WRIT $100$ Critical Analysis Assignment #$2$ Winter $2024$For this assignment, you are to write a critical analysis essay in relation to David Zinczenko$$s$$Don$\text{'}$t blame the eater; the connection between fast food and obese kids$($below$).$ Please readthe article carefully. Once you have read and understood it$,$ please write a critical analysis thatevaluates the success of the article$$s argument. Your essay should have an introduction that setsout your thesis $($one that indicates whether the argument is successful$),$ supporting paragraphsthat begin with topic sentences and that develop your thesis, and a conclusion. Be sure that yourwriting is carefully organized, clear and coherent, and free from mechanical error. This essay isworth $20\%$ of your final grade.Don't blame the eater; the connection between fast food and obese kidsZinczenko, David. The New York Times $152(23$ November $2002)$: A$3$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 likemiddle$-$aged men suing Porsche for making them get speeding tickets? Whatever happened topersonal responsibility? $(1)$I tend to sympathize with these portly fast$-$food patrons, though. Maybe that's because I used tobe one of them. $(2)$I grew up as a typical mid$-1980\text{'}$s latchkey kid. My parents were split up$,$ my dad off trying torebuild his life, my mom working long hours to make the monthly bills. Lunch and dinner, forme, 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 affordablemeal. By age $15,$ I had packed $212$ pounds of torpid teenage tallow on my once lanky $5-$foot$-10$frame. $(3)$Then I got lucky. I went to college, joined the Navy Reserves and got involved with a healthmagazine. 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: They've crossed under the golden arches to alikely fate of lifetime obesity. And the problem isn't just theirs $--$ it's all of ours. $(4)$Before $1994,$ diabetes in children was generally caused by a genetic disorder $--$ only about $5$percent of childhood cases were obesity$-$related, or Type $2,$ diabetes. Today, according to theNational Institutes of Health, Type $2$ diabetes accounts for at least $30$ percent of all newchildhood cases of diabetes in this country. $(5)$Not surprisingly, money spent to treat diabetes has skyrocketed, too. The Centers for DiseaseControl and Prevention estimate that diabetes accounted for $$2\mathrm{.}6$ billion in health care costs in$1969.$ Today's number is an unbelievable $$100$ billion a year. $(6)$

Shouldn't we know better than to eat two meals a day in fast$-$food restaurants? That's oneargument. But where, exactly, are consumers $--$ particularly teenagers $--$ supposed to findalternatives? Drive down any thoroughfare in America, and I guarantee you'll see one of ourcountry's more than $13,000$ McDonald's restaurants. Now, drive back up the block and try to findsomeplace to buy a grapefruit. $(7)$Complicating the lack of alternatives is the lack of information about what, exactly, we'reconsuming. There are no calorie information charts on fast$-$food packaging, the way there are ongrocery items. Advertisements don't carry warning labels the way tobacco ads do$.$ Prepared foodsaren't covered under Food and Drug Administration labeling laws. Some fast$-$food purveyors willprovide calorie information on request, but even that can be hard to understand. $(8)$For example, one company's Web site lists its chicken salad as containing $150$ calories; thealmonds and noodles that come with it $($an additional $190$ calories$)$ are listed separately. Add aserving of the $280-$calorie dressing, and you've got a healthy lunch alternative that comes in at$620$ calories. But that's not all. Read the small print on the back of the dressing packet and you'llrealize it actually contains $2\mathrm{.}5$ servings. If you pour what you've been served, you're suddenly uparound $1,040$ calories, which is half of the government's recommended daily calorie intake. Andthat doesn't take into account that $450-$calorie super$-$size Coke. $(9)$Make fun if you will of these kids launching lawsuits against the fast$-$food industry, but don't besurprised if you're the next plaintiff. As with the tobacco industry, it may be only a matter oftime before state governments begin to see a direct line between the $$1$ billion that McDonald'sand Burger King spend each year on advertising and their own swelling health care costs. $(10)$And I$\text{'}$d say the industry is vulnerable. Fast$-$food companies are marketing to children a productwith 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 informedchoices about their products. Without such warnings, we'll see more sick, obese children andmore angry, litigious parents. I say