Recently, Edy's Fresh Scoop discussed San Francisco's decision to disincentive McDonald's Happy Meals and subsequently explored the subject of personal responsibility versus social or governmental responsibility. Which makes me ponder the question: Where does my personal responsibility end?
Let's begin with San Francisco's decision. Fast - food chains are no longer able to include toys in meals that are determined to be excessive in calories, sodium, or fat. Vegetables or fruit must replace items such as French fries in these meals. The government is not limiting what children are able to receive in terms of nutrition in these meals. What is being limited is the incentive for children to desire meals based on material goods. Children, instead, are provided with incentives to develop healthier eating habits. Parents are provided with an alternative option, able to feed their children healthier and affordable meal options. The argument against this ordinance is that the government should not attempt to monitor what children eat or limit a business's selling options. People, instead, should be responsible for their own food intake and their children's.
I understand the argument of personal responsibility, but will argue it in a different direction. If my personal responsibility is only to myself, and (should I choose to have them) my children, am I absolutely in no way responsible for anything else? In 1964, one Kitty Genovese was murdered in a New York neighborhood. No less than thirty-eight people heard or saw the murder taking place. One person called the police, over half an hour after the stabbing began. It was not the personal responsibility of these witnesses to phone the police. So they did not. And Kitty Genovese died.
As far as childhood obesity, the disease has more than tripled in the past 30 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The CDC warns us that obesity leads to an increase in heart disease, bone and joint problems, types of cancer, strokes, as well as psychological problems such as low self-esteem and poor social interaction skills. The First Lady Michelle Obama has vowed to combat this growing medical issue with her Let's Move campaign, urging children to be active and eat healthier. Diet, and not exercise, has been cited as a more important factor in the health of individuals and especially in tackling obesity.
Perusing the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity Report to the President (May 2010), a number of interesting factors stand out.
1) 23.5 million people, 6.5 million children, live more than a mile from a grocery store in a low-income neighborhood. Families in low-income neighborhoods typically work more than one job and live below or near the poverty line. Research has found that there is a significant link between the availability of supermarkets and childhood BMI and obesity status.
2) Research indicates advertising has a strong impact on children. Children prefer food if they think the food is from McDonalds as opposed to another source. Marketing to children is a billion dollar investment just in the food service industry alone. As for San Francisco, Scott Rodrick, owner of ten fast food businesses in the area, says, "none of his current menu items would be allowed under the nutritional guidelines in the ordinance".
3) Preschoolers were asked if they would rather eat broccoli or a Hersey's Chocolate Bar. Only 22% chose broccoli, while 78% chose chocolate. However, once an Elmo sticker was placed on the broccoli, 50% of children chose the broccoli. Using licensed characters in the promotion of food to children has increased, while the health of the foods being promoted concurrently has decreased.
4) Since 2006, the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (which includes Burger King and McDonald's), advertising to children has been monitored to promote healthier food options and incentivize more nutritious choices.
These are just a few findings from the one hundred and twenty-four page report, but the findings are clear. Obesity is a problem, and advertising to children plays a large factor. Which brings me back to San Francisco. If McDonald's and Burger King have already agreed under the CFBAI to incentivize healthier options in advertising, should they not incentivize healthier options in practice as well?
Take the Motion Picture Association of America. Movie ratings are created to protect children from viewing content that is generally inadvisable for children to view. Children are not at the same age developmentally or socially and do have the same ability to process information as adults. In youth, children cannot separate reality from fantasy in film or in, well, reality. Steps are taken to protect children in their developmental processes.
Now, if we (as a society) support steps being taken to protect children's development from being impeded, why are we ignoring their physical development as well? Is this where the line is drawn in personal responsibility? Should we scale back our responsibility and allow parents to take children to films without any comment to their content, and that content's impact on children?
Perhaps we should scale back personal responsibility even further. Why is there a PTA? Why is there a parent list at schools, carpools, and babysitters? Let's go further: Say you're at a park with your children and there is a team practicing soccer on the field across the way. As the practice ends, all the parents leave with their children, except one child whose family is running late. The soccer coach leaves because his children are accounted for and the lonely child is not his personal responsibility. The child, alone on the field, is approached by a man and taken against his will. You, watching from afar, do nothing. The child is not your personal responsibility, so why should you take action? The parents should have been there on time.
Let's backtrack to McDonald's and San Francisco. If we are willing to take care of other children, provide support for families that your child interacts with, work with the school system to enhance the quality of our education, wait an extra ten minutes at the soccer field to make sure your son or daughter's teammate is picked up by a guardian, and provide protection for the viewing habits of children at their most crucial developmental stage, why are we unwilling to additionally support and protect children from the content they put in their bodies? Why are we willing to allow children to ingest products that do not meet nutritional standards to live a healthy lifestyle?
Personal responsibility should not stop at you. There is social responsibility, both of the individual and of the state. We need to stop incentivizing products which are unhealthy simply because it is good for society. Children are not able to distinguish health and goodness. Incentivizing works, as argued in the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity Report to the President (May 2010). We should promote the healthy and devalue the unhealthy for the health of not only our own, but everyone's children. People who do not have access to the same grocery supplies as I do (I am walking distance from three separate stores) should be allowed to find options for health at their most convenient places of consumption.
Are we not responsible for the life of the child we saw (hypothetically) kidnapped at the park? Are New Yorkers not responsible for allowing the slow and brutal murder of Kitty Genovese to continue for over thirty minutes? If we are not responsible for each other, if society does not care for the well being of the whole, there is no society left to care for. So, Gavin Newsom, I hope you consider not vetoing this ordinance. San Francisco Board of Supervisors, you are taking action to protect the future of America and putting this country back a path of health.
I admire and respect your stance on this issue, as we have discussed in class. However, I must respectfully disagree with the majority of our argument. While your stories about Kitty and our hypothetical soccer player shed light on the notion of a citizens responsibility to others, its relation to the current events in San Francisco is few and far between. We're not talking about your neighbor looking out for your well being, we're talking about the government. You discuss the power of advertising, especially if aimed at children. While I agree that children are vulnerable to advertising, as they don't (usually) understand that the overall goal of the advertisement is to increase consumer sales, the children are not the ones making the final decision. As I mentioned in class, the 6 year old is not going to hop is the family mini van and peel through the drive through to get his chicken nugget fix. The parents are the ones who make the final decision as to whether or not their child will order a happy meal or will dine on a home-cooked meal. I can't tell you how many times I would drive home kicking and screaming that I couldn't go to McDonalds for the second day in a row, and yet my parents (understanding the situation at hand) would drive home without needing to give me so much as an explanation as to why I was being deprived of another visit to the Golden Arches. Overtime I learned that, and eventually why, going to McDonalds every week, let alone every day, was completely out of the question. My final critique is that of our argument regarding grocery stores. You mentioned the several million people that live further than a mile from the nearest grocery store...my question, is so what? When I was growing up, I lived more than 3 miles form the grocery store, yet my parents managed their time (and yes, both my parents worked full time) so that weekly trips to the grocery store were taken care of. When my grandparents were growing up during the great depression, my grandfather would split his time taking the bus and walking (a total of more than 5 miles) to the grocery store to by what food they could. Distance is not the issue, laziness is. In terms of price, you argue that it is far cheaper to eat fast food than fresh food from the store. At Food 4 Less, down the street from my apartment, you can purchase:
ReplyDelete1 dozen eggs for $0.50
2 bottles of Healthy Choice juice both for $1.00
Reser's Sensational Sides (mashed potatoes, spinach, etc.) for two, $1.00
So, for less than the price of one happy meal, you can purchase of the food above for your family. The argument that cheap, healthy food cannot be purchased in grocery stores is simply not true. While I agree that eating healthy is more difficult for some, especially those who are threatened most by obesity, nothing is more important than personal responsibility.