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Negative effects of fast food on society
Contosummary research about fast food
Negative effects of fast food on society
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Over the last 50 years, the fast food industry did not only sold hamburgers and french fries. It has been a key factor for vast social changes throughout America. It has been responsible for breaking traditional American values and reinstating new social standards that specifically aims to benefit the industry’s growth. These social standards have inevitably changed the way the American youth respond to education and self-responsibility. Eric Schlosser, an author of Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, excellently uses logic to present the tactics used by the fast food industry to cheapen and promote labor along with the social changes that occurred in the American youth as a result. Schlosser aims to dismantle and dissect …show more content…
One of the first thing Schlosser address is work-related injuries. Schlosser states that more than “200,000 [tennagers] are injured on the job” (Schlosser 122). To the reader, this may be a large number, but in retrospect, it’s actually tiny. According to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, a report regarding workplace accidents in 1998 showed that a total of 5.9 million injuries was reported. In comparison, 200,000 only makes up 3.4% of the nationwide injuries making fast food restaurants relatively safe in that aspect. Schlosser misleads his audience by failing to give it a sense of scale or magnitude. Next, Schlosser concludes that due to the increased job opportunities for teenagers, as a result, fast food restaurants had become a target for robbers and other violent crimes. Schlosser backs up his statement through extreme examples of robbery cases and a few obscure statistical reports. First Schlosser lists numerous extreme examples of violent crime cases that resulted in a homicide. “A former cook… became a fast food serial killer, murdering two workers… three workers…” (Schlosser 127). Schlosser hopes that these examples will appeal to the emotions of the reader, in order to persuade that fast food restaurants had become a hub for violent crimes. While he lists many examples of this, these are individual cases that resonate a rather extreme case. Schlosser uses these example to visualize to the reader, that this is how most robberies end up when it isn't the case. The use of pathos in these examples exaggerate the problem beyond the actual scope. While this may be effective, it fails to provide complete transparency between the author and the audience. The statistical reports Schlosser offers are outdated, ones like “ In 1998, more
Section 1: Typically, we need a well-balanced meal to give us the energy to do day-to-day tasks and sometimes we aren’t able to get home cooked meals that are healthy and nutritious on a daily basis, due to the reasons of perhaps low income or your mom not being able to have the time to cook. People rely on fast food, because it’s quicker and always very convenient for full-time workers or anyone in general who just want a quick meal. Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation argues that Americans should change their nutritional behaviors. In his book, Schlosser inspects the social and economic penalties of the processes of one specific section of the American food system: the fast food industry. Schlosser details the stages of the fast food production process, like the farms, the slaughterhouse and processing plant, and the fast food franchise itself. Schlosser uses his skill as a journalist to bring together appropriate historical developments and trends, illustrative statistics, and telling stories about the lives of industry participants. Schlosser is troubled by our nation’s fast-food habit and the reasons Schlosser sees fast food as a national plague have more to do with the pure presence of the stuff — the way it has penetrated almost every feature of our culture, altering “not only the American food, but also our landscape, economy, staff, and popular culture. This book is about fast food, the values it represents, and the world it has made," writes Eric Schlosser in the introduction of his book. His argument against fast food is based on the evidence that "the real price never appears on the menu." The "real price," according to Schlosser, varieties from destroying small business, scattering pathogenic germs, abusing wor...
In the short story “Don’t Blame the Eater”, author David Zinczenko states that teenagers are the targeted consumers for fast-food restaurants, due to the fact that kids do not have alternatives options. The author says he “guarantees you’ll see one of our country’s more than 13,000 McDonalds restaurants”(Zinczenko 242), but no healthy grocery stores up the block where teenagers can purchase fruits. Because kids are eating excessive amounts of fast food in one-day, there has been an increase in weight even to the point of obesity, therefore, causing individuals to sue McDonalds company for making “them” fat.
Almost everyone, especially middle-class families, face financial struggles during their lifetimes. It mainly starts when the children grow older and most likely, will want to attend college. As soon as they are able to, students want to find a job, such as a fast-food job, to possibly take a load off of their parents or jump-start their independence. Amitai Etzioni, a very well-known educator amongst prestigious schools who has a Ph.D in Sociology from University of California, Berkeley, touches upon this subject. All throughout his essay, Etzioni uses multiple tactics to justify this opinion that teenagers working in fast-food chains affects their academics. In the essay titled, “Working at Mcdonald’s”, Etzioni claims that teenagers tend to focus on instant gratification from money instead of what could be beneficial in the long run along with the interference of fast-food jobs, that could be detrimental to their educational and work careers.
He describes the experience as such, “Pull open the glass door, feel the rush of cool air, walk in, get on line, study the backlit color photographs on the counter, place your order, hand over a few dollars, watch teenagers in uniforms pushing various buttons, and moments later take hold of a plastic tray full of food wrapped in colored paper and cardboard,” (Schlosser 9). Schlosser, using asyndeton, describes a typical experience in a fast food restaurant. He is more credible after this because the reader can now relate and imagine themselves in the situation, confirming that what has just been described is in fact, true. He further establishes credibility when he references Jim Hightower’s book, “Eat Your Heart Out” acknowledging that he is not an expert and relies on experts to back up his point. In “Eat Your Heart Out,” Hightower argues that “bigger is not better.” Schlosser backs up Hightower’s statement when he states that the fast food industry has grown and has taken much control over the nation’s food
Teenage workers are more likely to be untrained, and for this reason the job becomes more dangerous because the workers don’t know what they’re doing and could injure themselves by doing the wrong thing. Schlosser states, “The most common workplace injuries at fast food restaurants are slips, falls, strains, and burns” (Schlosser 83). While talking about the likelihood of injuries happening while working in a fast food restaurant, Schlosser mentions that armed robberies are more likely now in fast food restaurants than banks or even convenience stores (Schlosser 83). Although most of the robberies do not end with death, the chances of a violent crime in a fast food restaurant are high. Schlosser uses pathos because we view teenagers as innocent and as still being children, so we don’t want them to be in any danger. We feel sympathy for them because it’s unfair to have to work knowing that they are risking their safety. While the industries try to take action by “spending millions on new security measures,” the chances of a robbery happening are still
Chapter one of Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, a novel on the dark side of the “All-American Meal”, is about the rising of a fast food chain and how it revolutionized the food industry. The story opens with discussion of Carl N. Karcher, one of fast food’s pioneers. He quit school after eighth grade and moved out to California, where he began his own family. Carl bought a hotdog cart; and his wife Margaret sold hot dogs across the street from where Carl worked at a bakery. Carl eventually opened a Drive-In Barbeque restaurant. The McDonald brothers were also running their own restaurant, “McDonald’s Famous Hamburgers.” It was the McDonald brothers who began the Speedee Service System, “After visiting San Bernardino and seeing the long lines at McDonald’s, Carl Karcher went home to Anaheim and decided to open his own self-service restaurant.” ( 21). During this period many other fast-food places were started, such as: Dunkin’ Donuts, Taco Bell, and Wendy’s. According to Eric Schlosser, when asked about the changes in time Carl, who had grown up on a farm without running water or electricity, responded that he did not miss the old days. “I believe in progress” (28).
In Fast Food Nation, Schlosser goes beyond the facts that left many people’s eye wide opened. Throughout the book, Schlosser discusses several different topics including food-borne disease, near global obesity, animal abuse, political corruption, worksite danger. The book explains the origin of the all issues and how they have affected the American society in a certain way. This book started out by introducing the Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station beside the Colorado Springs, one of the fastest growing metropolitan economies in America. This part presents the whole book of facts on fast food industry. It talks about how Americans spend more money on fast food than any other personal consumption. To promote mass production and profits, industries like MacDonald, keep their labor and materials costs low. Average US worker get the lowest income paid by fast food restaurants, and these franchise chains produces about 90% of the nation’s new jobs. In the first chapter, he interviewed Carl N. Karcher, one of the fast food industry’s leade...
Fast Food Nation, written by Eric Schlosser, is a 276 page book that was published in New York in the year 2001. This book exquisitely describes the beginning of how fast food started and where it has led us today. Eric Schlosser shows the corporate greed and manipulation McDonald’s started, and later many restaurants followed which destroyed the health and wellness of millions. This book ultimately shows us where money can bring us and how peoples’ only concern is usually the money being put in their pocket.
Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson’s Chew On This explores the dark secrets of fast food. The authors first describe the background of fast food and their tactics with customers, and then elaborate on the impact of fast food on society today. Their view on fast food is a negative one: through describing various aspects of fast food, the authors ultimately reveal how the greediness of businessmen has caused the loss of individuality and the growth in power of corporations. They explain the effects of fast food on health, traditions, and animals, clearly showing fast food’s negative impact.
In the book Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser talks about the working conditions of fast food meat slaughterhouses. In the chapter “The Most Dangerous Job,” one of the workers, who despised his job, gave Schlosser an opportunity to walk through a slaughterhouse. As the author was progressed backwards through the slaughterhouse, he noticed how all the workers were sitting very close to each other with steel protective vests and knives. The workers were mainly young Latina women, who worked swiftly, accurately, while trying not to fall behind. Eric Schlosser explains how working in the slaughterhouses is the most dangerous profession – these poor working conditions and horrible treatment of employees in the plants are beyond comprehension to what we see in modern everyday jobs, a lifestyle most of us take for granted.
...es of cattle, which resulted in the increase of suicidal reports. Slaughterhouses and meatpacking companies have amplified the amount of cattle slaughtered each hour to fulfill the amount of meat consumed in the United States due to the cause of fast food. The damage that fast food had placed on illegal immigrant workers and sanitary workers that are employed in slaughterhouses are as much as murdering the men and women, minute by minute. The growth of fast food is too fast for our voices to be heard and fast food had implemented too much innovation in agriculture today for us to fix. We can still change the society that we live in today, as long as we withdraw our arrogant and selfish thoughts on fast food and think of ways to improve and recover what the fast food industry had done.
In the book Fast Food Nation: The Darks Side of the All-American Meal, Eric Schlosser claims that fast food impacts more than our eating habits, it impacts “…our economy, our culture, and our values”(3) . At the heart of Schlosser’s argument is that the entrepreneurial spirit —defined by hard work, innovation, and taking extraordinary risks— has nothing to do with the rise of the fast food empire and all its subsidiaries. In reality, the success of a fast food restaurant is contingent upon obtaining taxpayer money, avoiding government restraints, and indoctrinating its target audience from as young as possible. The resulting affordable, good-tasting, nostalgic, and addictive foods make it difficult to be reasonable about food choices, specifically in a fast food industry chiefly built by greedy executives.
In the article “The battle against fast food begins at home” by Daniel Weintraub claims that the parents are to blame for their own child's obesity. Also that fast food companies are not the ones to blame.
Fast food chains target marginalized groups to hire and take advantage of them. Companies target limited skill-sets and hire teenagers as a source of cheap labor. The workforces in the fast food industry rely on it to survive, many of them being illegal immigrants, disabled people, and the elderly. Workers in the slaughterhouses are considered “disposable” laborers that consist of untrained, poverty-stricken, illiterate people; fast food corporations can and will easily replace them if they are injured or killed with no sweat off their back (Schlosser 178). Many of them are underpaid, sometimes below the minimum wage of $7.25, and are treated unfairly; McDonald workers have filed lawsuits over hours being erased from their timecards, employers ordering them to work off the clock, and not being paid for overtime work (Greenhouse). Several fast food ...
In the nonfiction text, McJobs, by Eric Schlosser, the author takes the readers through a detailed passage about the advantages and disadvantages of fast food industries, eventually leaving the reader with a burning question in mind: does fast food affect society in a good or bad way? Clearly, the answer to this question is that fast food has a negative influence on society.