Research Paper Example: Chocolate Does Not Equal Happiness

Chocolate. A sweet that brings to mind childhood and happiness, with emphasis on the latter. Each unwrapping reveals a joy-evoking bar, which naturally, should have aspects that reflect that—it ought to be healthy and humanely manufactured. However, on the contrary, a 13-year-old being forced into manual labor daily and diabetes are the reality behind its seemingly cheery exterior (Dunn 2, Marcus 4). The use of child labor in its production and its negative health effects means that chocolate does not equal happiness.

Chocolate indirectly causes the suffering of child laborers in its production. According to Is It Fair to Eat Chocolate? by Deborah Dunn, “about 300,000 children are forced to pick cocoa beans that will be sold to big chocolate companies like Nestle and Cargill. About 6,000 of these children are treated like slaves—they sleep in dirty rooms, work 12-hour days without pay, are fed very little, and are sometimes whipped” (3). Though consumers of chocolate may find joy in it, at least 6,000 children do not—being treated as if their human rights have been entirely disregarded by those around them does not make for so-called “happiness” (Dunn 3). Their overwhelming suffering outweighs the joy that could be found in chocolate by buyers. Also according to Dunn, these same children are forced to put their health at risk for their families, using sharp machetes and harmful pesticides to harvest cocoa beans just to barely get by at a fraction of $30 to $100 a year (2, 4). Being made to work a job that risks your life and otherwise starving to death along with your family is absolutely not something that produces happiness, but rather, it produces the opposite. According to a survey of 600 former migrant cocoa workers published in The Washington Post, “Traffickers typically offer the children, who could be as young as 10, money or more specific incentives, such as bicycles, to take the bus to Ivory Coast. About half of those interviewed said they were not free to return home, and more than two-thirds said they experienced physical violence or threats. Most had been looking for work, and some said the money they were promised was never paid” (Whoriskey, Siegel). This situation is essentially kidnapping—children are lured, whether it be using money or other incentives, to a specific location, in this case, a cocoa farm, and some are forced to stay there. Is what is essentially equivalent to kidnapping what “happiness” is? Can it be said that chocolate is happiness when children are placed in such horrid situations, some in violent ones, just to deliver an ounce of it to storefronts? Thus, due to their dangerous working conditions, measly pay, and the sheer volume of those working in these circumstances, child laborers are forced to go through innumerable hardships to produce chocolate, which is the source of their difficulties. 

Chocolate causes unhappiness through its negative effects on health. A study found “that people who ate two cocoa flavanol-enriched snack bars a day for six weeks had lower LDL, or bad, cholesterol levels by the study’s end...Diet-busting amounts of butter, sugar and cream, common in chocolate confections, can raise the risk for obesity, diabetes and tooth decay” (Marcus 1, 4). Bad cholesterol levels and increased risk for various health issues would mean worsened health, which would actually equal unhappiness rather than happiness. (add some more persuasive methods here like ethos and logos or whatever) According to the same article, “There are other health reasons to keep chocolate at a minimum, doctors say. For GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease) patients and other sufferers of chronic heartburn, chocolate can be irritating to the stomach and esophagus. And people who have heart arrhythmias should stay away from the caffeine in chocolate” (Marcus 6). Though these ailments only affect those with certain conditions, when paired with the aforementioned issues, they add up, producing even more negative effects for those with specific health conditions, decreasing their happiness further. Chocolate harms the human body in different ways, and as such, is detrimental to a person’s happiness.

Chocolate’s child laborers and negative health effects means it equals unhappiness. Some may argue that because chocolate contains substances that give it various health benefits, it, quite literally, equals happiness. However, though its health benefits may balance out with its health drawbacks, they still fall well short of making up for its negative effects on the health, both mental and physical, of hundreds of thousands of child laborers suffering behind the scenes of its production. Thus, chocolate does not equal happiness, both for the consumer and the worker. Despite this, the public will continue purchasing chocolate, some even while knowing of the truth behind its production and its effects on the body unless the stigma that chocolate is happiness is hopefully changed. Though with the spread of awareness about its drawbacks, chocolate’s reputation seems to be headed towards the truth of its unhappiness. 

Works Cited

Dunn, Deborah. “Is It Fair to Eat Chocolate?” Skipping Stones. Nov-Dec 2008. Digital. Marcus, Mary. “Dark Chocolate: A Bittersweet Pill to Take.” USA Today. December 18, 2006. Digital. 

Whoriskey, Peter and Rachel Siegel. “Hershey, Nestle and Mars Won't Promise Their Chocolate Is Free of Child Labor.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 5 June 2019,https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/business/hershey-nestle-mars-chocolate-child-labor-west-africa/.