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Obesity in North America

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Obesity in North America
In western countries like Canada and the United States, fast food is an increasingly popular replacement for healthy home-cooked meals. Canada and the United states have been called the “fast food” nations because it makes up an unhealthy and substantial amount of North American diets due to busy schedules. It is normal for people in North America to work ten hours a day, five days a week and on top of that have many extra activities that don’t allow them to take the time to properly concentrate on their eating habits. Fast food companies have catered to these schedules by creating more accessible and increasingly fast service restaurants. Due to this, fast food and obesity have become closely related issues. There are many other illnesses besides obesity that are the result of fast food intake.
Fast food has become so important in today’s society, because for the main part it is an issue of convenience. In today’s, always on the move society, McDonalds and other fast food chains take advantage of our all too hectic nature. Fast food in Canada and the United States is readily available much more than in other countries in the United Kingdom or in Europe. Though fast food is a growing issue in Europe and the United Kingdom it is a larger issue in North America because of the reliance on it in society. An example of how available fast food chains are is, Manhattan Island is approximately 13 miles long by 2 miles wide but contains 89 McDonalds restaurants. That’s roughly one McDonalds in every four blocks.
Fast food has lately become a much more popular source for food in the twenty first century than it ever was in the past. One in four Americans visits a fast food restaurant a day. Since 1980, the total number of obese Americans has doubled. This includes twice as many overweight children and three times as many overweight adolescents. In American between the years of 1996 and 1998, 25 000 new fast food companies opened. This made the fast food companies a 103



Bibliography: "McDonald 's Nurtrition Calculator." McDonald 's Canada. 2006. McDonald 's. 8 May 2008 <http://www.mcdonalds.ca/en/food/calculator.aspx>. Munday, Bonnie. "Fast Food Facts." Readers Digest Canada. 2008. 8 May 2008 <http://www.readersdigest.ca/mag/2005/03/fast_food_aticle.html>. Murray, Bridget. "Fast-food culture serves up super-size Americans ."11 December 2001. Center for Young Women 's Health Staff. 8 May 2008 <http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec01/fastfood.html> Spurlock, Morgan. “Super Size Me.” 21 May 2004. 7 May 2008. Tjepkema, Michael. "Adult Obesity in Canada." Statistics Canada. 07 Nov 2005. 8 May 2008 <http://www.statcan.ca/english/research/82-620-MIE/2005001/articles/adults/aobesity.htm>.

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