Fast Food, Fat Profits: Obesity in America
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Obesity in America has reached a crisis point. Two out of every three Americans are overweight, one out of every three is obese. One in three are expected to have diabetes by 2050.
Minorities have been even more profoundly affected. African-Americans have a 50 per cent higher prevalence of obesity and Hispanics 25 per cent higher when compared with whites.
How did the situation get so out of hand? Josh Rushing explores the world of cheap food for Americans living at the margins.
What opportunities do people have to eat healthy? Who is responsible for food deserts and processed food in American schools?
Well yes, you all have every right to eat fast food and all the sweets, sodas and junk foods you want. It's only YOU who should have to then pay all the medical bills and costs of prescription meds your all gonna need in a few years. You play YOU PAY!!
Is the reason so many are hooked on junk food because most contain aborted human fetal cells for flavoring?
Maybe it's time to look into what you are putting into your mouth and what atrocities you are encouraging by being wilful ignorant...maybe.
The only person responsible for you being overweight is YOU. YOU put that food into your mouth. YOU chose not to exercise. Do not blame big corporations, the government, or anyone else. Do not make excuses. I can go to the supermarket and buy rice, noodles, and vegetables for the same cost as a Big Mac. People choose the Big Mac because they are too lazy too cook and want instant gratification of a high fat meal, all of which shows laziness and a lack of self-control. Encouraging them to blame someone else deepens this mindset.
Cultures that differ from western cultures are not struggling with obeisity.
As we allow garbage to displace things that once promoted strong families and healthy endeavours we continue to degrade in many ways. If we trade hard work, learning, nurturing life and even religion for things like television, pornography, conspicous consumption and drugs we will ultimately become weaker in every way. You must ask why we encouraged from a tender age to fall into traps like dept, obeisity and addiction. If you dont think we are encouraged then please show us where we are discouraged. Discouraged for the good of mankind.
Well I don't think the government should have any business in what we eat. Bluntly I enjoy fast foods and comfort foods, and no one is going to force me to eat nasty green salads, healthy foods, and go on ridiculous diet and exercise programs. Honestly foods that taste good probably are bad for you and foods and taste nasty are supposedly are healthy. The government should stop telling us what we can eat and how much. I'm a bit overweight, but so what. If I die sooner, all the better, at least I will have enjoyed the things I eat.
In India fast food have not reached rural areas,In Urban areas fast food is popular in upper middle , and rich young population.
At least where i live (canada), fast food is NOT cheap at all! A mcdonalds meal is expensive, and it only feeds one person! You can purchase WAY more at the grocery store, but people always pull this "it is cheaper card", when really, it is NOT!
You don't have energy after eating fast foods you have stomach cramps & instant diarrhea. I had to stop all fast foods now I eat a plant base diet, skin is clear abs are firm. Hair is shinny & it grows. All the vitamins I need is located in plants, maybe once everyone two months I may eat baked chicken but only if it hasn't been treated with hormones or pesticides. The vegetables I buy come from a farmers market. I don't trust the spraying our food with toxic chemicals.
Luckily, fast food is f'ckn expensive in Norway. Thumbs up :P
You know why this hapens?? I tell you why , who is to blame rather than the stupid american whom knows that is bad for his health and still eat that garbage. Hope they will eat until they burst.
I am very stuned that people don't even know how to make a raw salad!!!!! taxes should be aplied to pop, chips, junk food...
I support eyecandy_babydoll thoughts.
Obesity rates increased dramatically from mid 1980's. Same time as highly subsidized crops like corn, soy, wheat, sugar (beets & cane) and other refined grains became more widely grown & cheaper to buy. Also vegetable oil consumption have increased hand-in-hand? since the 1980's.
These crops are subsidized by who? Tax payers money via USDA. It is USDA who designates where the subsidies go. And what does the USDA food pyramid recommend we eat majority of? Wheat, corn, soy and other refined grains. Crap which cause obesity, cancer, heart disease in animals AND humans.
So the government takes YOUR taxes to pay the growers to grow cheap crops so food companies can manufacture food products that make you fat. Even though a burger costs $1, the reality is that your taxes have already covered $15 of how much it actually costs to make one burger. Vegetables and fruits aren't as expensive if people realize the true value of food.
Now, I'm no vegan, but I cook almost all of my meals these days. If I'm not cooking from scratch, I look very closely on the labels to see what is in it. I feel like the only person holding everyone up at the grocery because I'm the one standing in aisles determining calories/contents/etc and serving sizes.
I have been on the other extreme, however. I used to eat fast food under the assumption that it was cheaper and faster. It certainly was the latter, but it was not the former at all. I can survive (contented and full, by the way) on $15 a week. If you eat all of your meals at a fast food place these days, you'll be lucky to spend that in one day.
I only ate two meals a day back then and yet I had no idea I was taking in so many calories. I ate the 'meals' so I figured they were properly portioned... and yet my weight was getting crazy. I weighed over 200lbs at only 5'6, and before that I was always a skinny type! Today, I'm happy to say that I'm only 150lbs and my weight is still going down at a steady rate -just- by not eating fast food any more.
I really think there's something in that food that makes you want to consume more and more- both in the sense of more fast food (like a craving) and a feeling of need to consume a greater quantity of food in general, too.
All the sugar and crap in it makes you more and more hungry and you don't understand why you are no longer getting full like you used to. Breaking the habit was harder than quitting smoking, too. For a while, it was all I wanted and craved eating, but now I can't even stand smelling the garbage. I smell it passing by on my way uptown and it just smells... almost like disguised chemicals. There's something to the smell of it that now (over a year since I finally kicked the habit) I can pick up that I never could while I was eating it. It does NOT smell like real food at all!
I honestly feel like there's something more malicious than just cheapness being done to this "food" that is being kept hush-hush. It's just like Big Tobacco of yesteryear and their cigarettes. no one wants to be the knife to the throat of such a booming business. Not while our economy crumbles around us.
I don't understand this whole, fast food is cheap thing. I get that, but I became a vegan, eat a ton of food, losing weight, and it cost me hardly any money. People, it can be done.
It's actually all of the sugar and corn products put in food. I believe GMO's are actually a big part as well. They are substantially less nutritious than organic foods. Genetics may play a role in the SHAPE of your body but not in obesity. Obesity is caused by poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle. My entire family is either obese or close to it except me. I watch what I eat and enjoy an active lifestyle. My BMI is at a a healthy 20 or so. How is it that genetics effects everyone in my family except me?
You are what you eat, but genetics will play a role.
Sugar is the big problem, all the food contains lots of sugar even the the bread products is sweet, I'm in the USA now for three weeks and could not find a bread or bun that taste like bread, it all taste like cake, SWEET. Have they never taste real bread?
Ha I don't think she can run at all, much less eat at the same time. This is pretty sad. I'm glad my parents educated my siblings and I early on about the fast food industries and the importance of organic fruits and veggies.
Wow food desserts just would not happen in my country (New Zealand). It is actually criminal that there are no fresh fruit and vege shops and butchers on every block. The size of the takeaway meals is disgusting, I couldn't believe it, YUCK!!! The amount of artificial food that can be found in your stores is also quite literally disgusting. Your country really does need to do something about this and I bet it's effecting the mental health of your people. My son changes after having sweets and artificial food. We have a healthy food policy in most schools in NZ and I think it reflects with our education statistics. Food, nutrition is what keeps us alive at a cellular level, you start ******* with that and you **** with generations. America needs to do something about this, the rest of the world do not live like this.
When are he going to learn that everyone we as people are going to do whatever we what to do and no amount of education will change it. Really should it?! Or should we mind our own business and only worry about ourselves and let others worry about themselves?
I just watched a doc on here called The Ghost in Your Genes, that talks about epigenetics. This is a field of genetics that show that people can change their own genetics and the genetics they pass on to their children based on environmental factors.
The scientists showed that in mice exposed to BPA ( a kind of very common plastic found in bottled water and other things that 95% of Americans are estimated to have in their system) the epigenetics of the mice exposed to BPA were altered in a way that led their offspring to become obese and have diabetes and cancer.
I think that it is important to talk about what effects environments have on people and their genes in relationship to how overweight they are.
Also, I think an important way to avoid suffering in children is to stop the bullying of overweight and obese children.
Vlatko, please, please, please find some docs like this with Spanish subtitles, my students NEED to be exposed to this kind of wonderful knowledge. You rock, thank you for all you do!
Funny how some people are against regulating and welfare but instead of government telling them what to do they get these bloated corporations calling the shots and getting big handouts and their ok with that. At least the government, when uncorrupted by corpocracy, looks after you and not their personal profits.
I can't imagine the burden of having to travel long distances to shop in a proper food store. Hard to believe those kinds of neighbourhoods exist. I have 3 kids so a lot of time and money is spent shopping groceries. We have at least eight good food stores within a 2-3 km radius, half just a 10-15 min walk away (yes, walking. I don't even have a driver's licence and never will!). Here in Finland kids eat decent healthy free schoolmeals. You go to school to learn, so learning should extend to eating and nutrition as well. There are two food choices: meatdish or vegetarian. In daycare there is no choice except if you have allergies or there are religious reasons. The point is to introduce foods to kids, and it often takes many tries to develop a taste for something. Kids often take to foods easier in daycare than at home, as they are influenced by their peers. This has happened to all my kids. It is so helpful! Some parents lament that their kids are fat because they don't like vegetables and they just prefer junk food. Well, they would make a lot of poor choices if it was always up to them. It takes some effort to introduce some foods but if you honestly try it is surprising how they sometimes choose the carrot over the cookie.
We are in a sad state of affairs. When I left highschool they had started serving Taco Bell and Pizza Hut as options in the cafeteria, needless to say I loved the Idea then, but now I think it is the worst thing I could imagine for my own kids. This is a good short documentary by the way which I viewed yesterday.
The school I attend recently put in the "healthy choice" system in, and it's hardly changed. They still offer pizza, fries, pizza wraps, pop and other relatively unhealthy food options- but it's made more "healthy". The fries are baked. Everything is baked. The pops are now diet instead of normal pop. The cheese is mozzarella rather than processed. They are small changes, but overall, has it done anything? Sure it's cut back in small changes and I agree that it's a good start, but where is the fruit? The salad bars? The sad fact is, people at my school have noticed and they don't agree with it. They think the fries are too crunchy, and that diet pop just isn't the same. The veggies are way to pricey and the granola bars make them feel childish. Suddenly, the cause that the healthy act was suppose to endure, has backfired. Now most students eat out to the pizza store five minutes away, or would rather walk 15 minutes to McDonalds because it's "better". I appreciate the change the system has tried to make, but students aren't informed enough to truly appreciate the attempt. Not just that, but once students understand more, they can help point out the flaws in it and help progress it so that everyone can enjoy it without any issues.