Friday, April 11, 2008

Blog 11 Julie Martin

Is Fast Food Responsible for a Crisis in Public Health?


 

The past five or six years have seen an increasing amount of attention paid to the effect of body weight on the collective health of Americans. Increases in the incidence of diabetes, asthma, and other obesity-related ailments have caused the death of 300,000 people annually and increased healthcare costs by up $100 million per year (Akst 283).

There seems to be general concurrence that the causes of this phenomenon are multiple; easy availability of cheap, high-calorie food, lack of physical activity, and lack of public knowledge in the areas of basic nutrition and ability to separate facts from promotional hype. One oft-cited cause of such a fat citizenry is the unrelenting presence of corporate scale fast food restaurants.

The names are familiar; McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, etc. These businesses are profitable and present fat targets for law firms specializing in class-action cases. Not counted as targets are the street corner hotdog cart, the Gyro stand, the local pizzeria, or the gas station corn chip rack. Also not included in these highly publicized lawsuits are any of the manufacturers or distributors of the 25 different types of frozen pizza available in any grocery chain.

The law suits brought against the corporate-scale restaurants give short shrift to the question of personal responsibility. There have been no known cases where the restaurants have shackled patrons and force fed them unhealthy food. Even if this were the case, it would have to be repeated on a regular basis to produce the epidemic of girth that is the cause for the lawsuits. Allowing for a few exceptions, overweight and obese people make the choice to consume mass quantities as the character Beldar Conehead from Saturday Night Live would put it. They also make the choice to not engage in regular, vigorous physical activity.

Fast food may be a contributing factor, and is certainly an easy target for blame, but it alone is not responsible for a crisis in public health.


 

Works Cited

Akst, Daniel. "Finding Fault for the Fat." Goshgarian, Gary. What Matters in America. New York: Pearson Educational Inc., 2007. 280-285.


 


 


 


 

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