SWA13 (extra credit)

Chapter Six Carolina Reader: Questions Six and Seven
1. Wendy Shanker attempts to portray herself as a fat girl that doesn’t care that she’s fat. What she really comes across as is someone who is trying to portray herself as a fat girl that doesn’t care that she’s fat. I mean sure, it’s great to not be worried about being fat. It’s different to brag about how much you don’t care. The use of the word “girl” instead of “woman” just reminds me of how childish this idea really is (She says it’s to portray that “girl power” idea). Now, I’m not trying to say that we should all be ridiculously weight conscious, but no one should be content with being fat. It’s unhealthy both physically and mentally. No one should compromise what their ideal self is, especially in areas that are really so attainable as weight. The target audience is other fat people, and I’m sure she reached them with her “rah-rah” attitude and all that enthusiasm, but I hope, for the audience’s sake, that she didn’t break through, I hope that they are still looking out for themselves, and not letting themselves get overweight because some fat lady told them it was ok.
2. Eleanor Randolph’s proposals are very impressive in theory. Some of her ideas are good all around, as well as very executable. The stopping of junk food ads is certainly possible, at least those pointed towards children. Proselytizing healthy eating is ambiguous enough to be possible, you certainly wouldn’t be able to convert anywhere near everyone, but it couldn’t hurt. Banning junk food in schools is a great goal. School is a place where junk food is unnecessary, and even detrimental to the learning environment. Upgrading the school snack is a great idea. In theory. To actually accomplish this goal is just far too expensive of a goal to attempt to accomplish. A sin tax on fatty foods would simply find too much opposition to be an attainable goal. Stop subsidizing corn. This goal was almost offensive to me. Farmers support America. Period. Sure, they are helping o create the evil high fructose corn syrup, but to stop subsidizing corn is ridiculous, and would kill our country. Start subsidizing healthy food for poor people. Come on. Didn’t we just try to stop doing that with the corn? Labeling fast food would be a good goal. If it wasn’t already in effect. Go to McDonalds and ask for nutrition facts. They’ll give them to you. Just because it isn’t on the fry box doesn’t mean it isn’t available. If you want it, you can have it. A little initiative is all you need. Educate parents and teachers. This one is another expensive but attainable goal, it could certainly work if implemented properly. Increasing the presence of organized athletics in school is good, increasing required class time for gym is better. Organized sports are easy to get into if you’re willing to try. It’s all those kids that aren’t that need that increased gym class.