Background: Fast Food and its Negative Effects

Background: Fast Food and its Negative Effects
Prepared by Zhenyu Zhong
The fast food industry has been known to specifically target certain groups that are vulnerable to its practices and are very profitable. This is the case when the fast food industry places stores in historically poor districts and take advantage of the poor’s tendency to dine using the inexpensive choice. Although the industry may provide cheap food, it is very unhealthy and has serious health consequences when gone unchecked in individuals later in their life. This is also a problem when corporate advertising targets children and gets them hooked to the fast food culture and having them consume that fast food from an early age, leading to a life filled with unhealthy eating practices. The justice issue that we will be exploring is the corporate abuse of the vulnerable that the fast food industry utilizes in its drive to maximize profits at the expensive of the public’s health.
Currently, many consumers of fast food are not actually getting accurate information about the food they are eating and they may be under the impression that they are eating food that is healthier than it actually is and may be skewing their dietary habits because of this inaccurate information. The injustice here is that the industry is essentially feeding the people misinformation about the nutrional values of the products, because the actual values are much different than the official nutritional values. The industry is essentially profiting off of this sense of false security about its healthiness and is taking advantage of this situation. An independent laboratory tested the food itself for nutritional values, it was found that “the test results also show that the 100 gram serving of fries we bought yielded 352 calories, but on the McDonald’s website it says 307” (Spurlock 113). This is a large difference between the actual values and what McDonald’s tells us, and we also do not always the amount of fries that the nutritional values state. This is an injustice because we are not getting the whole truth about what we are eating and this is almost lying about the statistics of the food that we eat.
Another injustice is the lack of real healthy alternatives at many fast food restaurants. The oppressed in this case are the poor and even with the few healthy choices. Even the healthy choices that are provided to customers are not entirely healthy. This injustice is that when people go to eat at McDonald's, they come in already with the predisposition of wanting to get some kind of hamburger, yet these are the most unhealthy choices that are on the menu. However, while there are healthy choices, people go to McDonald's or other fast food chains not for these healthy choices like salads, but rather for the hamburgers. However, there has been no attempt to make these hamburgers more healthy, and as a result, very few salads are sold. In one year, McDonald's sold 150 million salads," (Kapica 2) which seems like a lot but McDonald's servers more than 46 million people a day, so the amount of people who actually get the salad is very small. The salads are not healthy either, such as the Fiesta Salads with salsa has 450 calories, with half from fat, and this is just about as unhealthy as the double cheeseburger. (McDonald's Corporation) There are no real healthy choices and even when there are, customers do not choose to buy them.
Another oppressed group is children. This is because of how much the fast food industry advertises towards children, and this gets them to buy into the fast food culture and get them hooked on this unhealthy food. This is evident from the meals that are designed specifically for children, such as the Happy Kids Meal from McDonald' and its various toys that are coveted by children, and the play places that attractive to children. The injustice here is that the industry knows that it is easier to advertise toward children to get them to buy products, and often parents will not deny what their children want, and when eating fast food from such an early age for a long time, while increasing the profits of the corporations it comes at the expense of the healthiness of the children. We know this because it has been seen that by changing the unhealthy foods to healthy foods that have been marketed to children, and once they changed to healthier foods, there was "improvements in the kids' behavior, their attentiveness in class and their general attitudes" (Center for Science in the Public Interest 3). This is testament to that providing healthier foods is much better for the children's well being and their behaviors.
The oppressors in this situation are the fast food corporations, and although they are doing what they can to make profits, which is understandable of a business, they are doing so at the expense of the well-being and health of the general public. This is because they are marketing foods as healthier than they actually are, and targeting advertising specifically for children, which allows them to get children to buy into their goods and thus be lifelong customers all while worsening their health and leading to health problems later in life. This kind of profit is an example of the means justifying the ends, putting profits over the people’s health. One of these instances of worsening health problems is the massive growth of being overweight in China with the onset of fast food corporations such as McDonald's. The amount of overweight in China has increased over 28 times to 14.7 percent of Chinese people being overweight. “Currently one-fifth of the world's obese people are Chinese” (NaturalNews 1). This is a result of the increased sedentary lifestyles that many Chinese live now, as well as the increase in meat uptake as compared to previous. This is a growing problem that needs to be resolved.
The social systems involved are the corporate industry which although provides this affordable food that is fast and available on the go which has proven to be useful to people all over the world, it comes with a price, which is our good health. It has turned into an all out fight for profits over the well being of the people, providing foods that have an overload of fats, sugars, and sodium. In our culture, the fast food is often seen has delicious and the using the media as a medium for this advertising, it makes for very effective marketing. The people do not see this system as a problem because of they are drawn into the fast food culture and they tend not to see the health implications of these fast foods in the long term and would rather have the instant gratification of consuming this food.
There have been several groups and agencies that have tried to spark action against the fast food corporations, trying to force them to change their ways. For example, this has happened to try to make the companies stop using trans fat which have been linked to many unhealthy side effects. There has also been some government effort to try to get people to eat healthier, such as through the food pyramid, however even this action is limited because they are often friends of the corporations and get much donor money from them. Another government agency, the FDA has introduced the food pyramid to act as guidelines for what kind of diets people should have.
It is necessary that we take action before it is too late and all of us are consumed by this fast food culture. This is necessary to change because many of these health problems will not arise for years and once they start, it is very hard to fix them without lots and lots of hard work and exercise in order to become a healthy individual again.