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Fast food causing obesity
Fast food causing obesity
The effect of fast food on health
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The 21st century is an era where people turn to a fast food restaurant when it is time to eat. Fast Food restaurants have one thing in common which is the quickest way to satisfy the body with food. A lot of people depend so much on fast food and don’t know it kills them faster than it feels up their stomachs. A few of us know that fast food is not the best thing out there to eat but that still will not stop us from having it. We all have different reasons to patronize fast food restaurant. It might be for a financial, addiction to oily food, or maybe it’s just the closest restaurant to us at that time. We have no idea of what we are being fed and that makes us make a bad decision in our daily intake of fast food. A person who feeds on fast food on a daily basis is obviously heading down the road to obesity, diabetes and high cholesterol rate in the body. Diabetes is the number seven cause of death in America. And in 2010, a number of six thousand and seventy-one people died from living with diabetes. Many people argue that fast food restaurants have really helped them save money and time, but still don’t ask …show more content…
People who choose to lose weight have a different calorie intake rate compare to those who want to gain either weight or muscles. Not controlling the source of food often makes some people eat more calories than planned. This is good for people who chose to gain weight but does not go well for people who plan to lose weight. Fast food restaurants do little or not to produce information on calorie intake for customers. People who love fast food say it is just a small meal. But no, one fast food meal may contain the whole amount of calories a person is to consume in a whole day. At what cost will it take to provide information on the box of each meal? For us to live a healthy life, we must learn to control what goes in our body, and fast food restaurant are not helping with
Throughout the United States many American’s go through and eat at fast food places such as, McDonalds, Burger King, and Jack ‘n the Box. Mainly unaware of the amount of weight one can gain if consuming it on a daily bases or even two times week, can cause health issues, diabetes and possibly obesity. This was the main premise for writer Dave Zinczenko essay Don’t Blame the Eater, who makes an argument that many people are becoming obese and diabetic because of the fast food they eat. He asks a regarding his concern; Shouldn 't we know better than to eat two meals a day in fast-food restaurants?, As a way to engage the general public, like parents and teenagers, he expresses his argument through his own experience when he was a teenager eating at fast food places and information on the fast food industry in regards to how many calories are in the food.
In David Zinczenko’s article “Don’t Blame the Eater,” Zinczenko explains that during his childhood, which was in the mid 1980’s, his parents split up and he lived with his mom. Her income was barely enough to pay the bills, so they lived paycheck to paycheck. Under this circumstance, fast food was the only foods that they could afford to buy in large quantities because it is generally cheaper than most other restaurants. Due to eating fast food for both lunch and dinner on a daily basis for his entire childhood, when he was 15 years old, Zinczenko weighed 212 pounds. He explains how Type 2 diabetes and the money spent to treat it has dramatically increased over the years, but takes most of the blame of the consumers by saying some fast food restaurants inaccurately or does not provide caloric labels and information. Zinczenko brought up the interesting points of financial hardships, fast food restaurants not providing nutritional information, and the fact that fast food restaurants can be found pretty much anywhere.
Zinczenko shares his personal story about how fast-food restaurants such as Taco Bell and McDonald’s led to a weight problem during his high-school years. He claims that the ease of accessibility and lack of healthy alternatives make it all too easy to fall into the cycle of unhealthy eating. Zinczenko also contends that the lack of nutrition labels on fast-food products leaves the consumer in the dark about what he or she is actually consuming. At the time Zinczenko wrote his article, fast-food restaurants were not willingly disclosing nutritional values of their products. Today this has changed. Fast-food companies, including McDonald’s, have put the full nutritional information of their products directly on the packaging and wrappers. All other fast-food establishments either post it on the menu board (Panera), offer easy access to pamphlets containing all nutritional information of their menu in store, or have it easily accessible online (Taco Bell, KFC). I am sure that this is a helpful step forward toward educating the public as to what they are consuming, but has this new knowledge to consumers had a dramatic change toward ending obesity? No. People have always known that eating a Big Mac and fries with the giant soft drinks that McDonald’s and other chains offer is not healthy; putting the nutritional labels on these items has done little to nothing to stop people from eating these high-calorie meals. This again leads back to the point that people as consumers need to be more accountable to themselves and stop blaming others for what they willingly choose to put in their
Common sense seems to dictate that fast food is bad for you, however, many Americans consume fast food on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis. In “Don’t Blame the Eater,” David Zinczenko argues that fast-food companies and the food industry are to blame for America’s obesity epidemic, essentially that it is not the individuals fault for becoming obese, and that in essence, fast-food companies ought to take responsibility for the health issues induced by consuming the food. He explains how bombarded you are with unhealthy, greasy, and fattening food everywhere you look; whereas it is much more difficult to access healthy alternatives. He describes the vicious cycle of purchasing cheap ailing meals, rather
Like the vast majority of Americans, I’ve eaten at a fast food restaurant before. Maybe the tables were sticky, or chicken was suspiciously white, but the fries tasted great, so I’d overlook the less enjoyable aspects of my experience. After reading Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, I understand that isn’t an option anymore. In ways both big and small, the fast food industry exerts a ridiculous amount of power over the American consumer, and it’s imperative that this be understood, should any impactful changes be made. As it stands now, the fast food industry is in dire need of reform, as it poses innumerable health and societal risks to the country and the world.
Millions of American people buy fast food every day without thinking about where, how and why. The ramifications of fast food is impacting the American people both around the waist line and the community where they live at. “As the old saying goes: you are what you eat.” (Schlosser) The customer have made the choices to eat fast food or not. The industry doesn’t care about the customers; studies have shown that the fast food industry is the reason for the rise of American obesity. “Live fast and die young” (Moore); this could not be more true when looking at the impact of the fast food industry.
However, when creating fast food restaurants, the industries were not thinking about the negative effects such as obesity. Other than obesity, other harmful effects exist as well. Fast food restaurants serve unhealthy products such as greasy foods and artificial meat that lead to dietary health issues in many adults and children. A recent study showed that “Young children who are fed processed, nutrient-poor foods are likely to become unhealthy teenagers, and eventually unhealthy adults. Now twenty-three percent of teens in the U.S. are pre-diabetic or diabetic, 22% have high or borderline high LDL cholesterol levels, and 14% have hypertension or prehypertension”
In the article, “Don’t Blame the Eater,” David Zinczenko discusses the damaging effects of fast-food restaurants on the young population. He uses factual evidence about the increase in Type 2 diabetes rates in children and adolescents who are obese. Zinczenko provides a refreshing and unique standpoint on the issue; most people blame consumers for choosing to eat fast food. He explains that it is not the fault of people for eating fast food, but it is the responsibility of fast-food restaurants to provide healthy alternatives and accurate nutrition information.
Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser, is a stark and unrelenting look into the fast food industry that has ingrained itself in not only American culture, but in many cultures around the world. There is almost no place on earth that the golden arches has not entered. Aside from Antarctica, there is a McDonalds on every continent, and the number of countries that have fast food restaurants is growing on a daily basis. Schlosser describes in detail what happens behind the scenes, before the hamburger and fries come wrapped in environmentally safe paper and are consumed by millions of people daily.
Every month, at least ninety percent of Americans visit a fast food restaurant and about forty- five percent of them make it a weekly occurrence. These statistics make it safe to say Americans are obsessed with fast food, but why are Americans addicted to these restaurants? Is it the low prices, quick service or the taste of the food? According to Eric Schlosser, the author of Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side off the All-American Meal, he believes “It’s easy, it's filling, and it's convenient and inexpensive.” Therefore, the consumption of fast food is now directly correlated to the obesity epidemic in America. Consequently, the recent obesity increase in the United States has labeled America the fattest country.
As of a 2011 report, two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese, along with one-third of children and teens. Being overweight places you at higher risk for diseases and health issues such as type 2 diabetes. Starting to see how this could be a problem? It gets worse. In addition to human health problems, the production of fast food is
Even though fast food restaurants are fast and quick in an emergency, getting rid of fast food should lower the over population of overweight people. Provided fast food restaurants usually don’t use real meat, and without real meat there are more fats and preservatives than our body needs. At HELPGUIDE.org they say that just one meal at a fast food restaurant can hold enough calories, sodium, and fat for that entire day! (Paul and Robinson 1) Not only are they unhealthy, but they are unclean. An illustration is that when you go to get your drink, look up the ice dispenser. Many times there will be mold. There is a way to eat healthier at a fast food restaurant, but it will not be as enticing.
It was a cruel rainy day in Wichita, Kansas in the year of 1921. Edgar “Billy” Ingram, former reporter, and Walter Anderson, short order cook, made a decision to change the lives of the people in America for the next ninety years and many more to come. They took a pair of scissors and cut the red ribbon to the first ever fast food joint in history, known as White Castle. After that, White Castle was only one of many restaurants built throughout America. From the first McDonald's built in 1955 to the first Wendy’s in 1969.
“We need to teach our children to eat real food. No fast foods. No junk foods. No processed foods. Just honest, nutritious, real food.” As the years go by many more people are becoming obese because they consume too much fast food. People need to get in habits to cook at home rather than eating out everyday for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. People in this world are now always trying to look for the easy way out of things. Eating out at a fast food restaurant is not a healthy meal to eat. We the people need to avoid the fast food restaurants and stop being lazy and have home cooked meals everyday. Although fast food is convenient for everyone, it causes obesity and consuming too much fast food can lead to type 2 diabetes.
The convenience of fast-food comes along with many drawbacks in its wake. Firstly, fast-food has a detrimental effect on health. Being high in salt, fat, and calories, makes fast-food one of the greatest contributors to obesity in America. Obesity in turn, leads to cardiovascular illnesses, high blood pressure, and disease in joints. In fact, studies show that 13% of the population living in walking distance from a fast-food restaurant has a higher risk of suffering from strokes than those further away. Aside from being unhealthy, eating at fast-food restaurants is disadvantageous financially as well. Although fast-food is considered economical for the individual, it is very expensive for families, as the larger the group, the higher the price. An occasional meal at a fast-food eatery isn’t terribly costly, but frequent outings quickly rake up a large bill. However, despite this awareness, statistics prove that over 50,000,000 Americans still utilize the conveniences of fast-food restaurants, adding up to 110 billion dollars a year spent in such places. Furthermore, fast-food ultimately results in a breakdown within the fortitude of family structure. Traditionally, meal time at home was establishe...