Matt March
Professor
English 102
12 March 2013
Fast Cancer In today’s society, convenience is major priority for most Americans. We have the world at our finger tips with the new advancements with smart phones. This continence is starting to creep into every aspect of our lives. It’s even been implemented into the way we eat. Fast food has become this multibillion dollar industry that is seen everywhere you go. You can’t get away from it. It has created an obesity pandemic in America and with it a slew of health problems. If we don’t identify this fast food problem, it will kill us. America hasn’t always been so fat. In today’s world 35 percent of all Americans are overweight or obese. Compared that to thirty years ago where it was only at 17 percent (cdc). Something in recent years must have sparked such a jump in weight gain. People used to have to do relatively intense labor just to live their everyday lives. Cooking food from scratch, walking most places and doing most things by hand rather than machine was the typical way Americans lived. Food wasn't easy to get if you were poor. Even after machines like dishwashers and vacuum cleaners came into use, walking somewhere was still common. Home cooked meals were the only source of food as a kid. If mom or dad didn’t cook, you didn’t eat. As kids we were always told to play outside usually no matter how bad the weather was outside. Most of my childhood memories are playing with the neighborhood children. We rarely just stayed inside and watched T.V. Then looking at the rapid weight gain in America there must be a major factor playing a role here. The major factor is the implication of fast food into our diet. We can’t blame family dinners. We have been eating at home for thousands of years. The addition of fast food is what is making America fat. Eating out used to be a special occasion for families. That is not the case anymore. When fast food started it hadn’t coined the name yet. It was still called just another restraint. When McDonalds first opened up in 1940, it was a drive-in restaurant with a comprehensive barbecue menu. The menu only had nine items on it (delfish). Has it got more and more popular and it started to expand, the owner Ray Kroc made it into a franchise in 1955. And thus fast food was born. Today’s fast food is vastly different than the fast food of yesteryears. When McDonalds first open they only had one size of everything. A twelve once soda and a small fry that was around 150 calories. Those sizes are now the kiddy size. The small drink now is sixteen ounces and the large is a staggering thirty two ounces. The drink alone has 310 calories. When you add a large fry that has 500 calories and a Big Mac that has another 550 calories you are already eating half of your recommended calorie intake. What makes fast food so bad is the exclusion of fiber. Go to any fast food restraunt and look at the nutrition facts, there will not be any significant sources of fiber. McDonalds removes the only living part of the food to be able to set if out for long periods of time. There are no natural parts of fast food anymore. McDonalds isn’t the only corporate here. Subway, one of the largest advocators of healthy living also sells you food loaded with calories. Most people do not just eat the six inch subs. The foot long sweet onion terlecky has 740 calories. That’s worse than a Big Mac and why subway is considered fast food. That does not include any drinks or chips you get. The problem with fast food places is they over portions everything. The serving size of meat is three ounces. That’s about the size of a deck of cards. It is very hard to find that deck of cards at any fast food restraint. We over eat because our bodies still think it’s in the time of the dinosaurs. It believes that we still have to hunt down and kill everything we eat. That is not the case anymore. Back then we could gorge out selves on food because we didn’t know the next time