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fast food and its health effects
fast food and its health effects
effects of fast food consumption
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The Truth Behind Fast Food Consumption McDonalds chicken nuggets were my favorite meal as a kid. Theres nothing like getting a free toy and some greasy food. However, I 've gotten older and my palette has changed. As a kid I struggled with obesity and fast food was a major contributor. I now live in an area where fast food is really not an option. On the other hand, some Americans only option is fast food. Fast food has changed the face of the world. Major chains like McDonalds span all over the world. Fast food chains are continuing to grow despite numerous facts of their unhealthiness. Fast food has been proven to be a dangerous food source, yet people continue to purchase it. The more people buy fast food the more it allows the big corporations to grow. People continue to eat fast food because there are no other convenient options. The United States are …show more content…
Subway has just become the biggest fast food franchise in the United States. They advertise a healthy menu full of all natural ingredients. However a recent experiment by the Journal of Adolescent Health found people consume almost the same amount of calories at Subway as McDonalds (Lesser). Subway is not the only fast food advertising healthy options however. Despite the unhealthiness of fast food, these chains do offer some benefits. Natalie Stein,a writer for the live strong foundation, who focuses on weight loss and sports nutrition points out some crucial benefits of fast food. Stein acknowledges the convince of fast food in her article “What Are the Benefits of Fast Food?” She believes that having fast food restaurants on almost every corner is a good thing. This might be a good thing to some people, but what is too much? The conveyance of fast food chains has driven out grocery stores and ruined a chance at a healthy diet. With obesity growing in the United States maybe it’s time to rethink the actual conveyance of fast
‘Fast Food Nation’ by Eric Schlosser traces the history of fast food industry from old hot dog stands to the billion dollar franchise companies established as America spread its influence of quick, easy and greasy cuisine around the globe. It is a brilliant piece of investigative journalism that looks deep into the industries that have profited from the American agriculture business, while engaging in labor practices that are often shameful.
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
The obesity problem in this country has gotten worse, a lot worse, and the surge in obesity can be tied directly to fast food. I was appalled by the fact that since 1980 the number of people either fat of obese has doubled, and in that time frame there are twice as many overweight children and three times as many overweight adolescents. Looking strictly at the numbers, it is very easy to find a direct correlation between the number of overweight or obese individuals and the number of fast food establishments. However these fast food outlets are not created in a vacuum, they are servicing a demand. Each day one in four Americans visits a fast food restaurant. Our culture has evolved to one of immediate gratification, we want it convenient, and we want it now. The fast food industry has simply seized that cultural demand and has taken advantage of it all the way to the bank. I think we have a cultural weakness that looks for someone to blame for our problems and McDonalds certainly makes a nice target.
Fast food restaurants in America can be located on almost every street corner in almost every city. The enticing aroma of a burger and fries can be found at several locations in nearly every city, town, or suburb. According to Alaina Mcconnel, the 5 most popular fast food restaurants of 2011 are McDonalds, Subway, Starbucks, Wendy’s and Burger King (Mcconnell, A., & Bhasin, K., 2012). Fast food joints have a ruthless history of being fattening, greasy, and unhealthy with films like Super-Size me and Food Inc. giving the...
What is happening to our economy is that so many people are going to these fast food restaurants because they are basically on just about every corner. So, for adults that makes it easy if they didn’t have anything planned for dinner because they can just pick something up from the local fast food restaurant on their way home from work. Also, it is very cheap. For example, a bundle at McDonald’s can feed up to four people at one time and it only costs about fifteen dollars! So, in the long run, it is just easier to go pick up some fast food rather than wasting your time cooking an actual meal. Lastly, even though fast food is very cheap and on every corner, it is not healthy at all. Studies have proven that a person that ate McDonald’s for his meals for a full month ended up having some serious health changes. In conclusion, even though it is very easy to access and very cheap, fast food has some serious health issues and be very harmful.
She then claims that fast food should not be considered healthy based on the number of healthy options provided but rather on which food options the consumers regularly purchase. To support this claim she provides an example of Subway’s marketing strategy using Jared Fogle which rebranded the restaurant as a place for healthy food. She then compares the consumer purchases between Subway and McDonalds and claims that despite Subway’s brand image as “healthy,” the caloric content of their sandwiches is not significantly lower compared to the food at McDonalds. Therefore, while consumers have low calorie options, most of the food at Subway contain a significantly higher caloric content than the options highlighted in the marketing strategy. She concludes her argument by arguing that all of this evidence shows that there is no relationship between menu options and healthy eating at fast food restaurants. She suggest that people should focus on changing consumer reactions to fast food and therefore eat fast food less often rather than looking for fast food chains to provide more
Fast food has been part of life in the USA for over 60 years. It has become extremely popular by Americans simply for the convenience.
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.
Over the last three decades, fast food has infiltrated every nook and cranny of American society and has become nothing less than a revolutionary force in American life. Fast food has gained a great popularity among different age groups in different parts of the globe, becoming a favorite delicacy of both adults and children.
Fast food has infiltrated every nook and cranny of American society. Everywhere you turn you can see a fast food restaurant. An industry that modestly began with very few hot dog and hamburger vendors now has become a multi-international industry selling its products to paying customers. Fast food can be found anywhere imaginable. Fast food is now served at restaurants and drive-through, at stadiums, airports, schools all over the nation. Surprisingly fast food can even be found at hospital cafeterias. In the past, people in the United States used to eat healthier and prepared food with their families. Today, many young people prefer to eat fast food such as high fat hamburgers, French-fries, fried chicken, or pizza in fast
In addition to the addictive recipe that keeps people hooked on fast food, the actual recipe itself is unhealthy in a variety of ways. For example, it is common knowledge that real food rots, so it seems unlikely that McDonalds food can be healthy considering a hamburger “from 1999 [had] been sitting on a shelf for 14 years [without] a spot of mold or a single maggot” (Buczynski, 2015). The food itself is also shown to be incredible unhealthy, as revealed in a 2004 study published in “The Lancet” reading “eating more than twice per week at fast food restaurants is linked to significantly more weight gain over time than occasional visits” (Lee, 2009). Economists also calculated that “9th graders are at least 5.2 percent more likely to be obese
Fast food is everywhere in today’s world, there are now over 200,000 fast food restaurants in the United States alone and the industry is expected to continuously grow. Franchising was a leading cause of the growth of fast food and helped spread fast food restaurants all across the nation. There is no better example of a franchise as McDonalds, the restaurant was one of the earliest fast food chains to become a franchise on April 15th 1955. Eating fast food soon started to become a trend. The convenience of grabbing a quick meal for lunch or after work to bring home to their family was a hard option to pass up. The service was fast and in our society fast is usually viewed as better. The price of the food was another great plus, to many Americans buying a finished product compared to the expensive ingredients used in many recipes was the better option. America began to gradually eat out more often than cooking sit down meals at home and the fast food era began.
It is nearly impossible to turn on the television or radio and not be hit with advertisements introducing the latest fast food trend – fresh and healthy food options. More often, the media bombards us with slogans such as Subway’s common pitch to “eat fresh” or McDonald’s million-dollar advertisement campaign to try the new fruit and walnut salad. Attention has made an abrupt turn from the greasy, deep-fried originals at the fast food chains to more health conscious food choices. Even a documentary of a man named Morgan Spurlock made headlines and won awards when he ate McDonald’s three times a day for a month and publicized the effects through a movie called Super Size Me. Shortly after Super Size Me caught high publicity attention, McDonald’s has introduced three “garden fresh salads.” Other popular fast food chains were not far behind the healthy menu options McDonald’s has offered, and soon numerous salad, yogurt, fruit, and grilled chicken food items popped up on every fast food menu. The message is simple; people are becoming too fat due to the consumption of fast food. Therefore, obesity and the demand for fresh, quick food service have increased the popularity of health conscious food selections on fast food menus.
From the dollar menu, coupons and value meals, fast food is a cheap way to eat. Wendy’s fast food restaurant serves a small fry, drink, hamburger and four piece chicken nugget for four dollars or get any size drink and McDonalds for just one dollar. These low prices have driven many low income families to eat at fast food restaurants. Healthier foods tend to cost more which make them harder to buy. This goes beyond just low income families but coordinates with communities that are low income. There are low income communities that do not have big grocery stores where there is quality fresh produce. Families that live in these areas do not have much of a selection and most of the high quality food that’s available is normally expensive. Fast food is getting cheaper and “According to the researchers, in the 1930s, Americans spent one-quarter of their disposable income on food. By the 1950s, that had dropped to about one-fifth. The most recent research finds Americans now spend less than one-tenth of their money on food” (Firger). The amount people have to spend eating at a fast food restaurant has slowly decreased. Low income families are able to use the money saved eating at a fast food restaurant to pay bills. It is a lot cheaper and convenient to pick up something on the way home from work than to go to the store and purchase all
Fast food chains such as Mcdonalds, Burger King, and Wendy’s are selling many products that are nearly inedible due to the unhealthiness and even the presentation. The link between fast food consumption and obesity is causal. Obesity, especially during childhood, has both individual and environmental causes. It easily makes people feel bad about themselves, leading to unhappiness. As for the presentation, these fast food chains use 99% faux “food” in any advertisement. If you ever even tried to eat the food that looks appetising from their advertisements, you would be put in the hospital in a heart beat. The health and presentation involved in any fast food should be improved tremendously because of the mental and physical unhealthiness and misleading presentation.