Fast Food in the United States Right

Fast Food

In the United States right now the country is facing an epidemic of obesity which means that too many people are overweight to an unhealthy level which is very bad. More and more people are becoming unhealthy because they do not eat the right things. People live a very hectic lifestyle in the current time and this makes them want to get things fast. Instead of going home and cooking a healthy meal, people go through the drive thru lane of the fast food restaurant and get their food there. They feel that they do not have time to eat healthy because this takes work and time which they do not have. Although this is a fast way of getting food, the things that you buy are very unhealthy. Eating too much fast food is very bad for you and can have many negative effects for your health including the fact that fast food is not nutritious, that it has a good chance of increasing your weight, and fast food has been shown to contribute to people getting certain diseases.

The human body needs nutrients and vitamins in order to function properly. Part of the reason that people eat is to make energy and the other part is to absorb nutrients into their body. However, fast food is very low in nutrients. Although a person is eating plenty of food, they are not getting the nutrients that the body needs and this can make a person very sick and weak (Paeratakul 1332). Usually the meals you buy at fast food restaurants are very high in carbohydrates. While the body does need some carbohydrates to function, too much of this in the system means the body can no longer process them into energy and they just turn into fat. Three particular nutrients that people need that are rarely found in fast food items are fiber, proteins, and vitamins. If you do not get the proper amount of vitamins, then the body will develop a deficiency and this can cause major problems in the body including failure of some organs. Scientific research has proven that a diet with consistent intake of fast food will lead to malnutrition and health issues.

Fast food products are very high in fat content which means that eating the food will make you fat. America has a real problem with this, so much so that the United States "now has the highest obesity rate of any industrialized nation in the world" (Schlosser 240). Science has proven that eating fast food two or three times a week is dangerous, but there are even some people who eat fast food seven days a week and for more than one meal in a single day. They are high in calories and since people are supposed to live on a 2,000 calorie per day diet, they might not realize that they are overeating. One meal at McDonald's or Burger King might provide all the calories a person is supposed to take in for the whole day. In the United States, even young kids are already becoming obese because their parents purchase fast food for them so often. It is a fact that in the present about 30% of children under the age of eighteen are considered obese (Vigilante). Teenagers are eating at fast food restaurants in even higher numbers than younger children because these are traditionally locations where teens go to hang out with friends when they are first given some independence from their families (French 1823). They think of these restaurants as safe places and so they go there and eat the food regularly. Fast food are heavy in trans fats which is a specific kind of fat which is harder for the body to digest, meaning they stay in the body for a longer period of time, making the body larger and heavier.

There are other serious health risks besides obesity which have been linked to overeating of fast food but becoming obese through fast food can make your body even more ill, although they are linked to obesity too. One of the scariest parts of eating fast food is the fact that it can seriously decrease your life expectancy, sometimes taking decades off of your life (Vigilante). The reasons for this have to do with the diseases which you are more likely to get if you are obese (Schlosser 200). The most serious thing which can happen with obesity is organ failure. People can develop heart disease, have heart attacks, or develop heart failure. Other organs, like the liver and kidneys can also fail if they are given too much fast food. One of the most common things that happen to obese people is they get diabetes. Type 2 Diabetes has been scientifically shown to increase in likelihood the more a person eats fast food instead of healthy meals. In people who have Type 2 Diabetes their body is unable to regulate their blood sugar. According to Eric Schlosser in the book Fast Food Nation, "Obesity has been linked to heart disease, colon cancer, stomach cancer, breast cancer, diabetes, arthritis, high blood pressure, infertility, and strokes" (242). When looking at how dangerous fast food and obesity are, the argument that it is faster to purchase this food does not make sense. People are dying because they eat the foods that are making them ill. It is very much like the fast food restaurants are selling people poison to cause them to die.