Want Fries with That?

Since the McDonald Brothers opened their first restaurant in 1948, an epidemic known as “Fast Food” has swept the planet. McDonald’s now has 30,000 restaurants world wide, on six continents (“Super Size Me”). The cancerous explosion of fast food restaurants can be seen everywhere. Bright neon signs, designed for the specific purpose of being seen from a highway, lure unexpecting travelers to stop and eat. What people don’t know is that fast food has a huge impact on waistlines, wallets, and the world.

“The United States is the fattest nation on Earth. Sixty-five percent of American adults are overweight; thirty percent are obese,” writes Morgan Spurlock, director of Super Size Me; A Film of Epic Portions, and author of the paralleling book Don’t Eat This Book. In his documentary, Spurlock records the problems with the fast food industry, while detailing his experiment: Thirty days of eating nothing but what is sold at McDonald’s. In these thirty days, Spurlock gained 24.5 pounds, and his cholesterol and triglyceride increased dramatically.

Between 1991 and 2001, the obese population in the United States grew from twelve percent to twenty-one percent (Spurlock 9). Teenage obesity rates have tripled since 1975. This is consistent with a study the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) performed which concluded that portion sizes in fast food restaurants grew two to five times larger from 1971 to 2000 (Lunden and Winick 138-139). Obesity is a direct link to Type II diabetes. This disease has typically shown up after the age of thirty, but the 2001 Obesity Statistics state that one in four overweight children show signs of Type II Diabetes. Sixty percent of those children are also at risk for heart disease (Lunden and Winick 19-28). The CDC reported that one in three children born in 2000 will develop Type II Diabetes. African American and Hispanic children have an even higher risk: one in two (Spurlock 14).

According to a study by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the amount of fast food calories consumed by Americans increased over the past twenty years from three to twelve percent of the entire diet (Spurlock 19). Spurlock continues, “Most of those extra calories we’re putting on come in the form of carbohydrates. Especially fries. The average American now wolfs down 30 pounds of french fries annually-up from only 3.5 pounds in 1960.” Nine percent of the daily caloric intake for a teenage boy comes from soft drinks. A teenage boy in 1978 drank seven ounces of soda a day on average; today he drinks three times that amount. Sodas limit calcium absorption and disrupt good bone growth, which leads to osteoporosis (Lunden and Winick 146).