Question：Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? The government is not doing
enough to educate people about the importance of good nutrition and healthy eating.
sample answer：
Throughout the world people are paying more and more attention to their health. They try to stay
healthy and fit, so they can work and enjoy life more energetically. However, often there is a lack of
knowledge about the right ways of achieving and maintaining a healthy life, especially in today’s world
where there is an increasing variety of choices when it comes to food and other nutritional products. In
my opinion the government is not doing a good job in this respect.
Firstly, in the school education system, there is little information about the knowledge of nutrition or
healthy diet. From elementary education to college education, students have been studying core subject
such as maths, English or physics, which are compulsory subjects mandated by the government. But
they have little chance to acquire knowledge that is directly related with their daily diet. For example,
high school students may be able to memorize the periodical table of elements, but they are unable to
tell which nutritional element can be found in which type of food. This, in a sense, is the fault of the
educational system that the government has designed.
Secondly, to the general public, I don’t think the government is doing a good job either. This can be
seen in the countless advertisements about food and drugs that are present on TV, in newspaper or
magazines. We can often find a piece of advertisement claiming how magical a type of food or drug is.
But often this is exaggerated or even false. As a result, the general public is confused about which food
is really healthy or which nutritional products are really helpful for them. The government should have
imposed a stronger censorship against these types of advertisement.
Finally, to some specific groups of people in the society, the government has ignored, sometimes
purposefully, their responsibility of educating them about healthy diet. Take cigarette smokers as an
example. As far as the cigarette industry is concerned, the government is obviously not doing what they
can to reduce the sales of cigarettes. I think this is because the government is not really willing to do
so, as this would significantly reduce the revenue of the government. A responsible government should
explicitly inform smokers that smoking is dangerous to people’s health and can lead to lung cancers
and other fatal diseases. However, currently, what we see is only a small warning printed on cigarette
packets. Smokers are already used to these warnings and have become insensitive to them. I think the
government should think about new ways of educating people of the dangers of smoking. The best way
is to ban the production and sales of cigarettes completely. I think the same argument goes for other
groups of people who are addicted to fast foods, or sweet foods, etc.
So in conclusion, there are many areas in which the government can do a better job in terms of
educating students, the general public, or specific groups of citizens about healthy life styles and the
dietary and nutritional knowledge associated with such life style.