Is Fast Food Responsible for a Crisis in Public Health?

Blog 11
Amanda Whitehead

Is the fast food Industry to blame America's weight problem or is it just people making bad decisions when it comes to food? Millions of Americans spend millions of dollars a day eating fast food,resulting in two-thirds of Americans being overweight.Many say the reason for this is simple,Americans spend more time eating fast food and less time engaging in physical activity.Even though this matter may seem pretty cut and dry to most people, some try and blame the fast food industry.

R.A Ames the author of "Fast Food Isn't to Blame" agrees that people are just making the wrong choices when it comes to food. Ames feels that instead of taking responsibility for their weight problem fat people are blaming the fast food industry. He states "the land of the free means that we are free to make our own decisions,but part of this freedom is the responsibility to own up to our choices. It doesn't mean free to do what we want and then blame someone else when we don't like the final results"(297). This is exactly how some Americans are dealing with the obesity epidemic. Two teenagers even brought it to the point of suing MacDonald's for making them fat. Ames feels that this problem is going to become worse unless we send a message to society that this is unacceptable. Ames also suggests that obese people should have to pay higher premiums on their insurance. Because Overweight people are more susceptible to certain health risks such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

I believe Ames was absolutely right when he states "The truth is that it a whole lot easier to get fat than to stay thin"(296). Americans need to start taking more responsibility for their actions and stop eating themselves into an early grave. People need to stop pointing fingers on who is to blame and just start working on fixing the problem. If Americans would spend half as much time exercising and eating healthy as they do blaming people for their obesity,the problem would fix itself.

Work Cited

Ames, R.A.."Fast Food Isn't to Blame" Goshgarian, Gary. What Matters in America. New York: Pearson Educational, Inc., 2007 295-299