Federal Government Should NOT Regulate the Fast Food Industry

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Recommended: About the impact of fast food

After Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser was published in 2001 and became a New York Times bestseller, the same titled movie and other food-related documentary movies such as “Super Size Me” (2004) and “Food Inc.” (2009) became smash hits, which may reflect the enhancement of people’s awareness of healthy food in last decade. However, the recent article of Time magazine online shows that today’s food situation does not seem to improve since then, it even got worse. Especially a social problem like a relation between child obesity and fast food draws more people’s attention and some kinds of legislation by the federal government is said to be required to stop the situation get worse (Melnick). There is something should be done by the federal government to solve this problem, but it does not need to get involved in legislating fast-food industry.

Policies of the federal government are good enough because they always affect private sectors strongly in direct or indirect ways. How the Government gets involved in fast-food industry can be seen in its recent political actions, for example, to school meals in order to solve a child obesity problem. In December 2010, President Obama signed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act to authorize funding for federal school meal and child nutrition programs and increase access to healthy food for low-income children with $10 billion budget increased for next 10 years (Office of Press Secretary). The budget will end up irrigating purveyors that can provide healthy food. All the food manufacturers and retailers will try to supply new meals that meet the requirements of the new policies, which will be done without any direct regulation against food industry. What the Government actually does in this ne...

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...HS and FTC Workshop. Institute of Medicine, the National Academies,15 Jul. 2005. Web. 14 Feb. 2011.

Lee, Jesse. “The President and First Lady on Child Nutrition Bill: “The Basic Nutrition They Need to Learn and Grow and to Pursue Their Dreams.”” Let’s Move Blog. Let’s Move!, United States, 13 Dec. 2010. Web. 14 Feb. 2011.

Let’s Move!. “About Let’s Move!.” United States, n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2011.

Melnick, Meredith. “Study: Fast-Food Advertisements Target Kids with Unehealthy Food, and It Works.” Time 8 Nov. 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2011.

Office of the Press Secretary. “Remarks by the President and Firs Lady at the Signing o the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.” The White House, United States, 13 Nov. 2010. Web. 14 Feb. 2011.

Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation. New York: Harper Perennial, 2005. Print.

Super Size Me. Dir. and Perf. Morgan Spurlock. Sony Pictures, 2004. DVD.

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