Let Them Drink Water
- Daniel Engber
Summary
In "Let Them Drink Water!", the author Daniel Engber
writes that in 1942 Carlson suggested that they should impose a fee about
overweight. Now it's mentioned again. Though it's not accepted by the public,
it has an impact on people's life already. Then Daniel uses some facts to
support it. He gives an
example that junk food tax will be natural like cigarettes. After that,
he talks about the disadvantages of junk food by experts' ideas. He says that
junk food should be regarded as drugs and he tries to make a difference between
junk food and healthy food for people to choose. He also shows that imposing
fat tax is benefit to the poor because some people think that it's unfair to
poor people. So it's a way which can reduce obesity problems and increase the
government's income so that it can be used to solve other problems. Finally,
Daniel writes about the limitations of imposing the tax.
In Daniel Engber's, "Let Them Drink Water! What a Fat Tax
Really Means for America", is an article trying to tie people into the
idea of "fat tax." Since we are about to spend about $1 trillion on
health care on our second-most expensive war, Engber's explains to us how
commentators want to put tax on fat people and the junky foods and soft drinks
that we eat and drink every day. They are thinking of adding tax on junk foods
and soft drinks so that consumers will soon decrease their spending amounts on
these items and even make the people in America with "health, wealth, and
obesity." Obesity is a big problem in America and think that if they add
taxes to these junky items, people will not buy them as much and overeating and
diabetes rates will decline. Engber states that junk food is like cigarettes
and we can get addicted to them. We sometimes just eat for pleasure and this is
what makes us fat. Companies are trying to persuade the consumers to eat and
buy the products and design and make the foods look good for us to want it.
Engber thinks that these "sugar sweetened beverages are not necessary for
survival" and we could always just drink water which is free or little
cost and is not destructive like these other products we put into our bodies.
Raising taxes to these things will make people not want them and will help
people and their health. Daniel Engber explains that "fat tax" will
mostly affect "mostly the nonwhite people who drink a lot of soft drinks
and most sensitive to prices".
Question Answers
A. Comprehension :
Q.1. According to Engber, what is the public's attitude toward
taxing junk food and soda? How does he support this generalization?
ANSWER : Engber says
that people generally are wary of the "fat fax". He says that
legislation that has been implemented on the state level has not yet resulted
in reducing obesity, and that efforts to make such legislation effective on a
wider scale has received too much pushback to be implemented.
Q.2. Policymakers and public health experts who support taxing
junk food draw an analogy between junk food and cigarettes. According to
Engber, what redefinition does the analogy require?
ANSWER : Engber
says that for this analogy to work, junk food needs to be framed like a drug.
Junk food's ability to rewire the brain and to become truly addictive needs to
be emphasized.
Q.3. What does Engber find "ironic" about "so many
advocates for healthy eating"? In paragraph 10, Engber discusses the
organic food movement. How does he define its "central dogma"?
ANSWER : Engber says
that the "central dogma" of the organic food movement is that it's
possible to be a "foodie" and to be healthy at the same time; you
just must eat real and natural foods.
B. Purpose and Audience :
Q.1. What is Engber's purpose? Is he writing to change his
readers' minds, to propose a course of action, to influence public policy, to
inform his readers - or to provoke them? Explain.
ANSWER : Engber's
main purpose seems to be to change the way his readers think about the idea of
taxing soft drinks. He does not believe that there is a problem in regulating
potentially dangerous chemicals/behaviors, but wants his readers to recognize
the class issue at play with such regulations.
Q.2. Where does Engber think his audience stands on the issues he
discusses? Does he see them as knowledgeable or uninformed? Does he think they
are more likely to eat junk food or pain au levain? How can you tell?
ANSWER : Engber
seems to assume that his audience is familiar with the "fat tax"
proposals on a basic level, but that they have not thought about the
intricacies of the proposal in the same way that he has. He begins his essay
mostly neutral and informative, coming across as lightly skeptical of the
proposals he discusses; he shows that he understands the intentions of such
ideas. He continues to slowly bring up problems with such solutions, then
begins to discuss the problem with the double standard to which we hold foods.
He likely believes that some of his audience might fall into the "pain au
levain"-eaters he describes. He is quite focused on challenging the
commonly-held beliefs of this group, and likely does so because he believes
that he is writing to some of them.
Q.3. In paragraph 14, Engber notes a lack of clarity about the
effects of "sin taxes on behavior. How does this lack of clarity
strengthen his argument?
ANSWER : This
strengthen's Engber's point that such a tax might have little effect on obesity
rates and public health and serve only as a burden on the poor:
C. Style and structure :
Q.1. What is the purpose of paragraphs 2 and 3? Why are they
important to Engber's argument?
ANSWER : Paragraphs
2 and 3 serve to demonstrate how the proposals Engber discusses are being generally
received. This helps give the reader an idea of the scale and relevance of the
ideas he writes about.
Q.2. In paragraph 6, Eighner states his purpose: to record what he
has learned as a Dumpster diver. What additional purposes do you think he had
in setting his Ideas down on paper?
ANSWER : Eighner
likely wrote this essay largely as a form of self-expression; it serves as an
outlet for his creativity and his feelings during his homelessness. He also may
have written with the intention of lessening the stigmatization of
"dumpster divers" and to provoke empathy and understanding in the
reader.
Q.3. Engber ends his essay with a surprising analogy. What two
things is he comparing? Is this comparison logical? What point does it make?
ANSWER : Engber
compares taxing some addictive foods and not others has parallels to the
government giving significantly lighter prison sentences to cocaine dealers
when compared to crack dealers. This comparison makes sense. Both pomegranate
juice and soda contain enough sugar to be addictive in similar ways, but one is
more associated with the white and wealthy than the other. The same could be
said about cocaine and crack. He is pointing out how the law tends to punish
the poor for things that the wealthy are not punished equally for.
