Fast Food Companies And Childhood Obesity

As mentioned before, the rise of the obesity health concern can be mainly be attributed to the aggressive marketing campaigns displayed by fast food companies. According to Barbra Fraser, a reporter from The Lancet Planetary Health Article, “Fast food companies promote sales by use of distorted truths in order to maintain their sales.”(Fraser). These half truths on their foods have brainwashed a large customer base that is addicted to their products. The fast food commercials are seen everywhere due to the amount of effort and money put into them. These advertisements are normally targeted at children, adolescents, and young adults who are normally more attracted to their content. They are more likely to be influenced by this content than

According to Cloud, a 15-year-old McDonald customer came to a conclusion that years of eating at the location every day, led him to a 400-lb body size; he is now suffering from diabetes (Cloud). This just goes to show how fast food companies are luring children and adults into eating thinking it’s ok, but in reality any normal 15 year old weighing 400 Lbs is simply not normal. Early on when fast food was first introduced there was little information then on the effects of fast food on the human body; that is when fast food companies took advantage of this and crammed false information into their marketing campaigns. It was later that studies related the rapid growth of obesity cases to frequent and unchecked fast food consumption. By then, it was too late to stop the rapid growth of the fast food

Obesity related problems are not only destructive to the patient, but expensive to the country’s healthcare system. Those suffering from obesity suffer complications that include: high blood pressure, heart disease, joint pain, diabetes, respiratory problems, metabolic syndrome, cancer, and various psychological effects. Obesity causes numerous health related complications and deaths each year. Zahra Bahadoran, a health specialist from Health Promotion Perspectives wrote in an article, “Frequent consumption of fast foods was accompanied with overweight and abdominal fat gain, impaired insulin and glucose homeostasis, lipid and lipoprotein disorders, induction of systemic inflammation and oxidative stress. ”(Bahadoran). This is something something a lot of people fail to realize until they are too far gone. There is even proven research which shows that digesting fast food long term is directly tied to weight gain. A US Cardia population study showed that, “frequent fast-food consumption is associated with weight gain and risk of insulin resistance over 15 years”(Astrup). Once people are used to the simplicity and fast pace of fast food, it gets hard to stop, it is almost as if people are getting addicted to fast foods. Especially in the present day with all this new technology everyone wants things faster, even