What Responsibility Does A Corporation Have For The Health And Well-Being Of The Public? Critical Thinking

The health and well-being of the members of the public and the individuals across all age groups has been examined and it show that it's influenced by a broad range of factors which are within the control of the individual or outside. Outside their control lies the responsibility of the corporate towards the public health. According to the online journal by Michael, the rate of childhood obesity has been on the rise and all the challenges that it comes with. The answer to what action the food manufacturers should take as the people seek to demand for its accountability for the effect of their products on the public health must be answered. Doing nothing is something that should never be done. With the population of adults who are overweight exceeding half and people who can be described as obese being approximately 39million, food manufacturers carry the blame for the problem. For the children, since 1980 the rates of obesity had doubled with the cases of children who are considered to be obese nearing 12million. Food manufacturers and stakeholders like academia, and one of the Societies that deals with cancer in the society. Obesity had just been called the national epidemic by the secretary of agriculture. The paper seeks to analyze the responsibility of the corporate towards the public health and well-being. It further examines the responsibility of each individual towards their health and well- being.
The New York Magazine article by Michael presents a plan devised to address obesity threat in the contemporary society. In keeping with online journal by Michael, people have been discontented by the promotions and advertisements made the companies dealing with tobacco in regard to the behaviors of children for a long period of time. Nevertheless, there is nor visible action from people on promotions and advertisement that are made by the junk food manufacturers. Junk foods companies continue to pose a threat to the public health in a similar measure with the tobacco companies. As such, people can insist that the same steps taken by tobacco companies on the health of all the people ought to be taken by food companies on the poor diet competitors. Notably, the first significant step is having the top managements of these food manufacturers to acknowledge their responsibility. One must notes from the online journal by Michael comments that the food industry should utilize their resources including their nutritionists and scientists to be able to dig deeper to the understanding of what was driving Americans to overeat. As a result, it would now be very clear the role that drinks and packaged foods play in overconsumption of junk food. These food manufacturers would have no other option but to pull back on their use of sugar, salt and fat perhaps by imposing certain limits in the whole industry. However the problem is not just a matter of these three ingredients, the advertising schemes that food manufacturer use to advertise and market their products is also very critical. It may mean that there is a need to create a code to should steer the nutritional feature of food marketing, more so to children. The food industry should make a sincere effort to be part of the solution and by doing so; they will have helped to defuse the criticism that’s building against them and is all suggested by vice president of Kraft named Michael Mudd. A fundamental concept in the evolvement of marketing campaigns is that that kids are in control of their eating behavior. The adolescent psychologists should discover that it wasn’t the food in the trays that excited the kid but rather the feeling of power it brought to their lives which would be the greatest achievement of all.

Responsibility that people have on their health

Healy, on the other hand, indicates that if people can take the responsibility of taking snack in small amounts and only occasionally, the problem of obesity would not present the enormous problem as it does. However to some extent the public may be to blame for their predicaments and not only the food manufacturers. Here the author describe consumers as to possess irresolution and as people who can casually change their minds towards what they like and not fundamentally what is good. The acknowledgement of the fact that some consumers being worried about sugar while other is worried by fat shows what they like. As much as some food manufacturers such as General Mills have acted responsibly in the past to the public by offering products that satisfy dieters and other shoppers with products of low sugar, most consumers don’t seem to appreciate this but they tend to buy what they liked and majority of them like what taste good. A good number of typical consumers don’t want to hear about nutrition but rather about tastes which suggest that any stuff that tastes better will definitely sell itself. People have a responsibility of pointing to these things and complain if they got too much sugar or if they got too much salt. The manufacturer wills what the consumer wants, and since they are not putting a gun to their head to eat it, they will know what the consumer want. If they give what the consumer don’t want they will sell less and the competitor will get their market. So food manufacturer is sort of trapped. It will make them add more healthful ingredients. People should push and demand that the federal regulators to reclassify some ingredients such as salt as a risky food additive which will be subjected it to severe controls.
In conclusion, both the public and the food manufacturers have equal responsibilities towards the general health status of the public. The members of the public should actively engage in collaborative efforts with all government agencies, educational groups, religious organizations, businesses, associations, financing entities, elected officials, foundations and others to measure and assess their health status including the most prevalent and dangerous health concerns and problems, associated risk factors, underlying causes and the availability of resources that may be applied to improve the public health and well-being. They should embrace a healthy lifestyle. On the other hand the manufacturers have a responsibility to be accountable for their product and their effects thereof. Their role is much bigger in ensuring that as much as they provide what the consumer likes, that product is healthy and cannot kill the goose that lay for them the golden eggs.
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Works Cited

Michael, Moss. "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. N.p., 20 Feb. 2013. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.
Watters, Ethan. Crazy like us: the globalization of the American psyche. New York: Free Press, 2011. Print.