Fast Food
One third of the nation’s children eat fast food, can we say that this is something normal or a situation that is very unreasonable. In “Don’t blame the eater” it states that most teenagers, who live on fast food, will not turn their lives around. They are right. As a teenager I know what it is to enjoy junk food and fast food places. At the moment you try to enjoy your so call “meal” but once you are done you tend to realize the fast food you just ate was no meal but just junk. Also in don’t blame the eater it says, “Shouldn’t we know better than to eat two meals a day in a fast food restaurant?” This statement had me thinking for a minute, and I believe we should know better than to eat at two fast food places a day.
Older people, as in adults believe and some say, “I don’t have time to make breakfast or lunch so, I decide to buy a meal on my way to where I am heading.” Others as they take their children to school they purchase not fruit, or a healthy sandwich, but a bag of chips, donuts, or as in some cases Mc Donald’s. I have been through similar occasions where I sometimes decide to eat out with friends because I want something good and delicious, or satisfying, not veggies that are from home. When a situation like this happens I blame myself for it. I was raised by good parents, and they are in fact healthy. They do enjoy eating out but it is no daily routine or common thing. They consider the best meal is found at home and I strongly agree. Fast food is like a drug, an addiction; it feels like certain things are put into your meal to want more. In reality fast food does not contain enough fiber for a kid, or adults to feel full, so it attracts them to want more food later. Over the last thirty years fast food has infiltrated every nook, and corner of American society. There is no where one can hide. It is like you are literally being chased, and chased into what... obesity and heart problems. That is fast foods most caused problems. What do Americans do about all these fast food places, nothing. I do believe there is nowhere to hide, but we can avoid it.
In a book called “Obesity” Edited by Sandra Alters it shows a cartoon picture of two obese kids, one says” My mom doesn’t like the vending machines in schools selling ‘unhealthy snacks’ she wants us to have a choice!” The other boy responds by telling him “I thought we did have a choice… we can choose not to eat it!” This cartoon by Darkow showed me and proved to me how much of an option we have as kids, teens, and adults. We declare freedom in this country. We should take the freedom and action of being able to eat what we want not just what we want but what will benefit us to a better living healthy life. So far obesity is a growing problem in the United States. Every state in America has experienced a rise in obesity since nineteen ninety one. In that time the highest percentage of obesity was fifteen to nineteen percent, which was rare, found only in about four to five states in America. Now after the year two thousand and three, there is more than twenty five percent in obesity in about four states and twenty to twenty four percent obesity is very common now. The biggest rate of obesity in nineteen ninety one is now the lowest from the year two thousand and three and so far growing till this year, seven years later.
In don’t blame the eater it says that before nineteen ninety four diabetes was not a common thing. How children ended with obesity was generally caused by a genetic disorder. Only five percent of childhood cases were obesity related, or type2 diabetes. Now type2 diabetes accounts for about thirty percent of cases like those are very bad, and let’s not say that some aren’t cause by how children eat, because in reality it is. In my twelfth grade English class we went over student sample essays on fast food, and some wrote essays that were very reasonable and understanding. The highest scored essay explained that responsibilities go along to the companies and parents. They both have impacts towards children obesity. Also parents are the start to a child’s eating habits. The government is also part of what they allow companies to sale in the United States of anywhere else around the World. It all begins at home, with the parents.
In the United States today fifty percent of the adult population and more than twenty five percent of Americans underage nineteen meet the definition of being clinically obese, figures that have doubled over the past thirty years so far none of this are beneficial to neither adults as parents or teens. In “If you pitch it, they eat” begins with ‘Mc Donald’s wants to be everywhere that children are.’ To tell you the honest truth it is the truth and reality. In New York, there is a Mc Donald in your way after every mile. That is insane! They have a big obsession on wanting to be all over the place. Most children start off being addicted to Mc Donald’s. From the beginning it is an addiction then on it is a long steep downhill for them. Fats, sugars, and salts in fast food drag kids like a huge magnet. None of those ingredients are beneficial in any way. Also, children’s ‘primordial taste’ attracts those types of foods, which affects a child very much. Kids are kids as always told, but they aren’t born to live with diabetes or being obese, they are here to live a healthy life and many don’t see it. Fast food is the main source of twenty nine to thirty eight percent of children. That is a very high percentage and very wrecks less.
Kids that eat junk food from the ages of four to eight years old gain six percent more than a kid that does not eat junk food in one day. Can you believe that! That is a very big impact and very upsetting. From the ages ten to fourteen years old they eat about seventeen percent more. That is horrible. I have an eleven year old brother. He is a tall kid, and a bit wide. How he eats and for how athletic he is helps him keep his weight at a well known level. It is a good way to help him as well. In ‘Obesity’ the book, it says that scientist who study over weight twins/relatives concluded that fifty to seventy percent of tendency obesity is inherited. My family is not obese but we are a generation of tall people, but at the same time we need to watch what we eat, because anyone can begin to eat unhealthy and turn obese.
Obesity also affects infants. Yes babies are fed well, but how much they are given is sometimes too much. Studies show that infants who are overweight may be slower than thinner babies to develop motor skills. In newswise, they explain that things like these are very concerning. Children with motor skills that delay may be less physically active and thus less likely to explore the environment beyond arm’s reach. Situations like these are very important and should be taken care of immediately. Notice how they are infants, who’s care are they under? Under parents, like we have said at first, how a child eats, begins at home. Also newswise researchers and numbers of studies show that weight status during infancy and toddler years can set young children on an obesity trajectory that may be hard to change. Even for babies it can be complicated to change. These are drastic issues. If each person takes a word in it as parents especially, children can be raised well, with normal amounts of food in a meal, and healthy ones too. This will help infants in the way they are fed. We need to make that change in how each and every one of us eats.
How children eat begins at home. That is my opinion, and I will follow it. As a teenager I understand the reasons why and I truly agree. We should all enjoy the meals we eat but we need to understand that the most delicious is not always the best for us. It is the road to obesity, heart problems, or death. None desire to be in any type of situation like that one. Make a change, one person can start, and help others. We can each help ourselves as well. No one would like to be obese in this world; we can still change that, starting at home.
