Women’s Health

In his book Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, Eric Schlosser explores the intense focus of advertising directed toward children, with gimmicks, Pokemon and Ronald McDonald, and the marketing of ever-larger quantities of food items to children, i.e., Supersize and Big Gulp. This emphasis of ever increasing quantities of high fat and sugary foods has resulted in juvenile obesity, early on-set diabetes, and premature puberty in young girls (Book Notes). Not only is this intense form of advertising and marketing of high fat foods adversely affecting young girls, the effects are also being carried into adulthood and are becoming quite detrimental to women. These detrimental effects have caused vast concern amongst health professionals due to the huge drop in the age of young women starting menstruation and developing breasts. According to a website created by The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA): "One reason may be that animals are routinely given growth-hormones, antibiotics, and even pesticides, which remain in their flesh and are passed on to meat- eaters"(1). Eating meat has a negative effect on young girls and women of all ages for a variety of reasons. It is widely recognized that adopting a vegetarian or highly plant-based diet is one of the healthiest and most beneficial choices a woman can make in regards to her health.

In light of the connection between hormones in meat and the negative effects on young women Gary Null, author of The Vegetarian Handbook: Eating Right for Total Health writes "[h]ormones and tranquilizers are often used to fatten livestock and keep them calm, respectively. In people however, these drugs can be quite harmful"(161). The hormone d...

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...wn health, and will be knowledgeable in ways that will allow them to make the most beneficial choices for themselves and their children.

Works Cited

Akers, Keith. A Vegetarian Sourcebook: The Nutrition, Ecology, and Ethics of a Natural

Foods Diet. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1983. Book Notes. C-Span. July 7 2001.

Grossman M.D., Peggy. Personal interview. 05 Nov. 2001

Null, Gary. The Vegetarian Handbook: Eating Right for Total Health.

New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987.

PETA. “Vegetarianism: Eating for Life.” 13 Oct. 2001. PETA. 04 Nov. 2001

<http://www.peta.org/-31k.

Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal.

New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.

Weisenthal, Debra Blake. “Ovulation Observation.” Vegetarian Times.

03 Feb. 1995. 07 Nov. 2001. <http://www.findarticles.com/vegetariantimes/1995.