The Fast Food Epidemic

I understand a working parent has barely enough time to watch over every little detail in the kids life, but an effort should be made not only by the parent, but also by the fast-foods to take at least some of the responsibility for making schoolchildren, and not to mention Americans in general, overweight. Advertisement towards children should be to promote healthy eating, which it currently is, however not so much back in 2003 where, according to David Barboza's article “If You Pitch It, They Will Eat”, “Product tie-ins are everywhere.” This holds true to this day, McDonalds has toys with their happy meals from two popular kids shows. Power Rangers and My Little Pony, which appeal to young boys and girls who know of or watch the show. It is a marketing strategy, the kids see the toys and watch the show, which in turn makes them want the toys, making them want to watch the shows. Continuing in an endless loop that only benefits the shows and most of all the fast-food companies like McDonalds.

One reason why fast food affects society in a bad way is that they treat their workers unfairly and give them very little money, “Wages have not gone up for years and workers have been unhappy. In the last 25 years some companies and people at the top have

They also offer a false sense of control. You appear to have many choices - a Big Mac, a cheeseburger, a quarter pounder, a double quarter pounder or a "Big 'N' Tasty" - but they're all pre-packaged, frozen, pre-cooked hamburger. If you want to be radical, have fried chicken, fried fish pieces, even flatbread sandwiches. But you have no control over portion size, or the way your meal is cooked. One of the ways we learn who we are is by the choices we make. Americans let this happen. Now fast-food corporations are infiltrating our public schools, in the form of funds in exchange for advertising. The deliberate marketing soft drink and fast-food companies direct at the youngest of children is wrong. It seem that Americans have just become so used to the fact that McDonalds is always there for when they are running late and do not have time to fix dinner. Or to calm their children down if they are acting up. Fast food industries make it so easy for people to be lazy. The number of obese adults and children in America has risen directly alongside the increase of fast-food restaurants and has extracted high personal, physical, and financial cost to the nation. In the end Americans are like guinea pigs for the fast food industries, being used to see what they can do and how far they can go.

When the industry is looked at or discussed we thing of these as the big bad world, the ones that came thought our town tearing it all down as it went ignoring its people. Fast food dose not at its root “prey upon the poor and uneducated,” (Szwarc) but provides a simple fixed problem to an issue Americans are too busy to fix. With people so busy finding time to worry about your next cooked meal is all but impossible in this day and age. Poverty dose play a factor in the food consumption of fast food but people at all economic levels indulge in fast food and it should not be a reason for it to be condemned. With such crazy rise in the population of easy ready food available to us in American as of 2004 the nation was discovered to “eat 75 percent of our meals at home” (Szwarc). With portion sizes increasing when we eat at home vs what is bought from the outside, restaurants cannot be looked as a major factor of our overeating tendencies as a society. We have rid ourselves of this mindset that a specific type of food is the soul bringer of obesity in our life but look more at the ridiculous amount of food we digest on the premise of its

By doing this they have taken away children’s chances of being healthy in the long run because no child is going to want to eat a home packed lunch compared to a pizza from Pizza Hut or a burger from Burger King. “And as soon as fourth period ended, kids would leave campus for their Big Macs, McNuggets, and McFlurries.” (Schlosser&Wilson-P.204) This proves kids leave school to get fast food not to sit outside with friends and munch on a home meal. The fast food companies strategic thinking of restaurant placement is influencer to teens that’s hormones are out of

Mike Adams, a widely influential health advocate, once explained that, “Today, more than 95% of all chronic disease is caused by food choice, toxic food ingredients, nutritional deficiencies and lack of physical exercise,” (Group). Because people’s diets contribute so immensely to staying healthy, individuals should prioritize eating nutritious food. Unfortunately, more than 232 thousand fast food establishments thrive in the United States, and nearly half of Americans dine at these restaurants multiple times a week (Fast Food Eating Statistics). Because of the tempting flavors, immediate satisfaction, and economical prices, restaurants like McDonalds, Chick-fil-a, and Carl’s Jr. have become symbols of

One of the groups to blame for the epidemic in America is the food industries itself. The food industry is primarily interested in profit and would do anything to achieve it, not caring about our health. Shannon Brownlee a nationally known writer and essayist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, New York Times Magazine said, “Fast food marketing strategies, which make perfect sense from a business perspective, succeed only when they induce a substantial number of us to overeat” (Brownlee, Shannon. "It’s Portions Distortions That Make America Fat." Sacrament Bee, 5 Jan. 2003. Web). In Ms.Brownlee’s opinion fast food industries trick people to eat fast food by providing extraordinary deals, in order to make more profit. This worked because

The National Health and Nutrition Examination conducted a survey that found, more than 1 in 3 adults are considered to be obese and almost 1 in 6 children are considered to be obese in the United States. This very sad statistic is solely caused by the egotistical, greedy junk food industry that wants to make as much money as possible, while destroying public health at an incredibly fast rate. From ads to eating junk food there is almost a guarantee, that every day someone will come across an aspect of junk food. From the addictive tricks that companies use to lure consumers in, to horrible repercussion from eating junk food consistently, there is no way of avoiding the junk food epidemic that is plaguing the world. This issue has been shunned by most of the world and it’s finally time to shed some light on this issue and bring it to the attention of the world's population, so that they put all of this to an end.

Fast food is the reason to blame for obesity. Food made and prepared in a matter of minutes should certainly raise some flags. ---- Roberto De Vogli states in “”globesization’: ecological evidence on the relationship between fast food outlets and obesity among 26 advanced economies” that “ the diffusion of ‘fast food restaurants’ resulting from rapid global market integration (Hawkes 2009) and trade liberalization policies (Thow and Hawkes 2009) seems to be one of the key contributing factors behind the sharp rise in obesity”(395-396). Getting greasy foods for dirt cheap and consuming they quickly can certainly cause harm. Whereas the fast food industry is good for the economy, one can prevent obesity by using healthy eating habits given that one can avoid it by not eating fast food.

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

Furthermore the food choices in the public school system are not ideal, there are many unhealthy choices and most of their food are processed rather than freshly cooked. The McDonald account for 43% of fast food, they can be found everywhere, and high in fat and sugar; eating fat makes the cholesterol high, and put a person at risk of heart disease, average Americans take 5000 steps a day. McDonald also gets the kids through all the activities they have for kids, playground, happy meal, good birthday packages, toys to entice kids. In conclusion people do not want to take personal responsibilities, they tend to blame someone else for their unhealthy behavior. , all these franchises are businesses, they added extra unhealthy

While the idea of eating outside of the home has been around for a considerable length of time, the fast food industry as we probably am aware it didn 't get its begin until the post-WWII American financial blast. Americans started to spend increasingly and purchase more as the economy blasted and a society of consumerism blossomed. As an aftereffect of this new yearning to have everything, combined with the steps made by ladies while the men were away, both individuals from the family unit started to work outside the home. Eating out, which had beforehand been viewed as an extravagance, turned into a typical event and after that a need. Laborers, and working families, required snappy administration and modest nourishment for both lunch and supper. This need is the thing that drove the amazing accomplishment of the early fast food goliaths, which took into account the family on the go. As the fast food industry started booming, they were the main source of part time job for teenagers. In late 1970’s, a staggering one out of eight US citizens were employed by McDonalds. In the mid-1970s as the nourishment business extended it turned out to be more aggressive setting off the "Burger Wars" of the 80s and 90s. Toward the start of the 21st century the business sector experienced another seismic movement as espresso chains and quick causal eateries rose as genuine contenders to bigger fast food chains. Brands like Starbucks, Chipotle, and Panera were introduced into the industry.

Not a long time ago, I was a strong junk food consumer. McDonalds was my second home on the weekends when I demanded my dad to buy me kid's meal. In that time, I was not aware of how much I was hurting my body. Until one day, I said "no more" and took the initiative to work on my eating habits. Nowadays, I am informed of how dangerous the fast food can be. In fact, family relatives suffer from obesity due to eating fast food almost daily. Therefore, fast food restaurants should be accountable for peoples’ obesity problems because they have low nutritional products, cheap food which tempt consumers to buy more, and incent children and young adults with advertisings to consume their junk food.

It has gotten so bad that kids know the McDonalds mascot, Ronald McDonald instead of knowing historic people of the United States. Obesity has doubled for kids in the past 25 years and companies have done a great impact on reeling in kids through advertisements. Big companies don’t care what they are selling to our kids, they only care about how they could make more profit of their business and even though it’s mostly aimed to attract younger kids it also has ways of attracting other age groups by putting in games that makes anybody win such as monopoly. They will use different techniques to reel in more people by putting dollar menus, expanding their menus with new items such as slushy’s, and coupons with discount to their food. Coupons give an easy reason for customers to go in, and once inside they usually end up buying more than what they just had on their coupon.

What should a company do when its core product is considered “unhealthy” or even “harmful” by the public? Is it even possible for such a company survive and thrive; or will it have to shut down its business? McDonald’s fast food has for a long time been considered unhealthy by the public. In recent years, the health conscious trends have become increasingly popular. Moreover, many scientific studies and findings have surfaced and successfully confirmed that children’s increasing intake of fast food, which often contains high sodium content, sugars, saturated fats, and calories, for a long period of time would lead to childhood obesity. Moreover, obese children have a much higher risk of many health