LK Abitur 2008 I, Com­po­si­ti­on Topic 1

Can or should peo­p­le be forced to adopt a healt­hy lifestyle?

Big Fat Brother Is Watching You

You walk into McDo­nalds, head for the coun­ter and wait in line. You don’t have much time so you just want to grab some­thing quick. May­be a dou­ble quar­ter­poun­der with extra cheese and super size fries. Oh well, you haven’t had any­thing all day so make it two quar­ter­poun­ders. You order your meal and sit down to eat. Oh gosh, you like tho­se bur­gers! You open your mouth to take the first bite, eat your who­le meal in five minu­tes and … gain two more pounds! You’ve pro­ba­b­ly been in a situa­ti­on like this befo­re. You’ve had fast food and after­wards you feel crap­py. And you know why? Becau­se that’s just what you ate! Fast food and other unhe­alt­hy gro­ce­ries like micro­wa­ve food are cheap and quick ways to live a real­ly unhe­alt­hy life. So this kind of food should imme­dia­te­ly be pro­hi­bi­ted for the com­mon good, or shouldn’t it?

First of all, the who­le indus­tri­al sec­tor of con­ve­ni­ence and fast food would break down, or to put it right, would lob­by against this idea. And sin­ce they are a very powerful branch of eco­no­my, a law pro­hi­bi­ting fast food would never pass any vote. More and more peo­p­le buy their food, so why care about nut­ri­tio­nal facts? Nobo­dy reads tho­se charts any­ways. The govern­ment would lose enorm­ous amounts taxes.

Also, if the govern­ment would actual­ly pass a law like that, it would be sure that they wouldn’t be elec­ted again. Pro­hi­bi­ti­on of cer­tain food is not com­pa­ti­ble with basic human rights as self-deter­mi­na­ti­on and the­r­e­fo­re wouldn’t sur­vi­ve in a demo­cra­cy. Peo­p­le would go on the streets to pro­test, becau­se who knows, if they take away our food today, then what will they do tomorrow?

And final­ly, a law like that couldn’t be enforced at all, unless you’d install a came­ra in every house in the coun­try and have the nati­on under per­ma­nent sur­veil­lan­ce. If you pro­hi­bit fast food or even just limit how much peo­p­le may eat, they would sure find ways to do so secret­ly, just like Pro­hi­bi­ti­on in Ame­ri­ca in the 1920s showed.

So it would be healt­hy, but under no cir­cum­s­tances pos­si­ble, to force peo­p­le to adopt a healt­hy life­style. In a demo­cra­cy, every per­son is respon­si­ble for them­sel­ves and should be so. All that should be done is encou­ra­ge peo­p­le to eat more who­le food pro­ducts may­be with lower taxes or spe­cial bene­fits and estab­lish stric­ter direc­ti­ves for the pro­du­cers of fast food; may­be offer some free fit­ness trai­ning to every obe­se per­son. Becau­se after all, we want to eat good food, and if it’s healt­hy at the same time, that’s even bet­ter. And we don’t want big (fat) brot­her to watch us having lunch every day, do we?

Kom­men­tar

Mit über 450 Wör­tern natür­lich viel zu lang fürs Abitur. Vor allem Ein­lei­tung und Schluss könn­te / müss­te man deut­lich kürzen.

Die Über­schrift ist eine wit­zi­ge Kom­bi­na­ti­on aus „My Big Fat Greek Wed­ding“ und Orwell’s bekann­tem „Big Brot­her Is Wat­ching You“. Beson­ders gelun­gen ist der Rück­be­zug auf die Über­schrift im letz­ten Satz, ein per­fek­tes Bei­spiel für „a sen­se of clo­sure“.