Essay --

"Every responsible person understands what is in products such as hamburgers and fries, as well as the consequence to one's waistline, and potentially to one's health, of excessively eating those foods over a prolonged period of time† (Wald, 2003). This was a statement made by McDonald’s lawyers in 2003 during a court case in which McDonald’s was being sued for their failure to inform people of the nutritional value of their food. The vast majority of overweight or obese people in the United States have gotten that way due to a lack of care when it comes to the foods they eat, specifically fast food. The negative effects of fast food on health is widespread knowledge in the United States, but most people choose to ignore it and doing so has resulted in America being labelled as the ‘fattest country’ in the world. Some of these negative effects include a recent surge in obesity in both children and adults, food addiction that people are not aware that they have, and life-altering weight related sicknesses and diseases. A major player in these and many other negative things has been the fast food industry as a whole. The fast food industry has had a tremendous effect on the economy of the United States over the past 30 years. Over a short period of time, the amount of money Americans spend on fast food has increased dramatically. In 1972 Americans spent $3 billion on fast food, and in 2003 $110 billion was spent on fast food (Ingram, 2005). It has been shown that Americans spend more on fast food than many recreational activities that you would typically imagine to cost more. Annually, Americans spend more on fast food than movies, books, magazines, videos and recorded music combined (Schlosser, 2005). Even in an economic recession... ...Obese people are bringing a variety of preventable hardships onto themselves by eating fast food, but they are not able to stop eating it due to its addictive nature (Brownell, 2004). Not only does fast food have no nutritional value, but it does more harm than good for you (Carmona, 2007). After people stuff themselves full of fast food, two hours later they are starving again, which results in them wanting more fast food. This is a vicious cycle in America that must be broken soon, because as the numbers of overweight and obese people rise, so does the number of people dying unnecessarily early deaths due to the effects of fast food. If people start moderating their fast food intake and paying more attention to things such as calorie information, the amount of obese people in America will decrease, and so will the number of deaths, resulting in a healthier nation.