"The Repugnant Myth of the Poor's Unhealthy Eating Habits"
Essay Writing Prompt from Page 187
One of the hallmarks of our contemporary culture, according to Prose, is that overeating is no longer viewed as a vice or sin but as an illness. Do you agree? What are some of the ways this change in thinking is communicated in popular culture or in the media? Write an essay in which you argue for or against gluttony as a moral issue.
Or put it this way:
Addressing Francine Prose's "The Wages of Sin," write a 4-page essay with 3 sources that supports, refutes, or complicates the notion that overeating is not an illness but a moral flaw and a vice.
Sample Thesis Statements (all of these are pretty good and take note they contradict each other as they go back and forth):
One: It’s morally wrong to be fat, for even though many are obese because of biological and environmental reasons, the majority of people submit to their fatness because of major character flaws, including __________________________, _______________________, ________________________, and ____________________.
Two: To condemn fat people as immoral is an outrageous oversimplification that ignores the many complex causes behind obesity. These so-called “character flaws” are really a reaction to deeper factors, which include ________________________, _______________________, _______________________, and ____________________________.
Three: To justify obesity as a “complex issue” is to enable fat people to go on with their immoral lives. In other words, justifying fatness is as immoral as fatness itself.
Four: To condemn defenders of the obese by calling these defenders enablers evidences a gross blindness to the deeper root causes of obesity, which these morally unrighteous prigs are determined to ignore. These causes include _______________________, ___________________________, _________________________, and _________________________.
Five: Calling me a “prig” for my stance against fat people does not change the fact that the obese population would be well served to embrace my moral prescription, which will not only alleviate their obesity but make them better, happier, responsible citizens. Thus, I am doing fat people a service, sir, while you, taking the role as paternalistic sympathizer, are actually helping to perpetuate their obese, moribund, morally bankrupt condition. Let us therefore proceed with my salubrious prescription, which entails ________________________, _______________________, __________________________, and ___________________________.
McMahon Grammar Lesson: Parallelism
Parallelism’s importance is most apparent when looking at mapping components in a thesis. We want those components to be written in parallel form whether we’re referring to a list of phrases or clauses.
Faulty Parallelism Example
Marijuana should be legalized because it’s safer than alcohol and many pharmaceutical drugs, its medicinal properties; it’s a fool’s errand to wage a war against it, and keeping it illegal increases criminal activity.
Above we have a mix of clauses and phrases. We should correct it by changing all the mapping components to clauses.
Corrected
Marijuana should be legalized because it’s safer than alcohol and many pharmaceutical drugs; it has medicinal properties; it is too common to waste money in a feeble attempt to eradicate it, and in illegal form it results in too much criminal activity.
We use parallelism in all types of writing.
Faulty
The instructor sometimes indulges in bloviating, pontificating, and likes to self-aggrandize.
We see above two gerunds followed by an infinitive, which is a faulty mix.
Corrected
The instructor sometimes indulges in bloviating, pontificating, and self-aggrandizing.
Using parallelism after a colon
Faulty
Kettlebell exercises work on the major muscle groups: thighs, gluteus, back, and make the shoulder muscles bigger.
Corrected
Kettlebell exercises work on the major muscle groups: thighs, gluteus, back, and shoulders.
Grammar Exercise: Parallelism
Correct the faulty parallelism by rewriting the sentences below.
One. Parenting toddlers is difficult for many reasons, not the least of which is that toddlers contradict everything you ask them to do; they have giant mood swings, and all-night tantrums.
Two. You should avoid all-you-can-eat buffets: They encourage gluttony; they feature fatty, over-salted foods and high sugar content.
Three. I prefer kettlebell training at home than the gym because of the increased privacy, the absence of loud “gym” music, and I’m able to concentrate more.
Four. To write a successful research paper you must adhere to the exact MLA format, employ a variety of paragraph transitions, and writing an intellectually rigorous thesis.
Five. The difficulty of adhering to the MLA format is that the rules are frequently being updated, the sheer abundance of rules you have to follow, and to integrate your research into your essay.
Six. You should avoid watching “reality shows” on TV because they encourage a depraved form of voyeurism; they distract you from your own problems, and their brain-dumbing effects.
Seven. I’m still fat even though I’ve tried the low-carb diet, the Paleo diet, the Rock-in-the-Mouth diet, and fasting every other day.
Eight. To write a successful thesis, you must have a compelling topic, a sophisticated take on that topic, and developing a thesis that elevates the reader’s consciousness to a higher level.
Nine. Getting enough sleep, exercising daily, and the importance of a positive attitude are essential for academic success.
Ten. My children never react to my calm commands or when I beg them to do things.
Another link for the fat debate: "She's fat, and I'm not"
“On Eating Roadkill”
One. How many deer are killed in traffic accidents every year?
Over 1.2 million and that is a lot of venison that could be consumed, according to author Brendan Buhler.
We’re talking 20 million pounds of free-range venison that we could be eating if we could salvage just one-third of the deer we kill in car accidents.
One deer collision according to State Farm Insurance costs $3,300 per car.
We have a history of tagging roadkill for human consumption that we can trace back to the 1950s and probably was done as early as the 1930s.
Two. What are some arguments against eating roadkill?
Contamination would have legal ramifications if someone got sick and/or died.
Legalizing roadkill would encourage some mean souls to go out of their way to kill deer. “There’s a free meal, honey. Don’t let the kids see this.” However, the author points out that in Wisconsin, where eating roadkill is legal, poaching has not been a problem.
Brainstorm
The ick factor causes a knee-jerk reaction to the eating of slaughtered meat or roadkill.
Consumerism distances us from the truth that death accompanies meat eating.
We have inconsistent, often arbitrary eating scripts that allow us to love and adore one animal that is forbidden to be eaten (such as the dog and cat in United States) but makes cows, pigs, and chickens a delicious part of our cuisine.
Ethical issues often arise from privileged people who have so many eating choices they can afford the luxury of debating the ethics of eating meat when for many people eating meat is not about ethics; it’s about survival.
As meat consumers, we too often want happy stories about our meat-eating experiences that are distant from bloodshed and death. This speaks to our sentimentality, which isolates in a bubble and insulates us from reality.
Real ethics for Paul Schwennesen should focus on the “social moderation of otherwise unrestrained individual yearnings.”
The author’s killing of cows is about social moderation; in contrast, fast food is a gluttonous degradation that speaks to “unrestrained individual yearnings.”
Eating roadkill is our moral responsibility (a moral imperative) because it forces us to address the danger we have imposed upon wildlife with our car driving and because it cuts down on our waste of food.
We live in denial over the way we consume animals when in fact our use of pet food, glue, soap, pharmaceuticals, and gelatin, to name a few examples, evidences our use of roadkill.
Essay Option
Support, refute, or complicate the argument that eating roadkill is a viable way to utilize a food resource.
Sources
Basic Sentence Structure Errors from Student Essays
Original
Such as, in the article “From Degrading to De-grading” composed by Alfie Kohn, analyzes the concept of grading students. Further, disputing the reason he believes grades are actually harmful to student learning.
Corrected
The essay “From Degrading to De-grading” by Alfie Kohn argues that grading is harmful to student learning.
Original
One scenario I can describe is the pressure for teachers to get students to pass high-stakes testing so that no penalty is put on them, such as losing their job. Reason such as losing one’s job can contribute to teacher wanting to cheat by giving students the answers, or rewriting test and dotting down the right answers before handing them in.
Corrected
Some teachers feel so pressured to help their students get a high GPA that they resort to helping the students cheat. These dishonest collaborations result in the teachers getting fired.
Original
In fact, students cheat to receive high grades since them scoring low could play a big factor of them not going to the next grade.
Corrected
Some students are so fearful of being held back a year that they feel compelled to cheat to insure passing grades.
Original
As a consequence, may lead students to think less profoundly about subjects.
Corrected
Worrying too much about the grade detracts from student passion for the actual subject.
Original
Besides grades help students realize how well they can understand material, additionally they can help teachers communicate to the parents to show them where their child is at in the class.
Essay Writing Prompt from Page 180
Here is how Schwennesen resolves the moral questions posed by raising and slaughtering animals for a living: “I’ve saved the lives of calves and butchered their mothers in the same afternoon. I thank each for the age-old sacrifice of prey to predator and I swear they understand. I neither rejoice in the blood nor shy from it. This is life. This is ethics” (178). Write a [5-page] essay in which you describe and evaluate the model of “ethics” Schwennesen presents here. Does the relationship he sketches between humans and animals (“predator and prey”) seem like a moral one? In your view, is he able to reconcile the contradiction between “saving” animals on the one hand and “butchering” them on the other? If not, what are the flaws or gaps in his argument?
Or you can look at the essay assignment choice this way:
In a 5-page essay, support, refute, or complicate the notion that eating meat is morally defensible in the context of evolution and biology and that ethical objections to meat eating are not born of eating meat but the abuses that result in the factory farming of animals. Be sure to have a counterargument-refutation section.
Example of Introduction and Thesis
We want to have our cake and eat it too. We want to sink our teeth into bloody meats but want to see animals as cute cartoon creatures that we would never harm. Likewise, when it comes to food ethics we hide behind conventional scripts that blind us from the brutality we are all complicit in when it comes to the killing of animals. Removing these conventional scripts is imperative if we are to restore an ethical relationship between animals and us. Removing these scripts is necessary if we are to take responsibility for the death we exact upon animals, reduce food waste, and moderate our tendency toward mindless gluttony.
Example of a Thesis That Disagrees with the Above
It is utterly preposterous to join hands with Paul Schwennesen and Brendan Buhler and their call for us to rewrite our eating scripts. They would have us believe that organic meat and roadkill are viable, even ethical approaches to meat eating. However, a close look at their assertions evidences egregious lapses of judgment and logic evidenced by organic’s inadequacy in feeding a growing planet; the cheapness of fast food is all many poor families can afford, and eating roadkill could result in health problems and lawsuits that would clog the justice system.
“No Myths Here: Food Stamps, Food Deserts, and Food Scarcity” by Erika Nicole Kendall (210)
One. What is the relationship between economic class and food preparation?
Kendall suggests that living in a modest home in the inner city with no garden and no Whole Foods (just a liquor store across the street for pop and chips), people adjust to that environment. Such a place is called a "food desert" or a "food prison."
This adjustment often means having no nutritional consciousness, having no inclination to cook, no garden, and no access to healthy food choices. And let us remind ourselves that healthy food choices also cost more money.
We also learn that government handouts, free food, are less than desirable: Bologna sandwiches do not make the menu for Emeril or even our favorite populist cook, Rachel Ray.
Kendall grew up in a vegetable-free environment.
Why? Because she grew up in a “food desert.” To get out of the desert, project citizens have to take an arduous journey on a bus and haul the groceries back to the house. That’s an unlikely task.
Two. Why couldn’t Kendall’s grandmother take the time to shop for fresh produce and other groceries and cook for her family?
She didn’t have time. She was the “mother” to hordes of children.
Three. Why do food deserts exist?
Because “it is assumed that the people in those geographic locations cannot afford the products that a fresh food-selling store would provide. This is also an automatic assumption of the projects, because the implication is ‘if these people had any money, they wouldn’t be living in the projects after all.’”
In capitalism, if the business doesn’t see lots of money, that business will not be inclined to “set up shop” in that area.
Just as there is a wealth gap, there is a gaping food gap.
But let's be clear: The food gap is just a symptom of a root crisis and this crisis is the wealth gap:
“Food’s Class Warfare” by Tracie McMillan (215)
One. How did Alice Waters paint herself as an out-of-touch elitist?
"If you can buy sneakers, you can afford to eat local and organic." She's so rich, she can't imagine what it's really like to be poor, so instead she gives this condescending lecture on nutrition.
Waters suggests that preferences and choices are the key to improving nutrition, but the problem is far more complex than that.
First, we look at "choice." Then we look at the food desert problem, which states the problem is less about choice and more about environment.
For McMillan, there is less a divide between choice and environment. The focus should be on education.
A lot of this education has to be focused on class consciousness.
Writing Prompt from Page 218
Both McMillan and Kristof (172) use their examinations of public attitudes toward food as a platform to argue for specific changes in our official food policy. How do these recommendations compare? Can you imagine Kristof citing points McMillan raises here as evidence or support for the argument he makes about food stamps? If so, how specifically?
Points That Both Authors Share
Both authors agree that elitists, those whose money makes a giant gulf between them and the poor, are out of touch with the poor’s suffering.
Both authors agree that the working poor struggle to get good meals on their plates.
Both would agree that food stamps coupled with nutritional education would help the poor make better food choices.
Both would agree that it’s unfair to cut food stamps for the poor while subsidizing the eating habits of the rich in terms of tax write-offs.
Writing an Essay About the Link Between Poverty and Obesity
How Economic Class Creates "Bad Decisions": Linda Tirado's Viral Post
There's no way to structure this coherently. They are random observations that might help explain the mental processes. But often, I think that we look at the academic problems of poverty and have no idea of the why. We know the what and the how, and we can see systemic problems, but it's rare to have a poor person actually explain it on their own behalf. So this is me doing that, sort of.
Rest is a luxury for the rich. I get up at 6AM, go to school (I have a full course load, but I only have to go to two in-person classes) then work, then I get the kids, then I pick up my husband, then I have half an hour to change and go to Job 2. I get home from that at around 12:30AM, then I have the rest of my classes and work to tend to. I'm in bed by 3. This isn't every day, I have two days off a week from each of my obligations. I use that time to clean the house and soothe Mr. Martini and see the kids for longer than an hour and catch up on schoolwork. Those nights I'm in bed by midnight, but if I go to bed too early I won't be able to stay up the other nights because I'll fuck my pattern up, and I drive an hour home from Job 2 so I can't afford to be sleepy. I never get a day off from work unless I am fairly sick. It doesn't leave you much room to think about what you are doing, only to attend to the next thing and the next. Planning isn't in the mix.
When I got pregnant the first time, I was living in a weekly motel. I had a minifridge with no freezer and a microwave. I was on WIC. I ate peanut butter from the jar and frozen burritos because they were 12/$2. Had I had a stove, I couldn't have made beef burritos that cheaply. And I needed the meat, I was pregnant. I might not have had any prenatal care, but I am intelligent enough to eat protein and iron whilst knocked up.
I know how to cook. I had to take Home Ec to graduate high school. Most people on my level didn't. Broccoli is intimidating. You have to have a working stove, and pots, and spices, and you'll have to do the dishes no matter how tired you are or they'll attract bugs. It is a huge new skill for a lot of people. That's not great, but it's true. And if you fuck it up, you could make your family sick. We have learned not to try too hard to be middle-class. It never works out well and always makes you feel worse for having tried and failed yet again. Better not to try. It makes more sense to get food that you know will be palatable and cheap and that keeps well. Junk food is a pleasure that we are allowed to have; why would we give that up? We have very few of them.
The closest Planned Parenthood to me is three hours. That's a lot of money in gas. Lots of women can't afford that, and even if you live near one you probably don't want to be seen coming in and out in a lot of areas. We're aware that we are not "having kids," we're "breeding." We have kids for much the same reasons that I imagine rich people do. Urge to propagate and all. Nobody likes poor people procreating, but they judge abortion even harder.
Convenience food is just that. And we are not allowed many conveniences. Especially since the Patriot Act passed, it's hard to get a bank account. But without one, you spend a lot of time figuring out where to cash a check and get money orders to pay bills. Most motels now have a no-credit-card-no-room policy. I wandered around SF for five hours in the rain once with nearly a thousand dollars on me and could not rent a room even if I gave them a $500 cash deposit and surrendered my cell phone to the desk to hold as surety.
Nobody gives enough thought to depression. You have to understand that we know that we will never not feel tired. We will never feel hopeful. We will never get a vacation. Ever. We know that the very act of being poor guarantees that we will never not be poor. It doesn't give us much reason to improve ourselves. We don't apply for jobs because we know we can't afford to look nice enough to hold them. I would make a super legal secretary, but I've been turned down more than once because I "don't fit the image of the firm," which is a nice way of saying "gtfo, pov." I am good enough to cook the food, hidden away in the kitchen, but my boss won't make me a server because I don't "fit the corporate image." I am not beautiful. I have missing teeth and skin that looks like it will when you live on B12 and coffee and nicotine and no sleep. Beauty is a thing you get when you can afford it, and that's how you get the job that you need in order to be beautiful. There isn't much point trying.
Cooking attracts roaches. Nobody realizes that. I've spent a lot of hours impaling roach bodies and leaving them out on toothpick pikes to discourage others from entering. It doesn't work, but is amusing.
"Free" only exists for rich people. It's great that there's a bowl of condoms at my school, but most poor people will never set foot on a college campus. We don't belong there. There's a clinic? Great! There's still a copay. We're not going. Besides, all they'll tell you at the clinic is that you need to see a specialist, which seriously? Might as well be located on Mars for how accessible it is. "Low-cost" and "sliding scale" sounds like "money you have to spend" to me, and they can't actually help you anyway.
I smoke. It's expensive. It's also the best option. You see, I am always, always exhausted. It's a stimulant. When I am too tired to walk one more step, I can smoke and go for another hour. When I am enraged and beaten down and incapable of accomplishing one more thing, I can smoke and I feel a little better, just for a minute. It is the only relaxation I am allowed. It is not a good decision, but it is the only one that I have access to. It is the only thing I have found that keeps me from collapsing or exploding.
I make a lot of poor financial decisions. None of them matter, in the long term. I will never not be poor, so what does it matter if I don't pay a thing and a half this week instead of just one thing? It's not like the sacrifice will result in improved circumstances; the thing holding me back isn't that I blow five bucks at Wendy's. It's that now that I have proven that I am a Poor Person that is all that I am or ever will be. It is not worth it to me to live a bleak life devoid of small pleasures so that one day I can make a single large purchase. I will never have large pleasures to hold on to. There's a certain pull to live what bits of life you can while there's money in your pocket, because no matter how responsible you are you will be broke in three days anyway. When you never have enough money it ceases to have meaning. I imagine having a lot of it is the same thing.
Poverty is bleak and cuts off your long-term brain. It's why you see people with four different babydaddies instead of one. You grab a bit of connection wherever you can to survive. You have no idea how strong the pull to feel worthwhile is. It's more basic than food. You go to these people who make you feel lovely for an hour that one time, and that's all you get. You're probably not compatible with them for anything long-term, but right this minute they can make you feel powerful and valuable. It does not matter what will happen in a month. Whatever happens in a month is probably going to be just about as indifferent as whatever happened today or last week. None of it matters. We don't plan long-term because if we do we'll just get our hearts broken. It's best not to hope. You just take what you can get as you spot it.
I am not asking for sympathy. I am just trying to explain, on a human level, how it is that people make what look from the outside like awful decisions. This is what our lives are like, and here are our defense mechanisms, and here is why we think differently. It's certainly self-defeating, but it's safer. That's all. I hope it helps make sense of it.
Additions have been made to the update below to reflect the responses received.
UPDATE: The response to this piece is overwhelming. I have had a lot of people ask to use my work. Please do. Share it with the world if you found value in it. Please link back if you can. If you are teaching, I am happy to discuss this with or clarify for you, and you can freely use this piece in your classes. Please do let me know where you teach. You can reach me on Twitter, @killermartinis. I set up an email at killermartinisbook@ gmail as well.
This piece has gone fully viral. People have been asking me to write, and how they can help. After enough people tried to send me paypal money, I set up a gofundme. Find it here. It promptly went insane. I have raised my typical yearly income as of this update. I have no idea what to say except thank you. I am going to speak with some money people who will make sure that I can't fuck this up, and I will use it to do good things with.
I've also set up a blog, which I hope you will find here.
Understand that I wrote this as an example of the thought process that we struggle with. Most of us are clinically depressed, and we do not get therapy and medication and support. We get told to get over it. And we find ways to cope. I am not saying that people live without hope entirely; that is not human nature. But these are the thoughts that are never too far away, that creep up on us every chance they get, that prey on our better judgement when we are tired and stressed and weakened. We maintain a constant vigil against these thoughts, because we are afraid that if we speak them aloud or even articulate them in our heads they will become unmanageably real.
Thank you for reading. I am glad people find value in it. Because I am getting tired of people not reading this and then commenting anyway, I am making a few things clear: not all of this piece is about me. That is why I said that they were observations. And this piece is not all of me: that is why I said that they were random observations rather than complete ones. If you really have to urge me to abort or keep my knees closed or wonder whether I can fax you my citizenship documents or if I really in fact have been poor because I know multisyllabic words, I would like to ask that you read the comments and see whether anyone has made your point in the particular fashion you intend to. It is not that I mind trolls so much, it's that they're getting repetitive and if you have to say nothing I hope you can at least do it in an entertaining fashion.
If, however, you simply are curious about something and actually want to have a conversation, I do not mind repeating myself because those conversations are valuable and not actually repetitive. They tend to be very specific to the asker, and I am happy to shed any light I can. I do not mind honest questions. They are why I wrote this piece.
Thank you all, so much. I don't know what life will look like next week, and for once that's a good thing. And I have you to thank.
"The Obesity-Hunger Paradox" by Sam Dolnick
One. What is the paradox?
The hungriest people in America are the most fat.
"Call it the Bronx paradox."
37% of people in the Bronx have ran short of funds to buy food. This is the highest in the country and double the national average, 18.5%.
When we run out of food money, we are called "food insecure."
Full service supermarkets are in short supply in inner cities.
Money is in short supply.
When you're food insecure, you try to fill your belly more than find optimal nutrition.
Poor people often work 3 or 4 jobs so they don't have time to prepare eating healthy meals. They "eat on the run."
Writing Prompt
Support, refute, or complicate the notion that poverty, not free choice, is the determining factor in "the obesity-hunger paradox."
McMahon Grammar Exercise: Essential and Nonessential Clauses
Circle the relative clause and indicate if it’s essential with a capital E or nonessential with a capital N. Then use commas where necessary.
One. I’m looking for a sugar substitute that doesn’t have dangerous side effects.
Two. Sugar substitutes which often contain additives can wreak havoc on the digestive and nervous system.
Three. The man who trains in the gym every day for five hours is setting himself up for a serious muscle injury.
Four. Cars that operate on small turbo engines don’t last as long as non-turbo automobiles.
Five. Tuna which contains high amounts of mercury should only be eaten once or twice a week.
Six. The store manager who took your order has been arrested for fraud.
Seven. The store manager Ron Cousins who is now seventy-five years old is contemplating retirement.
Eight. Magnus Mills’ Restraint of Beasts which is my favorite novel was runner up for the Booker Prize.
Nine. Parenthood which is a sort of priesthood for which there is no pay or appreciation raises stress and cortisol levels.
Ten. I need to find a college that specializes in my actuarial math major.
Eleven. UCLA which has a strong actuarial math program is my first choice.
Twelve. My first choice of car is the Lexus which was awarded top overall quality honors from Consumer Reports.
Thirteen. Mangoes which sometimes cause a rash on my lips and chin area are my favorite fruit.
Fourteen. A strange man whom I’ve never known came up to me and offered to give me his brand new Mercedes.
Fifteen. My girlfriend who was showing off her brand new red dress arrived two hours late to the birthday party.
Sixteen. Students who meticulously follow the MLA format rules have a greater chance at success.
Seventeen. The student who tormented himself with the thesis lesson for six hours found himself more confused than before he started.
Eighteen. There are several distinctions between an analytical and argumentative thesis which we need to familiarize ourselves with before we embark on the essay assignment.
Nineteen. The peach that has a worm burrowing through its rotted skin should probably be tossed in the garbage.
Twenty. Peaches, which I love to eat by the bucketful are on sale at the farmer’s market.
Twenty-one. Baseball which used to be America’s pastime is declining in popularity.
McMahon Grammar: Dangling Modifiers
Rewrite the following sentences to correct the dangling modifiers:
- Larded with greasy fries, the waiter served me a burnt steak.
2. Mr. McMahon returned her essay with a wide grin.
3. To finish by the 4 P.M. deadline, the computer keyboard blazed with the student's fast typing fingers.
4. Chocolate frosted with caramel sauce, John devoured the cupcakes.
5. Tapping the desk with his fingers, the school clock's hands moved too slowly before recess.
6. Showering the onion rings with garlic salt, his sodium count spiked.
7. The girl walked her poodle in high heels.
8. Struggling with the tight jeans, the fabric ripped and made an embarrassing sound.
9. Turning off the bedroom lights, the long, hard day finally came to an end.
10. Piled high above the wash machine, I decided I had better do a load of laundry.
11. Standing on the hotel balcony, the ocean view was stunning.
12. Running across the floor, the rug slipped and I collapsed.
13. Writing anxiously, the essay looked littered with errors.
14. Mortified by my loss to my opponents, my baseball uniform sagged.
15. Hungry after a day of football, the stack of peanut butter sandwiches on the table quickly disappeared.
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