Fast food restaurants are on every street corner and they infest every city across the United States. Society relies on them for cheap, quick, and accessible food that is advertised as healthy and full of nutrients. However, the way fast food is portrayed and the ingredients that are used within the food is inconsistent. Modern day food industry is toxic, promotes unhealthy food and it plays a key role within the obesity rates in the country.
Fast food is a multi billion dollar industry that was first seen during the 1920s. It has come with a lot of negative aspects to it that have impacted American society and the environment in many different aspects. In the article, “Fast Food Is Harmful to People and the Planet” by Food Empowerment project,
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has grown from a $6 billion-a-year industry in 1970 into a corporate juggernaut with more than $170 billion in annual revenues today. Especially because "meat," dairy and eggs are the main ingredients in fast food, the exponential increase in its consumption has engendered a wide range of negative social impacts—including rapidly rising diet-related disease rates, worker exploitation, systemic animal abuse, and environmental degradation.” Furthermore, this is a very powerful industry that has a choke hold on America but it is affecting everyone today and it will continue into our future. First, toxicity is spread throughout our society in the form of fast food, and while it destroys our societies health it is harming the economy as well. In the article, Fast Food is Harmful to People and the Planet, it illustrates that: “Volumes of peer-reviewed scientific studies conclusively correlate the consumption of "meat" and other animal products with many of the deadliest medical disorders plaguing humankind today, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and …show more content…
Not only that but fast food contributes to the increasing obesity rates in America along with many other health problems that can originate from the food consumed by humans. Even though it may be convenient, effortless and appealing, the long term effects of fast food may be detrimental to the well being of the human body. Therefore, it is important to consume fast food in moderation while eating whole, nutrient dense foods that optimize everyone's health.
Works Cited
Food Empowerment Project. "Fast Food Is Harmful to People and the Planet." Fast Food, edited by Tamara Thompson, Greenhaven Press, 2015. At Issue. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/EJ3010311223/OVIC?u=azstatelibdev&sid=bookmark-OVIC&xid=b6c21858. Accessed 31 Mar. 2023. Originally published as "Fast Food,"2014.
Orciari, Megan. “Fast Food Companies Still Target Kids with Marketing for Unhealthy Products.” YaleNews, Greenhaven Press, 18 Nov. 2021, https://news.yale.edu/2013/11/04/fast-food-companies-still-target-kids-marketing-unhealthy-products.
"Preface to 'What Causes Obesity?'." Obesity, edited by Scott Barbour, Greenhaven Press, 2010. Opposing Viewpoints. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/EJ3010380134/OVIC?u=azstatelibdev&sid=bookmark-OVIC&xid=be9e7b85. Accessed 31 Mar.
It has become common today to dismiss how fast food affects health worldwide. In David Zinczenko’s article, “Don’t Blame the Eater,” he emphasizes that fast food chains are contributing to the ongoing concern of obesity in America. In discussion of obesity, one controversial issue in “Don’t Blame the Eater” has been that fast food chains do not combine calorie information with their advertising meals. On the one hand, he asserts his unfortunate encounter with fast food throughout his childhood to further highlight his standing against fast food chain commerce. On the other hand, Zinczenko argues that diabetes in children have had a significant increase in a decade due to fast food.
Companies have focused on trying to grow exponentially on their income rather than caring for their customers health. Consequently, this affects families with low income as their only escape is more calories for their children. He asks, “where, exactly, are consumers-particularly teenagers-supposed to find alternatives?” This question ask the readers as he raises the question of accessibility and affordable food. Fast-food is less expensive, faster to get, and simple to buy, perfect target for
“Don’t Blame the Eater” by David Zinczenko is an article that argues that the fast-food industry is at fault for the rising rates of obesity and health care, not the consumers because they advertise and market cheap meals without mentioning the negative nutrition information. It is in some ways no different than the tobacco industry, in which they sell cheap and unhealthy food without offering information that is easy to read and comprehend. Zinczenko claims that “Fast-food companies are marketing to children a product with proven health hazards and no warning labels” (464). The author insists that the fast-food industry is primarily at fault for the health problems related to obesity in the United States. This assertion seems legitimate and
“Don’t blame the Eater” is an essay written by David Zinczenko which claims that fast food restaurants are the source of obese children. Since Zinczenko’s food choices as a child were limited, he became an overweight 212 pound teenager because he would eat at fast-food venders twice a day (241). After his time in college, he joined the Navy and embraced a healthy lifestyle by getting involved in a health magazine (Zinczenko, 241). He believes that fast-food companies are “vulnerable,” and he warns the industries to protect their consumers because there will be kids launching lawsuits against them (Zinczenko 243). Zinczenko makes an excellent point about the need for nutritional labels on fast food items.
According to recent polls, approximately 3% of Americans admit to consuming fast-food at least once per day. This number, although it may appear small, it accounts for 9.5 million citizens across the United States who are unashamed of chowing down on a quick meal. Unfortunately, due to this consumerization, obesity and other like-minded illnesses have risen in recent years. The effects are costly and capable of making people pay the ultimate price: their life.
Both Editors David Zinczenko and Radley Balko offer different perspectives on how fast food has increase obesity in the united states and who is to blame Zinczenko contents the need to provide nutritional chart in fast food restaurant (392) while Balko argues that consumers need to become personally responsible for what they are consuming (397). In Zinczenko’s writing “Don’t Blame the Eater”, and Balko “What You Eat Is Your Business” while both agreeing that something has to change to reduce obesity in the United States, but at the same time have different views on how to approach the problem. Zinczenko argues the need for fast food industries to convey calorie labels similar to grocery items, and make them simpler for the consumer to understand (392). Balko judges the
Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser discusses how the American nation has been shaped and changed by fast food. The author takes something that is so American, fast food, and portrays to the reader the impact it has really had on American life and its culture. The author talks to multiple people who feel the negative impacts of the fast food industry and then goes more in depth about it. He relates life today to different time periods, such as the 1920s, great depression, and the industrial revolution. This book shows the read that in fact, history does repeat itself.
Zinczenko explains that in America today, the easiest food option to acquire is Fast food, as it is cheap and located virtually everywhere across the country. There are more fast food options than healthy foods. Healthy food is also more expensive, and low-income households can’t afford such expensive meal options. While fast food is more affordable to purchase, the health effects it has on the human body are detrimental. Obesity rates and diabetes seen in children have been on the rise since fast food companies have taken over the American adolescent diet.
More and more Americans are going to fast food and spending money so they don’t have to make dinner or other reasons of laziness. This says that Americans are accepting fast food as a main dish in the culture and eating it in place of regular meals in some cases. Eric Schlosser also states that America has become a “Fast Food Nation” (7), implying that society as a culture is dependent on the food that is provided to us through drive-through
No matter where people go, there are always a fast food restaurant or vending machines filled with unhealthy products everywhere. A Yale University psychology professor states, “While you’re pumping gas you punch in Fritos, the Twinkies and the Coke, and somebody brings it to your car. So the physical activity required to go in and get is eliminated.” (Murray). Fast food industries make it difficult to prevent obesity from local communities, since fast food restaurants are placed at every corner.
Schlosser provides a good argument with personal anecdotes and statistics that serve as solid support for his argument. However, his political bias against large corporations has overshadowed the benefits that these fast food industries actually give. In his book Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser fails to convince the readers of the perils of the fast food industry by disregarding the pros of the industry and manipulating the reader's emotions. First,
The book, Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser, is about “The Dark Side of the All-American Meal”. Fast food in America is not as good as it seems. Most customers don’t know that by eating this food, they are putting their health at a serious risk. You only see the good side of things, but never the bad. Fast food chains are now in control.
Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser, discusses the changes that the United States has gone through in recent years due to the development of fast food restaurants. Fast food places have led to Americans desiring more efficiency in their lives as well as changed many of the traditional values that Americans used to have, such as family and the role that youth play in the workplace. This book also agrees with what we have been learning in class about the fact that our industrialized food production has aided in our moving from dependency on others and family to being a highly individualized society. The efficient mechanisms by which fast food places run have drastically changed American values, economy, and health.
Junk food is responsible for the growing rate of obesity. This is outlined by David freedman in his article of “How junk food can end obesity.” David Freedman has credited the “health-food” motion, and followers of it along with Michel Pollan. Freedman claims that if the America desires to stop the obesity epidemic, or at least reduce its effects, they must shift to the fast meals and processed meals enterprise for assist, now not the “health-food” movement.
Fast food is considered popular because it 's convenient, it 's cheap, and it tastes good. But the real cost of eating fast food never appears on the menu. Fast food marketers marketing to children and adolescents has skyrocketed throughout the last century. According to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, funded by the government, "In the United States, the percentage of children and adolescents affected by obesity has more than tripled since the 1970 's" ("Healthy Schools"). In fact, this statistic is predicted to increase significantly as fast food restaurants are continuously being built everywhere in the U.S. Fast food restaurants are everywhere.