David M.

Argument Essay

Critics argue that there are some health benefits in candies, but there really are not. Added sugar is not good for you no matter what you say. If you don't know where sugar can be found, look in candies. They are absolutely loaded with sugar. Guess how much sugar is in a York peppermint patty? 25 grams of sugar! That's like drinking a Coke. Did you know that in Africa there are cocoa farms where kids work for with no pay? Surprisingly,  some of the kids there are as young as five years old. There are so many flaws about eating candies. Another one is that you can get cavities from eating too much sugar. The number one main problem with kids’ tooth decay is that they had too much sugar. The cost of dental issues in 2009 was 30.6 billion dollars. That's crazy! Also, when you eat sugar, a chemical reaction is released called dopamine and dopamine is the part of sugar that makes you addicted and glucose is in sugar and that is the main source of our body’s energy. But there also is another part called fructose which is not important to the body at all, and it is not good for our bodies either because it can not be processed by the liver, so it acts like fat. It is clear that my side outweighs the other opposing sides because there are so many more important reasons why sugar is not good for you and these are just a few. These candy companies should not only shut down, but they also should apologise to all of the kids in Africa who are getting forced to work on their cocoa farms.

The first reason these candies should be discontinued is that all of the added sugar is very bad for our health. Can you imagine all of the added sugar we eat in a year? Just one York peppermint patty has 25 grams of sugar and we eat way more than just one peppermint patty per year. Research shows that these candies don't have all of the nutrients that we need to make our bodies strong. One peppermint patty had 25 grams of sugar when the American Heart Association recommends 4 grams. As a matter of fact, fructose cannot be processed by the liver so it acts like fat, but the body’s main form of energy is glucose.

The next reason these candies should be discontinued is that all of the sugar in candy is not good for our dental health. For example, if you eat too much sugar, you will get cavities. That’s why kids don’t want to go to the dentist--because they are afraid that they are going to have to get their tooth drilled. The main tooth decay problem with kids is that they are eating too much candy and getting Twizzlers stuck in their teeth. Amazingly, in 2009 the cost of kids’ dental problems was 30.6 billion dollars. That’s crazy because imagine all of the families who are not very rich and meanwhile they have to pay for all of the dental problems.

          Lastly, there are kids in Africa who are being forced to work on cocoa farms and they are not even getting paid. These are the cocoa farms where major candy companies like Hershey and Mars grow the cocoa for their chocolate products. On these farms, the kids are not allowed to go to school and they don’t even have any education. One fascinating thing about this is that the kids are from 5 years old to 16. Some of them probably won't go to college because there is not enough time to catch up on all of the work that they missed. You will be shocked to learn that next time you eat a chocolate bar there is a 70% chance that the chocolate that you are eating came from the kids in Africa working on the cocoa farm.

All of these candy companies may say that their candies are doing no harm to us, and while that may be true, just look at all of the people with type two diabetes. How did they get that from eating healthy foods? Probably not...but if they were to discontinue these candies none of these problems would have happened. Also, with Reese’s peanut butter there are some kids that are young and are allergic to peanut butter, so they could die. Also if I were to ask you if you have ever gotten a cavity, you probably will say that you have, and as stated before, the main problem in dental health with kids is from sugar.  The evidence is clear that it outweighs all of the other opposing sides because there are not as much health benefits as there are for how bad the added sugar is for you. There are just so many reasons why sugar is not good for you that it is impossible to prove this side wrong.