Fast food restaurants are everywhere in today’s society. They are found in hospitals, attached to fueling stations, in grocery stores, and inside major sports complexes (such as Great American Ball Park). With the many locations of these restaurants, the question must be raised… are fast food restaurants making people fat? That question can be answered with a resounding yes! In 1968, McDonalds was operating 1,000 restaurants (Schlosser 3); Taco Bell was just getting started and Wendy’s opened its first restaurant in 1969 (About Wendy's). According to Pearson Education’s Info Please website, 13.3% of adults were obese in the 1960s (Info Please). Today, 35.5% of people are obese (Flagel et al. 491). That’s an increase of 22.2%. In the 1970s, Americans spent 6 billion on fast food (Schlosser 3). In the year 2000 alone, Americans spent more than 110 billion (Schlosser 3). Today, there are over 50,000 fast food chains in America according to Google Maps.
What is obesity and why is it a problem? Tabors Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary defines obesity as “an unhealthy accumulation of body fat” (Tabors Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary 1504). Obesity is clinically manifested (diagnosed) when the body mass index is ≥30 kg/m2 (Lewis et al. 2: 1035). Obesity is a problem because not only does it put more strain on the person during physical activity, but it also leads to decreased lung volumes from the heavy abdominal area placing pressure on the diaphragm (Potter et al. 826). It is also a cause of sleep apnea, and can also cause obesity-hypoventilation syndrome (Potter et al. 826). Obese people are also more susceptible to atelectasis (alveolar collapse) and pneumonia after surgeries because the lungs are not able to fully expand resulting in retained pulmonary secretions (Potter et al. 826). Obesity causes cardiovascular complications, hypertension (high blood pressure), diabetes mellitus, metabolic syndrome, and even cancer (Aballay et al. 170). In 2004, Morgan Spurlock filmed a documentary about a man who ate nothing but fast food for a month. The star of the documentary was none other than himself. Morgan, a seemingly healthy individual, had pre-health screening evaluations by a gastroenterologist, a cardiologist, a nutritionist, and a general practitioner before taking on his “McDiet” (Spurlock). His baseline labs and physical were outstanding (Spurlock). He had a clean bill of health. The rules of this “McBinge” were simple. He had to eat every meal at McDonalds for an entire month (Spurlock). He had to eat everything on the menu at least once (Spurlock). Oh, and one more thing… He had to supersize it every time it was offered (Spurlock). The first week of his new diet, Spurlock saw little difference in his everyday health. It was not until week two that he started feeling terrible. Spurlock describes it as feeling tired, irritable, and depressed with sudden changes in mood swings (Spurlock). That’s just after a week of the food. As the month progressed, Spurlock noticed that his tolerance to physical activity was lower and his wife also notes in the documentary that their sex life was different (and not for the better) (Spurlock). At the end of the “McDiet”, Spurlock had gained twenty-five pounds, developed hypertension (high blood pressure) and hypercholestremia (high cholesterol) (Spurlock). During the diet, one of Spurlock’s physicians advised him to stop his diet because he was essentially “killing himself” (Spurlock). Spurlock concluded at the end of his documentary that fast food is hazardous to one’s health (Spurlock). Shortly after Spurlock’s movie debuted, McDonalds removed the supersize option from their menu and also added healthier options such as salads. Recently, McDonalds has reduced the size of French fries served with the happy meal and also added a serving of apples as an included product with the happy meal. McDonalds claims the movie Super Size Me had absolutely nothing to do with the decision to make these changes. Fast food is cheap, calorie dense and tastes good. There is no doubt that it is cheaper to eat fast food versus healthier alternatives. Many fast food establishments have special value menus. McDonald’s has their dollar menu with all items costing only one dollar. Taco Bell has their “Why Pay More” value menu with food items costing from under a dollar to a little more than a dollar. Wendy’s also has a discount menu with a variety of items costing; you guessed it, about a dollar. With well over half of the fast food establishments offering great tasting food for such a low price, it’s hard not to get sucked into eating for cheap. Let’s face it healthy food costs more. What about in the long run though? The adverse effects of obesity were plainly explained earlier. It stands to reason that the medical costs incurred from the health problems about that are a by-product of obesity outweigh the amount saved in the short term by eating fast food. According to a study published in Cost Effectiveness & Resource Allocation, the combined annual costs of obesity in Canada ranged from 1.27 to 11.08 billion dollars (Xuan et al. 3). That’s right, billion! It is highly improbable that the initial cost savings outweighs the benefits. Fast food is also readily available. It is highly attractive for people who do not want to go home from work and make a homemade dinner. It’s too easy to just dash through a drive through to get a ready to eat meal in minutes. According to QSR Magazine, the average fast food drive through serve time is 2 minutes and 48 seconds (QSR Magazine). Who can make a meal that fast at home? Most frozen meals from the grocery store have a cook time of at least five minutes. No wonder fast food is so popular in an era where instant gratification is king. One argument says that fast food companies only sell what there is a demand for. That is more true than not. Many products are introduced for a limited period of time and then pulled off the market due to their unpopularity. Take McDonald’s pizza for example, it did not become a permanent menu item presumably because it did not sell enough to make the projected profit. On the other hand, heroine and oxycotin have a big demand in Southern Ohio since the pill mills have been shut down. Fast food restaurants are not selling that. Maybe that is an extreme comparison. The point is that just because there is a demand for a particular product does not mean that it is healthy, or in the latter instance legal. Should fast food be illegal? No, but maybe like fuel emissions there should be some government regulation over calorie content, food product origin, etc. Another argument is that people have the right to not eat at fast food restaurants. Absolutely correct, but it has been proven that fast food is addicting. Spurlock noted in his documentary that it was not more than a few hours after consuming fast food that he felt terrible but as soon as he ate more fast food he felt better again (for a little while) (Spurlock). Spurlock also says during the film:
See, now's the time of the meal when you start getting the McStomach ache. You start getting the McTummy. You get the McGurgles in there. You get the McBrick, then you get the McStomach ache. Right now I've got some McGas that's rockin'. My arms... I feel like I've got some McSweats goin'. My arms got the McTwitches going in here from all the sugar that's going in my body right now. I'm feeling a little McCrazy (Spurlock).
Those sure seem like symptoms of addiction. According to an article published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
Researchers at The Scripps Research Institute in Florida found that when rats ate large amounts of high-calorie food, it triggered addiction like responses in their brains. Eventually, the rats grew fat and had decreased levels of a specific dopamine receptor, a chemical in the brain that allows a feeling of reward. Human drug addicts also have decreased levels of the dopamine receptor (Billhartz Gregorian 1).
Look at it this way, would a heroine addict pass up readily available heroine? Does an alcoholic pass up freely available alcohol? Addicts crave what they are addicted to and when it is readily available, they are going to indulge. Fast food is designed to make the consumer to want more. Look at all of the ingredients. They are all things that taste good, but are not part of a balanced diet in the proportions utilized in fast food. For example, according to McDonalds.com’s bag a meal, a standard medium Big Mac meal from McDonalds contains the following: 1,130 calories (56.5% of a daily allowance for a 2,000 calorie diet), 430 calories from fat, 48 grams of total fat (which happens to be 74% of the daily allowance for a person on the typical 2,000 calorie diet), sodium (salt) 1,240 milligrams (52% of the daily allowance for the said 2,000 calorie diet), and 65 milligrams of sugar. Most people eat fast food. It does taste good. It is cheap and its convenient. Nothing can deny that, but it does cause obesity as well as predisposing people that become obese to a laundry list of health complications. A study in Canada reported annual spending of from 1.27 to 11.08 billion dollars for health problems related to obesity (Xuan et al. 3). Could there be a solution to solve this epidemic besides completely banning fast food? There could be government regulations implemented to set standards regarding the caloric content of meals served. Seems like a pretty big coincidence that shortly after Spurlock’s movie Super Size Me debuts that the golden arches eliminate the super size option from their menu and add more salads to their menu. Fast food establishments know their food is unhealthy for daily consumption and have even admitted it when being sued. In the end, it ultimately is up to the consumer. They will have to make the choice to avoid fast food (fat food) to avoid the current obesity epidemic. Works Cited
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