Final Portfolio

 The Fast Food Epidemic

 Everywhere you look across the U.S.A. I guarantee you will find a growing number of fat people. I've eaten fast food avidly all my life and thankfully I've stayed fit. Someday this indulgence in unhealthy, cheap, and factory-processed food may catch up to me. However for many Americans this glutinous lust has not only caught up to them, but also won the race. According to the Surgeon General, 1 and 8 American deaths are caused by obesity related illness. These startling figures lead me to the question; why are Americans getting fat and dying like never before? I believe the food industry plays a crucial role in the United State's obesity epidemic.

The United States average Body Mass Index has been increasing steadily since the early 1900’s just as the average lifespan has increased. Throughout history the wealthy have generally been plump due to their lavish living standards. But in today’s culture "skinny" is in, so the growing number of obese Americans should seem odd. A major problem throughout history has been people dieing of being malnourished, in modern America the tables have turned; now we die from too much food! American society has progressed in such a way that citizens can live lavish high calorie lifestyles similar to the diets of ancient wealthy and plump noblemen, however this empty calorie lifestyle flourishes throughout the modern general population.

This increase in Body Mass Index is the result of an evolution of American society. We are becoming bigger simply because our calorie intake is increasing. In her obesity viewpoints article Laura K. Egendorf states that “on average, Americans are eating about 200 calories more each day than they did in the 1970’s”. This leads to the mystery of were these calories are coming from? According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals “Americans are not eating bigger breakfasts, lunches, or dinners- but they are noshing and nibbling like never before”.  We have become a snacking nation, adding countless empty calories into our diets.


America’s relative food costs have steadily decreased from the early 1920’s. The USDA’s Economic Research Service states that “In 1929, families spent 23.5 percent of their income on food. In 1961, they spent 17 percent. By 2010, American families could spend just 10 percent of their income on food.” Americans can now purchase more food for less money because the costs of production have decreased. With food being mass produced and highly processed in factories, production is larger and consequently cheaper than ever before, but this so called “efficiency” is sacrificing the overall nutritional value and healthiness that an unprocessed meal can provide. With the American lifestyle, food has become a secondary thought. It has become so readily available for the majority of the citizens that we have steadily increased the amount we consume through snacking on the abundance of foods, healthy and unhealthy. Obviously those who live a sedentary lifestyle with a copious amount of calories and food choices are more than likely to become obese.

While the typical American lifestyle may seem like it is setting people up to become obese, many argue that fast food corporations are a major contributing factor in the obesity epidemic. Multiple studies have been done in the attempt to fully link fast food consumption to increasing obesity risk. One major linking factor is the fact that people living in a close proximity to fast food restaurants are at a higher risk for increased weight gain. A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research surveyed ninth graders to find those “whose schools are within a block of a fast-food outlet are more likely to be obese than students whose schools are a quarter of a mile or more away.” This shows that when highly convenient and readily available fast food consumption increases obesity risk. Multiple other surveys and statistics have been compiled all linking living in a close proximity to a fast food facility with higher obesity and weight gain statistics. Through clever advertising campaigns fast food has successfully been integrated and accepted into American culture and society. Most Americans seem to ignore the fact that fast food consumption can significantly increase the risk of becoming overweight or obese.

Fast Food corporations are pulling off one big cover-up. Behind the enticing masks of corporate branding and genius advertisement the fast food corporations have successfully downplayed the harmful/unhealthy aspects of their products. Fast Food corporations accomplish these diversions by advertising seemingly healthier options like salads, toys/endorsements/corporate branding to attract children, sex to entice adults, and multiple other methods to draw away from the fact that fast food products are unhealthy. McDonald’s Happy Meals are marketed towards kids, but do kids actually buy Happy Meals? The kids see the newest corporate sponsored toy from a McDonald’s ad on their favorite TV show, they urge their parents to get them this toy because they have seen it in countless other product placement integrations. The parent decides that they could get a meal for their child and it would come with a toy from their child’s current favorite fad, saving a trip to the toy store, all for the great bargain of under five dollars and you don’t even have to leave the car! Throughout this whole scenario the adult making the purchasing decisions is less concerned about what they are actually feeding their child and more concerned with the money and time they are saving, all the while making their kid happy and integrating and accustoming them into the “fast food nation”.

When will America wake up? When will we realize we're being duped? When will we realize that fast and poorly made food makes us fat?

The fact of the matter is that Americans are becoming fatter. With an increase in calorie intake, abundance of unhealthy and processed food, and increasing amount of people living sedentary lifestyles the epidemic is growing. 30.6 percent of the general American populous is considered obese and over 50 percent of America is over the healthy weight limit (AKA overweight). While there are multiple factors that can possibly contribute to obesity risk, one thing is certain. America is facing a growing epidemic of unhealthiness.

Fast Food businesses have been highly successful at marketing towards the American masses of every race, generation, and social status. They have advertised their products as cheap, good tasting, and associate it with fun. However, the nutritional facts of their generally unhealthy products are understated and “healthier choice” items are overstated to make fast food in general seem healthier/less harmful. Fast food is in fact unhealthy, confirmed in a US Department of Agriculture survey USDA- Let's Eat Out. With increased workweek hours and the ever-increasing number of fast food restaurants, multiple different types of Americans are finding it more and more convenient to spend less time pursuing healthy options and take the fast track of the drive-thru. Through clever advertising campaigns fast food has successfully been integrated and accepted into American culture and society, despite the fact that fast food consumption can significantly increase the risk of becoming overweight or obese.

Since Junior High, when I first saw Morgan Spurlock’s biographical documentary Super Size Me, I’ve been becoming more aware of the atrocities committed by food industry. In other words, now I’ve come to the vast realization that most of the things I’ve been eating are gross, over-processed, and factory-farmed. Growing up in the Eco-conscious (while others say hippy) community of Santa Cruz; I’ve constantly been tormented for not only enjoying but also eating fast food regularly. I was always attracted to fast food as a kid, and I thought of it as a treat or a reward with my Happy Meal and toy. When I outgrew the Happy Meal, I still strangely craved the salty, greasy taste. The catchy advertising and marketing stuck with me from when I was a small child and continue today to bombard me with thoughts of fast food constantly. So I continue to eat it.

Presently, I’m more attracted to the cheap and fast convenience of it all. Even now that I’ve learned what is inside a factory farmed hamburger patty, inside a chicken nugget, I still crave this food deep down and reluctantly return to these establishments to get my fix. I think through years of exposure to advertisement and marketing I’ve been subliminally hooked on fast food and the nostalgic sense it brings me back to my childhood. Hopefully one day, perhaps through education, I may be truly grossed out enough to break my addiction to fast food.

Jonathan Safran Foer's non-fiction autobiographical and factually informative book Eating Animals is a testament to the evils of factory farming. Many critiques have been made, both positive and negative, interpreting Foer's overall message and presentation on the complicated issues of food production. When reading Eating Animals I found Foer's general thesis best to be summed up by one of his harshest critics. In her critical article writer Jennifer Reese elegantly states, "It is absolutely true that the ancient ties between people and animals have been grotesquely perverted by industrial agriculture, as the strongest portions of Foer's book make horrifically clear. But, unlike Foer, I believe that fixing the relationship is both possible and worthwhile. To declare that humanity should opt out of this relationship altogether strikes me as less heinous but every bit as arrogant and unnatural as the factory farm." Foer is against all unnatural and believes everybody in America should convert their factory meat eating ways. It is hard to argue against most of Foer's researched content because his writing provides personal insight and compiled factual evidence that truly reveals the grotesque nature of factory farming. This information had me rethinking what I was mindlessly eating prior to reading Eating Animals.


        Another  critic of Foer's book, Jim Raynor writer for The Observer states in his critical article "The reality is that the raising of animals for food is an ugly business, however unintensive the methods used. That's a truth we must confront. There is no doubt that we have become too divorced from our food production system. We need to know how it works. We need to know what eating meat means." I prefer for food production to be out of sight and out of mind for the sole reason it is unsettling. However with these new edible revelations the possibility for me to enjoy the "potentially gross but good tasting" is far less, to the point now where I'm cutting foods I've once ate out of my diet completely.

While these food products should be highly investigated and probably illegal for their content alone, they will exist until major industrial and societal change can be made throughout America. Americans must become conscience of what they are eating. We should all question what we are putting into our mouths? What is it really made of? Where did it come from? We have to start becoming a health conscience nation. We must start supporting organic farming on a grand scale and consider all the alternatives to factory-farmed products. As Americans, we must create a change in food culture, for the sake of our society's overall health.

Works Cited

Egendorf, Laura K. “Fast Food Should Not Be Blamed for Obesity.”

Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center February 2005. February 2012

                            

Decision News Media “Fast food consumption increases obesity risk.”

   Foodnavigator.com May 2004.  February 2012

Foer, Jonathan Safran. Eating Animals. New York: Little, Brown and, 2009. Print

Rabin, Roni Caryn. “Proximity to Fast Food a Factor in Student Obesity”  NY Times                          March 2009. February 2012