what the fuck is an enthymeme?

Well here we go, Paper #1 for writing 123, my arch-nemesis in the academic world. To be honest, I have no fucking clue what it was supposed to be about, I don't know what the hell an enthymeme is, and I was drinking vodka and cranberry juice for the larger percentage of the endevour.

And I wonder why I can't pass my classes!

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Obesity as a Class Issue

Fresh-cut asparagus: $1.98 per pound. Fat-free, whole grain pasta: $2.99. Jar of all-organic spaghetti sauce: $3.95. Loaf of 12-grain wheat bread: $3.99. Pound of 99% fat-free hamburger: $6.99. Carton of 100% pure cranberry juice: $4.99. Time spent shopping and preparing: 1 hour.
Knowing your family is eating a nutritious meal that is good for them? Priceless.
It may not be an actual commercial, but it could be. Mastercard, with its “Some things money can’t buy” ads epitomizes the attitude of today’s affluence-obsessed culture. You can’t put a price on things like this, they try to convince consumers. The unfortunate reality in America is that everything comes at a price, and some people can’t afford to pay. When faced with a choice of expensive, healthy food that takes a long time to prepare, or cheap and usually unhealthy fast food, working class Americans will more often than not opt for the latter.

Does this mean that America’s obesity problem, now being called an epidemic by many, is a blatant effort by the rich to keep the poor in check for some greedy reason? Quite possibly. It seems as if poor Americans are being targeted by companies like McDonalds and makers of cheap foods, and a large part of the obesity problem can be traced to class differences. Others argue that it is not so much that companies target the poor and try to make and keep them fat (after all, what good is your labor workforce when they’re obese?), it’s that the poor are more likely to make unhealthy choices on a regular basis for the convenience and affordability. Both sides’ arguments are valid.

Obesity is a class issue, related to not only the availability of food but of exercise equipment, or time to prepare proper meals. Rich people work fewer hours than the poor for the same pay, have more access to fitness clubs or safe recreational areas, and have the luxury of choice when it comes to food. Lawrence O. Gostin offers a number of reasons for obesity in his article “Fast and Supersized”:

Health officials can provide information about healthy lifestyles, but if individuals live in poorly designed communities, their health will suffer. Many urban environments lack safe, open, and green spaces to facilitate recreation and physical activity. They also lack easy access to inexpensive, nutritional foods. Convenience stores and fast food outlets may vastly outnumber grocery stores where people can buy whole grains, fresh fruit, and vegetables. At the same time, suburban sprawl facilitates reliance on automobiles and discourages walking or cycling (11).

This is most true in poor neighborhoods, where people are crammed in housing projects and convenience stores line the street. At the same time, companies are targeting the poor, following the basic rules of capitalism: go where the money is, and do and say what you have to in order to get it. The rich aren’t going to shop at 7-11 as much as the poor are, so why build stores in neighborhoods that won’t make money?

Greg Critser describes the opening of a Dunkin Doughnuts in an ethnic neighborhood in California in his article, “Let Them Eat Fat”. He cites a discussion with the manager about why they decided to locate their restaurant in that particular place. The manager replies that they were looking for “all the bigger families”(106). When prodded, he clarifies “bigger in size” (106) with a roll of his eyes.

The Dunkin Doughnuts in Crisner’s article is targeting a certain population, and the question of whether or not it is a malicious decision focused on taking advantage of the poor, in this case Hispanic people, is pressing. An entire class of college students, supposedly developed in their critical thinking skills, missed the potentially deeper meaning of this seemingly innocent exchange (or found it prudent to leave it untouched). Bigger families, as in Mexican families? Or bigger families as in fatter? Is the targeting of the poor so subtle that we often miss it? Do social stigmas on discussing race and class prevent people from addressing these issues? If so, Crisner’s claim that obesity is a direct result of companies’ blatant irresponsibility toward the poor suddenly becomes more valid.

The fact that an entire class would miss something like that shows just how subtle the problem really is. Then again, university students don’t generally hail from the income bracket these companies target.

“Well, they don’t have to eat there,” one boy haughtily declares. Choice for the poor is an interesting thing. After working an 8 hour day, the choice of spending $20 to ride the bus for half an hour, shop for food (assuming you can find childcare for your kids or beat them home), then go home and spend another half an hour cooking it, who isn’t going to opt for convenience that McDonald’s located right by their house offers? It’s cheaper, faster, and tastier.

Of course not all poor people are obese. An entire sub-class of “poor” exists within those below the middle class. Shell Feijo writes a saddening story of a sleepover with a friend in her essay, “There are Holes in My Mandarin Dog Bisquit”:

“We were hungry and there was nothing to eat. I don’t mean that there was only peanut butter and jelly, or milk instead of juice; I don’t mean that there was nothing we liked. I mean that there was nothing there” (99).

Michelle Tea’s compilation is full of stories like this, families without the means to sustain themselves. Are these families the target of companies like fast food chains for their poverty, despite their inability to afford it? In a way. Daisy Hernandez talks about working at a McDonalds in “My Father’s Hands”: “The job was like walking on a tightrope without a net…. You never know why they sent you home but not the others. A wrong word could mean your hours the next week were reduced from forty to thirty-two” (56).

Jobs, and the security of those jobs, are another class-related commodity. This suggests that not only is obesity of rising concern, but the causes of it, like difference in classes,
While fast-food corporations like McDonald’s are often the main focus of the anit-obesity movement, looking at other low-cost foods reveals the same problems. Examining the nutrition facts on a package of Top Ramen, a staple item for many struggling college students, once again reveals that cheap does not equal healthy. A package of the instant noodles contains a low caloric content (280 calories if one consumes the entire two-serving package by himself), but high fat content (22% of fat and 36% of daily recommended saturated fat). Knowing that these packages often sell for ten cents each, does this mean that the Nissen company is intentionally targeting the poor, and ignoring the lack of food value? Is this even their responsibility?

Do corporations like McDonald’s blatantly ignore health issues to make more money? What are the benefits of keeping the poor, poor? The questions about where responsibility lies in the obesity problem continue to grow, and there is no finite answer. The only answer lies in a solution: “The answer, I suggest, is that in almost every public-health arena, the need to address obesity as a class issue—one that transcends the inevitable divisiveness of race and gender—has been blunted by bad logic, vested interests, academic cant, and ideological chauvinism” (Cristner 109). Moving past pointing fingers and instead focusing on a real solution is the only answer to this crisis. A cooporative effort by an entire society, ignoring class, race, and social standing? Priceless.




Works Cited


Critser, Greg. “Let Them Eat Fat.” In The Curious Reader. 104-115.

Feijo, Shell. “There are Holes in My Mandarin Dog Bisquit.” Without a Net: the Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class. Ed. Michelle Tea. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2003. 97-101.

Gostin, Lawrence O. “Fast and Supersized: Is the Answer to Diet by Fiat?” The Hastings Center Report. March 2005: 11 -12.

Hernandez, Daisy. “My Father’s Hands.” Without a Net: the Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class. Ed. Michelle Tea. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2003. 49-57.