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Negative effects of fast foods on the youth of today
Negative effects of fast foods on the youth of today
Effects of the popularity of fast food on kids
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In recent years there has been a growing epidemic of obesity, especially in America. According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey posted on the Center for Disease Control website there are 12.5 million children from ages 2 through 19 that are obese. Many people are starting to complain that the commercials and ads for these restaurants are the result of such an incline in obesity. Although there have been current ad campaigns aiming at children to live a healthy life style there are still hundreds of advertisements that are putting restaurants in a sort of ultimatum position. Either restaurants change their advertisements or they improve their menus. In 1979 McDonalds debuted their world famous Happy Meals to the public. It included a hamburger, soft drink, French fries, and do not forget a toy, which the happy meals have become so famed for having. To this day McDonald's as well as Taco Bell, Burger King, and Wendy's all offer a kid's meal that accompanies a toy. Children of course don't seem to mind the free gift they receive with every meal; however parents are becoming enraged that the free toy is a lousy gimmick making kids unhealthy. Most of these advertisements use current children's movies and already existing toys. The ads are also not limited to games and prizes that are usually attached on the bag or box of the meal. Pretty much the more popular the toy the more likely children are going to ask their parents to buy the meal. Well some parents and advocates have had enough of the promotion of toys and have taken strides to no longer have toys in their child's meal. One county in particular, Santa Clara in California, has already started the movement to ban toys. In April of 2010 6 county officials vo...
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...move.gov/ ?
About McDonalds_2011. McDonald's Corporation. Web. 26 Apr 13 2011 http://www. aboutmcdonalds .com/ mcd
Fast Food facts_2011. Rudd Center. Web. 26 Apr 2011
http://fastfoodmarketing.org/ ?
10 Webley, Kayla. "A Brief History of McDonald's Happy Meal-TIME." Fri. 30 Apr 2010
5 Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews-TIME.com. Web. 27 Apr 2011. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599, 1986073,00.html
4 "Obesity and Overweight for Professionals: Childhood: Data |DNPAO| CDC." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Web. 27 Apr. 2011 http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/childhood/ data .html
9 "san Francisco Bans The Happy Meal." Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post. 2 Jan. 2011. 27 Apr. 2011.
8 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/02/san-francisco-happy-meal-ban- mcdonalds_n_777939.html
"Prevalence of Childhood and Adult Obesity in the United States, 2011-2012." JAMA Network. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Apr. 2014.
Obesity has been a common lifestyle in the lives of North Americans for many years. According to the Harvard Public School of Health, “the words overweight or obesity are ways to describe having too much body fat” (Cheung, 2016). Childhood obesity and adult obesity are different due to the growth rate of children. Childhood obesity has been a rising factor in today’s world. Obesity in children puts them at major risk for diseases such as cardiovascular disease and health problems earlier in age and well as mental health issues like anxiety and depression. Junk food or fast food marketing is one of the major reasons why childhood obesity is on the rise.There are many different aspects that have to do with childhood obesity such as genetics,
In the book Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser writes about the fast food industry. Schlosser tells the story of J.R. Simplot, the man behind McDonald’s source for potatoes. He started his own business right out of the eighth grade, after dropping out. He started out small but eventually became one of the riches men in America. He owned then 160 acres of land to start off this business. He sold his potatoes to companies at first all natural. But he soon discovered that if you dry out the food it will keep for longer, more companies then bought from him. Then in the 1950's he found out about freezing them, and the method of frozen food. McDonald’s started buying and selling Simplot fries. The customers seemed to like it, they didn't mind the change or even realize it. As a result though from freezing the potatoes, they lost a lot of the natural flavors. Companies began cooking their food in a high percentage of animal fat to capture that flavor, but soon they switched. They traded beef fat for more chemicals. The fries flavor all depends on the chemicals, it is all fake, and there is even more saturated fat from their fries than in their burgers.
Obesity is an epidemic in America, greatly impacting youth, the health care system, and economically vulnerable populations. Among all of the high-income countries in the world, obesity rates remain the highest in the US. According to Harvard, US obesity rates have more than doubled since 1980, although they have remained the same since 2003. (Harvard School of Public Health) Approximately 31.9% of children and adolescents from the ages of 2 to 19 are obese or overweight (NPLAN), while roughly 69% of adults fall into the category of overweight or obese. (Harvard School of Public Health) With obesity rates this high, America is facing a huge crisis that could become greater in the future. In order to understand the issue of Obesity in America it is important to evaluate the extent to which the problem effects large populations of children and adults and how the fast food industry has served as one of the major causes of this epidemic.
CDC – Obesity and Overweight. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 21 June 2010. Web. 26 July 2010. < http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/>.
"Unhappy Meals: Five McDonald's Items with More Fat and Calories than a Big Mac." PCRM. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Nov. 2013.
Fast food and obesity are like best friends. According to Josh Ozersky's article, "If you are trying to keep kids from eating fattening meals so as not to become big and fat themselves, arm-twisting McDonald's into making its Happy Meals less caloric (or kids into swapping the fries for apple slices) is one way to do it" ("Pint-Size Me"). Most...
Childhood obesity epidemic, one of the most detrimental disorders, has maximized social and economical challenges faced by Americans in the 21st century. The United States of America has been always placed in the top-10 most obese countries, a list not be so proud about. Poor dietary habits at school due to consumption of competitive, unhealthy foods have resulted in escalating obesity thereby influencing a student’s performance in and outside school. As a major problem’s solution lies within finding its root, schools with the aid of governmental organizations, non-profit organizations, and institutions, have started to provide valid solutions in an attempt to reverse this epidemic. For instance one major attempt, by the Center of Disease Control (CDC) and the State Board of Education, to alleviate this problem in schools was the introduction of ‘sin-tax’. Schools’ taxed students on purchasing sugar-sweetened beverages but that was not quite successful, as it did not stop the affluent students to purchase high calorific beverages and only targeted students with a low socio-economic background. Thus, the most influential solution implemented by these governmental organizations’ that is responsible for decreasing childhood obesity by quite a large factor is improving school meals by increasing the nutrition standard. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has taken mandatory mediation steps that involve eliminating the sales of competitive fast food and increasing the supply of high organic nutritious food that meets the USDA requirement thereby improving the nutrition standard. I believe schools, with the intervention of governmental agencies like the School Nutrition Dietary Assessment (SND...
"Obesity and Overweight for Childhood." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Web. 23 Apr. 2011.
It has been noticed throughout the running of McDonald’s that they tend to market to the eyes of children with Ronald McDonald as their notorious “spokesclown” that is recognized by 96% of American children. Also, in 1998, McDonald’s signed a long-term deal with the Walt Disney Company to include Disney merchandise as giveaways in its Happy Meals.
CDC Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Childhood Obesity Facts. http://www.cdc.gov Web. 05 Jan 2012
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) about “17% (or 12.5 million) of children and adolescents aged 2-19 years are obese” (Moreno et al., 2013 P.157). “Surveys administered in 1976-1980 and 2007-2008 show that the prevalence of obesity has changed from 6.5% to 19.6% among children 6-11 years old age and from 5.0% to 18.1% for those aged 12-19 years (Moreno et al., 2013 P.157).
Childhood obesity is a serious problem among American children. Some doctors are even calling childhood obesity an epidemic because of the large percentage of children being diagnosed each year as either overweight or obese. “According to DASH sixteen to thirty-three percent of American children each year is being told they are obese.” (Childhood Obesity) There is only a small percentage, approximately one percent, of those children who are obese due to physical or health related issues; although, a condition that is this serious, like obesity, could have been prevented. With close monitoring and choosing a healthier lifestyle there would be no reason to have such a high obesity rate in the United States (Caryn). Unfortunately, for these children that are now considered to be obese, they could possibly be facing some serious health conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes, and some types of cancers. All of these diseases have been linked to obesity through research. These children never asked for this to happen to them; however, it has happened, and now they will either live their entire life being obese, or they will be forced to reverse what has already been done (Childhood Obesity).
According to “Burger Battles” from the Weekly Reader, obesity is defined as a person whose weight is 20 percent higher than recommended for their height (Burger Battles 1). When this condition begins to affect children lives, it is then known as childhood obesity. Within the United States of America, around 15 percent of children are considered to be obese (Holguin 3). Increasing tremendously, this outbreak has actually tripled in the amount of obese teen and doubled in children up to the age of thirteen (Burger Battles 2). One of the factors that is usually overlooked in the cause for obesity is the role of television. Not only does it reduce the amount of physical activity, the advertisements and commercials are targeting innocent viewers. In a survey completed by Gary Ruskin of Commercial Alert, the average child watches nearly 19 hours and 40 minutes of television a week (Ruskin 2). With that amount of time spent watching television, advertisements for fast food will be entering the children’s minds.
CDC Grand Rounds: Childhood Obesity In the United States. (2011). MMWR: Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report, 60(2), 42-46.