Why Is The Fast Food Industry Responsible For America's Obesity?

Is the fast-food industry responsible for America's obesity epidemic? For the last century, the society has radically changed and become more independent, technological and mobile. As a consequence, today the population has a need for high-speed technologies, innovative resources, comfortable living conditions and, most importantly, a quick solution to vital needs, such as food. Fast-food industry was born just to make the life of the nation faster and more comfortable, but not in order to present a quality food. Therefore, the fast-foods ill quality and harmful effects to the human’s body are the consequences of the methods and ingredients that the industry applies in the production. The age range of people consuming food from the famous …show more content…
In 2004, the documentary film “Super-Size me”, demonstrate how a person can change during 30 days fast-food “diet”. Morgan Spurlock, an amateur filmmaker, went through an extremely experiment of eating fast-food from the “McDonald’s” for breakfast, lunch and dinner. As a result, he gained weight, scared his doctors when his liver went south, felt depressed, lost sexual function and even more. As a consequence, medical records showed that “Spurlock’s body fat composition increased by 7 percent, his cholesterol went up 60 points, and his blood pressure rose from 120/80 to 150/100.4.” (Adams 297) Why these processes occurred in the body of a young guy? Because of the ingredients and methods of producing the fast-food. During a lawsuit Oliver v. “McDonald’s”, the plaintiff James Oliver has proved, that the defendant used ammonium hydroxide (food additive E-527) for the meat as a regulator of acidity. For oral use, it is considered dangerous, causes indigestion and adversely affects the liver. In fact, all these delicious cutlets in hamburgers are made from pennies of production, which are suitable only for animal feed. Only after long chemical treatment, the mass can look familiar with a natural food, but it is completely modified. That is why, “most fast food delivered to the restaurant already frozen, canned, dehydrated, or freeze-dried. A Fast food kitchen is merely the final stage in a vast and highly complex system of mass production.” (Schlosser 7) Under those circumstances, most disturbing of all is the horrifying fact that because ammonium hydroxide is considered part of the “component in a production procedure” by the USDA, consumers may not know when the chemical is in their