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Fast Food is cheap, mostly accessible around the corner and are open for a longer time than other restaurants and supermarkets. People coming home tired after work, children whose parents are at work when they get back from school, college kids living on a low budget and individuals who don't know to cook or just too tired to cook all go to a fast food place as the waiting time is less and they get food that is cheap and filling. However this cheap and convenient food has been linked to a lot of adverse health effects such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes and in some cases some fatal cases of e.coli infection. Linda Caroll and Madelyn Fernstrom in their 2014 article “Cheap Food Blamed for America’s Obesity Crisis” and the abc news report, “Will Fast Food be the Death of Us” both talk about how Fast Food has been related to obesity in America.
When food is cheap there is a tendency to keep buying it, even though in the longer run the costs might add up. Both the news articles talk about the amount spent on Fast Food. Carroll and Fernstrom talk about how the amount spent on food has come down in the recent years because it is easier to eat fast food than go buy groceries and cook at home. That does not mean that the cost of eating out in these places is low. The abc article however suggests that the money spent on fast food right now surpasses the money people spend on magazines, records and moves combined. Either way, the costs of fast food are high in either the short term or the long term.
The items on the fast food menu are all made in such a way that they are tasty, make the person feel full and ensure that it is easily disposable. This ensures that the food can be eaten faster and there wouldn’t be much to clean up once the meal has been consumed. Fast food also means that the foods on offer are high in sugar content, transfat and Cholesterol. When consumed on a regular basis (which is bound to happen because it is cheap and addictive), these add up in the body and lead to problems like obesity, high cholesterol, diabetes and heart disease."The higher prevalence of obesity among people of lower income and education can be explained by greater consumption of low-cost, high-calorie foods (Carroll & Fernstrom, 2014). the abc news article echoes similar sentiments when it says, "Fast food isn't the only cause of obesity, but Schlosser says it is one of the factors that is making the United States the fattest country in the world, with huge costs in health care and mortality that go along with it (Will fast food, 2016). Obesity is a big problem not only to the individual but to the economy of the country as well as health care costs rise and people take more days off due to illnesses associated with it.
Both the articles comment on the fact that the whole of the population is under threat from the adverse effects of fast food. It isn’t just the poor people who eat cheap fast food and become obese in the process but also kids, working people, adolescents and adults. Carroll and Fernstrom give data about how fast food consumption has spread across the country and is no longer relegated to just the poor people, blacks and kids. The abc article also notes how fast food consumption has gone into schools and how that's alarming because eating habits start young and you tend to develop certain tastes for life.
I believe that obesity is a big problem in today’s world and fast food has a lot to do with the growing obesity crisis in the country. Being obese not only affects the individual’s health but also affects their self respect as productivity as well. Both the articles touch on the point that fast food consumption is related to high obesity rates in the country and that something must be done to stop high consumption of fast food. If something is not done to curb the rise of fast food places, there is no telling how the future generation would be healthwise.
References
Carroll, Linda and Fernstrom, Madelyn. ( 2014, May 22). Cheap Food Blames for America’s Obesity Crisis. nbcnews. Retrieved from: http://www.nbcnews.com/health/diet-fitness/cheap-food-blamed-americas-obesity-crisis-n112141.
Will Fast Food be the Death of Us. (2016, Feb 2016). abc news. Retrieved from: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=126450&page=1.
