Health Effects Of Fast Food

Today marks the date of July 30th, 2015. We have Apple Watches, Google Glasses, High Definition TV’s, Gluten-Free food, and even dairy-free ice cream (Larsen). All of these items listed have helped us advance and improve life, here, in America. But, one thing that still holds us back from being healthy individuals is, the fast food industry. The main concern when eating a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder should be the health risks associated with it. It was “found that consumption of fast food more frequently than once a week increased the risk of being obese by 129 %” (Jaworowska et al. [Page 312]). Obesity has no one cause there is a mix of many different factors like behavior, genes and outside factors ("Division of Nutrition, Physical"). Behaviors affect your “diet patterns”, how much you exercise or how inactive you are ("Division of Nutrition, Physical"). Outside factors include our environment which can directly affect how much/little exercise is done. Another major outside factor is education, which can lead to poverty. ("Division of Nutrition, Physical"). If you

But, there are many other smaller health effects that having going to fast food restaurants have. Many times drinks, usually sodas, are filled with a lot of carbohydrates and empty calories (Pietrangelo). When your digestive system breaks down these carbohydrates they break off into small pieces of glucose which is then release into your blood stream (Pietrangelo). In response, insulin is released to lower your blood sugar. This is a normal process when eating carbohydrates. However, many “frequent spikes” can lead to type 2 diabetes (Pietrangelo). There was a study completed that showed that people who eat fast foods can be “linked to depression” (Pietrangelo). 51% of people who do consume fast food items have a higher chance to develop depression compared to “people who eat little to no fast food”