Fattening Fast Foods

Argumentative Essay

Fattening Fast Foods What makes a person become fat and overweight? Is it really because of fast food restaurant patronage? A fast food restaurant is an eating place that prepares food quickly and offers minimal service to customers. “Every day, nearly one-third of U.S. children aged 4 to 19 eat fast food, which likely packs on about six extra pounds per child per year and increases the risk of obesity, a study of 6,212 youngsters found” (“Fast Food Linked to Child Obesity”, 2003, para 1). Obesity is now a leading public health problem in America with the highest obesity rate in the developed world. Zimmerman (2006) estimates that in 2006 alone, Americans will spend $142 billion dollars in fast food restaurants. With this, fast food restaurants are now held responsible for the increase in incidences of obesity in America. Those who disagree assert that fast food restaurants are not solely responsible for the incidences of obesity in America because not all people who consistently patronize these numerous fast food chains are obese. Moreover, people still have the freedom and control over the decisions and choices that they make. Although meals served from fast food restaurants can be very tasty and tempting, these fast food restaurants are still not the one responsible for those people who lack self-control. Some of them are really fond of eating fast food though they already know that doing so could mean harm for them in the long run. As a result, individual customers are really the one responsible for their choice, not the fast food restaurants. In addition, a number of fast food consumers still manage to become physically fit and healthy in despite their fast food patronage and loyalty. But even though not all people who love to eat at fast food restaurants are obese and overweight, those fast food chains yet offer excessively large amount of addictive meals through promotions of super sizing meals, thus, attracting their patrons to consume more. Besides, even though consumers are the one responsible for the choices they make, fast food advertisements and other marketing tactics still greatly influence their decision to further continue buying meals from them. These techniques include television, internet, magazine, billboard and radio advertisements. Therefore, fast food restaurants are to be blame for the very alarming obesity rate increase. Furthermore, the fact that there are fast food restaurants everywhere makes them more potentially accountable for the increase of obesity rate in America. Fast food chains are not only situated almost everywhere but are also easily accessible and reachable to families. Over the years, their growing number has become really obvious. They are now located even in remote provinces. Moreover, fast food chains are heavily advertised all around the world. These companies undeniably spend billions of dollars for the sake of being strongly advertised and known by the public all over the globe. In other words, earning the majority of the people’s recognition is a very big deal for these companies. If not for those actions then, they would have not been that very prominent and known up to this date. Results in a study show that “a ban on these advertisements would reduce the number of overweight children ages 3 to 11 in a fixed population by 18 percent and would reduce the number of overweight adolescents ages 12-18 by 14 percent“(“Fast Food Ad Ban…”, 2008, para 7). Clearly, the rampant growth in number of fast food restaurants and their persuasive advertisements have a big role to play in the increase of obesity rate in America. In addition, fast food restaurants seem to entice the young ones in every way possible. With some of them having so-called “play place,” they are indeed attracting so much customers especially the kids and their parents as well. They regularly offer special meals for kids such as “happy meals” from McDonald’s, too. It has been even estimated that “kids consume up to 40 percent of their meals from these fast food restaurants” (“The Super-sizing of America”, 2000, para 9). Last but not the least, some of their compelling promotions are usually found in children’s toy packages, magazines, show commercials and the like. One study suggested that “children viewed an average of about 20,000 commercials aired on television per year in the late 1970s, rising to 30,000 per year in the late 1980s and more than 40,000 per year in the late 1990s” (“Fast food Ad Ban…”,2008,para 12). These are yet enough evidences to prove that fast food consumption, most especially among children, has a big effect on the raging increase of obesity incidences. Finally, fast food restaurants also offer meals that contain additives and preservatives. Technically, “fast food patrons consume more fat, sugar and carbohydrates compared to those who do not eat at fast food restaurants. They also consumed 187 more daily calories, which likely adds up to about six pounds more per year, the study found” (“Fast Food Linked To Child Obesity”, 2003, para 6). Moreover, since screws and staffs from these fast food chains are trained to highly encourage their customers to upgrade and super size their meals, the number of people that will avail this promo will most likely increase. Also, through this particular promo, people are going to be most probably tempted to eat and eat more thus, become addicted to it. Addiction is said to be caused by the additives and preservatives found in those types of meals since there is a great deal of food engineering done to fast food products. These techniques normally take away the nutritional value of the food. Consequently, consuming these particular meals that contain a very high caloric content will result to being overweight. In conclusion, the rising number of incidences of obesity in America is most probably caused by fast food restaurant patronage. It is because their aims are to be sited almost everywhere, be heavily publicized, encourage customers to eat more and persuade people especially the kids to support them as well. This significant increase in obesity rate is really alarming and frightening. People by now, should start reforming their lifestyles and refrain from consuming anything from fast foods too much. It is because too much of anything can be detrimental and harmful. After all, it would not be so bad to obtain regular meals from them once in a while. It is really just a matter of self-control and self-discipline. At the end of the day, nothing will be more important than our health, so we should really value and give importance to it, because surely, people with good health are guaranteed to have the best opportunities in life. They will have greater and better chances of accomplishing their tasks and becoming successful in the future. As people may unwaveringly say, “Health is wealth” so as a result, it is just proper that we begin developing a good health by having a balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle, too.

Fast Food. (n.d.). Retrieved November 23, 2008, from http://www.scribd.com/doc/3913616/Fast-Food.
Fast-food ad ban could cut child obesity: U.S. study| Health| Reuters. (n.d.). Retrieved November 24, 2008, from http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE4AI8YT20081119.
Obesity and Fast Food: The McDonald's Lawsuit. (n.d.). Retrieved November 26, 2008, from http://www.obesityfocused.com/articles/obesity-issues/obesity-and-fast-food.php.
The Super-sizing of America: Are Fast Food Chains to Blame for the Nation's Obesity?. (n.d.). Retrieved November 26, 2008, from http://speakout.com/activism/issue_briefs/1333b-1.html.