This obesity problem has been majorly affected by fast food restaurants. Since obesity is such a serious problem in America last year there was close to 300,000 deaths.(Is Obesity a Disease?) As the author for procon states “Obesity was the third leading cause of death in 2009”(Obesity.procon.org) This problem does not only kill people but it additionally affects many people in different ways.(Is Obesity a Disease?) In america all of the expenses for obesity add up to 147 billion dollars annually, plus the average human that is overweight ways 32.8 pounds more than the normal weight of a human being.(Is Obesity a Disease?) Also eating excessive amounts of fast food can seriously harm your body.(Is Obesity a Disease?) One way it can harm you is you can develop many varieties of diseases, as well as gaining numerous pounds of fat and weight.(Jaworowska) Fast food is bad for you because it is low density protein.(Jaworowska) This means you have to eat more food to gain energy, drawing you in to eat at a fast food restaurant.(Jaworowska) Even though these fast food restaurants are a huge factor in obesity, some of these restaurants are trying to fix the problem.(Jaworowska) For example Mcdonalds is being pressured into selling healthier foods and are required to post how many calories each food is on there
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.
Eating habits have become a cause of obesity because most people in America decide to take the fast route. Fast food has become so prevalent in the day to day lives of so many families and individuals. The cost and convenience of fast food has led to an increase in consumption, which does not help our cause. According to Carey Polis’ article in The Huffington Post, fast food is about $550 cheaper per year than choosing the healthy option. That means people are more likely to choose a cheeseburger from McDonald’s over fresh fruit and vegetables from the produce section at the grocery store. Along with how cheap it is to get our hands on fast food, the convenience makes it even more difficult to resist. With a fast food restaurant on every corner of every block in town, it makes it much easier for someone to pick up on a meal on their daily commute rather than actually trying to cook something healthy. Choosing fast food is not the most nutritious way to go either. Fast food is filled with sugar, fats, salts, and calories. It is usually low in nutrition and high in what are considered to be “empty” calories. By definition obesity is caused by the excess in...
Stronger regulatory rules need to be enforced by the government on fast food and junk food because the effects of unhealthy foods not only have a negative impact on Americans, but also on a global scale. It was reported on September 8, 2013 by news website, rt.com, that “from Mexico to Qatar, obesity rates are soaring to unprecedented levels. The alarming trend is damaging economic performance, as well as the health of millions of consumers worldwide.” Though fast food and junk food are factors to the rise in obesity rates, they are, however, not the only contributing factors to the increase of overweight people. Rt.com also states, “[take] our increasingly sedentary lifestyles, mix in a generous portion of American fast-food and dubious agricultural practices, add a dash of corporate duplicity and you have a recipe for high obesity rates across the planet.” Continuing this type of lifestyle could only lead to more negative outcomes and, possibly, to the destruction of everyone. The only way to make great changes is to start by making smaller changes.
In American society’s everyday busy life, fast food is a commonly consumed meal . You can drive down a single road and often find more than five fast food chains’ restaurants. In a society where people are always “on the go,” a cheeseburger meal with a large soda is very easy to grab, and inexpensive. Although people might think it’s just a hamburger and fries, do they really know what is in the food, and how it is going to affect their bodies. Fast food has become a dangerous billion dollar industry, and it is harmful for the consumers. Those who know the dangers need to inform the others that they are taking a risk by pulling into that drive through, and putting their health on the line. Fast food is harmful for an individual’s health
Obesity is very common in America, around 66% of American adults are overweight and nearly 33% are obese, which leads to heart disease, cancer, stroke and many other illness. Furthermore, the consume of fast food is in my opinion one of the worst decisions we can make, the food may be cheaper but it leads directly to overweight problems, and it not only damages our bodies but they undermine local business, farmers, and in the process they support they massive slaughter of animals. Ms. Lappe states “…modern livestock production has steered away toward the industrial-style production to highly destructive overgrazing “(858).By consuming food from fast food industries we support the destruction of lands, and the poor conditions in which the animals we consume are suffering. Moreover, changing from consuming fast food to healthier food is in my opinion a transition every individual should make since we cannot keep supporting the companies that literally destroy our world and our body with our
One thing almost any American can relate to is fast food. Statistics show that every day, 1 in 4 people eat fast food. Also, over the past thirty years, the prevalence of obesity and obesity-related diseases in the U.S. has risen sharply. Some consider that doing taxes is easier than eating healthy. Why is that? Has fast food taken over the health of America? Is the convenience of a McDonald’s restaurant on practically every street to blame? U.S. citizens should recognize what they are feeding themselves is hardly nutritious.
Obesity has become a growing problem in America. Approximately 2/3 of adults with another 17% of children/teens are obese.(1) That is nearly a 5% increase since 2000.(2) How has this come to be? The problem lies in the diet that the Americans have taken. With fast food chains taking over the food industry, everyone is getting lazier at cooking and eating healthy meals. With the daily lives of most people being busy due to work and the other chores, people are settling for fast food. Fast food has been rising in popularity because it saves a lot of time and is cheap. Lower and part of the middle class families cannot afford to buy all of the healthy foods. They can barely make meets end with most of the money going towards rent and bills so there is not enough money left to go grocery shopping and getting healthy food all the time.
America fuels itself on fast food. Fast food has become an american staple, and can be seen, heard, and smelled all over the United States. There are fast food restaurants in every major city as well as little towns. Big corporations expand their restaurants by advertising on the radio, tv, and billboards. And are able to bring in new customers coming back practically begging for more food. According to Food and Research Action Center, they estimate that about two-thirds of americans are either overweight or obese. A vast amount of our population is plagued by the rise of type two diabetes, heart disease, liver disease,
In the United States, there are many people who believe that if it wasn’t for fast food restaurants, they would be eating healthier and wouldn’t be overweight. People have even tried to sue fast food restaurants for their own self esteem issues. It’s ironic that people actually blame fast food restaurants, such as McDonald’s, for being obese. While fast food may be one of the contributors to the obesity outbreak, it certainly doesn’t stand alone. There are loads of reasons why people living in the United States are overweight. Some of these reasons involve dilemmas within the school arrangements, peer pressure, family genetics, educational issues, and even where a person lives. The National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion said that “Some illnesses may lead to obesity or weight gain. These may include Cushing's disease, and polycystic ovary syndrome. Drugs such as steroids and some antidepressants may also cause weight gain” (Overweight and Obesity, www.cdc.gov). Even though obesity has become a major problem in the United States today, the percentage in general, of obese human beings would definitely decrease if people would exercise more, eat healthier, and change their diets.
Eating fast food is all fun and games until someone tries to look down at their own feet and can hardly look over their stomach let alone bend their triple chin. It seems that too many people in the United States are being served platters of obesity; From Mcdonald’s to Chipotle, young adults are becoming too lazy or even too busy to make their own food at home, which has gradually caused America's obesity rate to double over the past forty years. It’s outstandingly even harder to make healthy choices when there’s a fast food restaurant planted on almost every street corner of America and claim that their food is that of nutritional value. Not only that, fast food companies often employ different marketing strategies to attract a wide variety
There has been a very big issue spotted in America and the problems name is obesity. The national Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases have shown that “more than 2 in 3 adults are considered to be overweight or obese,” in 2009-2010. It has become so intolerable that it has been claimed as a “widespread occurrence of a particular undesirable phenomenon.”(Oxford Dictionaries.) Other known as an epidemic. Many careless decisions and poor factors have triggered this problem such as: restaurant dining and fast food, living an inactive life and a person’s environment as well as their health.
Over the last few decades, obesity has been one of the major issues around the world that keeps on increasing. It has become one of the largest factors that people have to deal with, despite if they may not want to. We live in a world made up of fast food industries that basically run this world. Although fast food companies may not know, they are the primary cause of obesity.
$100 billion is the amount of money that Americans spend on fast food each year (Ichikawa). Americans spend less money on higher education, new cars, or computers when compared to fast food (Ichikawa). Fast food can be really harmful to a person’s health mainly because of its high calories content which can create obesity if it is consistently consumed (Food and Nutrition). It would take someone six hours to walk off a Big Mac and a large order of fries, so it must contain a lot of calories (Ichikawa). Fast food is number one cause of obesity, as a result of the high amount of calories and sodium.