him. He states the rationale for the show is to â€Å"relieve viewers of responsibility for their own condition† and he displays his displeasure with that ideal. Balko believes we should all be accountable for our own health decisions. By personally expressing his discontent with that television show, Balko is appealing to the emotions of his reader by picking a side of the argument and demonstrating strong emotions himself so that he does not appear to be lifeless. After reading this article, Balko’s argument does have some valid points that I think his readers in The Shorthorn will agree with. However they will want to see some evidence before they can truly accept his point of view. Since obesity is such a hot topic in today’s society and truly affects each and every one of us going forward, I conclude that most of The Shorthorn readers will enjoy this piece because it gives a different opinion from the mainstream view of how obesity should be handled and I suggest we should publish this article in the upcoming issue.