Sacrificing Health for Convenience: Is Fast Food as Bad as People Claim?

Fig. 1 "Fast Food Advertisement." Photo Credit: Picz.in, 1 Mar. 2014.

            We all know how fast food tempts us with its delicious and convenient appeal. Fast food restaurants advertise the deliciousness of their food by focusing on the texture and flavor of the food in commercials or posters. However, the main reason why fast food tempts us so easily seems to arise from its convenience. This convenience comes from its fastness, cheapness, and the fact that you don’t have to cook it yourself. Yet, despite all these positives, an underlying guilt seems to appear after eating fast food. This results from the belief that fast food has harmful affects on a person’s health. Yet, when you look at the contents of the food – meat, tomatoes, lettuce, and onions – it does not appear so terrible. Is fast food really as bad as many people claim? Such a question needs to strike us as important because if fast food causes harmful affects on our bodies, many of us need to reevaluate our diets. Fast food can negatively affect a person’s health in many ways; however, as long as the rest of our diets balance out the bad, the more convenient route may not pose as such a great threat.

Fig. 2 "Too much Omega-6." Photo Credit: kimberlysnyder.net, 8 Mar. 2014.

One Clinical Nutritionist, Kimberly Snyder discusses the negative effects fast food can have on a person’s health in her blog post titled “The Long-Term Effects of that Fast Food Meal.” In it she explains that people should avoid eating any fast food because of the harmful effects that it has on the body and because those effects will stick with you. For example, the overuse of antibiotics in livestock can lead to resistant bacteria and can deplete good bacteria in the stomach. In addition, the high sugar content in fast food can lead to aging skin and even cataracts. Fast food also harbors an over abundance of omega-6 fatty acids, which in high quantities leads to cancer, blood clots, and weight gain. However, she says if you must eat fast food, consumers must avoid certain items such as double meat burgers, white bread, and heavy salad dressings (Snyder, 2-6 of 22). Equipped with the knowledge of how these things can affect our bodies, we can fully comprehend why Snyder passionately stands against consumption of fast food meals.

Fig. 3 "Cows and Hormonal Injections." Photo Credit: youthxchange.net, 1 Mar. 2014.

Yet, even though Clinical Nutritionist Kimberly Snyder allows the occasionally fast food meal, some people would think that eating fast food falls in a category of off limits. One of these people, Richard Stossel, in his article, “Why You Should Avoid Fast Food at All Costs” writes about the harmfulness of fast food. The article first emphasizes the harm it has on animals and later points out how we consume sick and ill animals, which in turn negatively affects us. The Fast Food Industry injects plenty of antibiotics and hormones in the animals it uses to produce meat (2 of 6, ¶ 11, 14; Snyder 2 of 22). Kimberly Snyder also talks about this in her blog post I previously mentioned (2-3 of 22). I already talked about the harmful effects of antibiotics, but not hormones. Stossel stated that hormones put stress on the bodies of livestock causing them to lose more health benefits they potentially had. The Fast Food industry also harms animals by putting them in poor, dirty environments and in tight quarters. Such an environment causes the meat in animals to lose its health benefits. It also poses as an unsanitary environment for processing meat (Stossel, 2 of 6, ¶ 8-14). By understanding the state of the animal’s health before butchering and quality of environment it lives in, we can see why Stossel suggests staying away from such harmful food at all costs.

Stossel, in his article, also discusses how industries over process their fast food meat. In fact, the article stresses this by explaining that scientists use chemicals to make the food seem fresher. The chemicals listed in the article gave freshness by adding smell or color to the food (Stossel, 3-4 of 6). Michael Pollen also brings attention to the need to stay away from over processed foods in his essay titled “Escape from the Western Diet.” In the essay, he states, “we should simply avoid any food that has been processed to such an extent that it is more the product of industry than of nature (Pollen, 437-38).” These two authors clearly saw the importance of staying away from over-processed foods, the main ingredient of fast food. So, we can see that better options exist than fast food.

Processed foods pose a threat to our bodies because of all the unnatural ways industries grow livestock. The animals contain many antibiotics and hormones that reduce the health benefits consumers would potentially have received. Processed foods cause harm to our bodies because they contain an over abundance of additives such as sugar and omega-6 fatty acids. For these reasons, we need to reduce the amount of fast foods we eat and focus on more healthy alternatives. Some people, like Richard Stossel, argue that we should never eat such foods. Yet, there comes a time when we have no other alternative – such as when we travel or shop – that we need the convenience that fast food has to offer. As long as we have more healthy foods to balance out the terrible foods provided by the fast food industry, our bodies will recover from the harm fast food causes.

Works Cited

Pollan, Michael. “Escape from the Western Diet.” “They Say / I Say”: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing with Readings. Eds. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, Russel Durst. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2012. 434-40. Print. 14 Feb. 2014.

Snyder, Kimberly. The Long-Term Effects of That Fast Food Meal [Infographic]. Kimberly Snyder’s Health and Beauty Detox. 2014. Web. 1 Mar. 2014.

Stossel, Richard. “Why You Should Avoid Fast Food at All Costs.” Natural News. Truth Publishing International, 6 Jan. 2009. Web. 1 Mar. 2014.