For the past few days, we have been watching a movie called, "Supersize Me." In this movie a young man undergoes a thirty day trial restricting his eating to only McDonald's, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Before he begins his trial he is medically tested for health problems or any other issues that might not allow him to successfully complete this thirty day trial. It is important that one gets tested for any medical problems before beginning anything that could cause harm to yourself. It is hard to believe that this young man was able to go a full thirty days eating only McDonald's. Almost consistently he ordered the supersize value meal. Hence, this is how the movie got the cartoon-like, but disturbing title.
There are over 31,000 McDonald restaurants worldwide, employing more than 1.5 million people. McDonald's operates in more than 119 countries, on six continents. Can you guess which continent they don't have one on? People truly do not realize the number of calories they consume on a daily basis, let alone the number of calories each McDonald’s meal has. An order of large fries at McDonald’s is equivalent to consuming an entire conventional meal. I would rather consume five bags of candy than purchase an order of large fries that are saturated in oily fats. As much as I love McDonald’s and fast food restaurants, the government should ask McDonald’s to refrain from selling any single food item that exceeds 500 calories. Our recommended daily diet should not exceed 2,000 calories.
Since there are so many calories in fast food, it can cause many different types of diseases, including obesity, diabetes (Type I and II) and heart disease. With the known risks of an unhealthy high calorie diet, why do people continue to eat at McDonald’s each and every day? McDonald’s employees are trained to be persuasive with their customers. For example, when employees tell their customers you can get the large for only fifty cents more, people readily agree to this offer. I consider this to be unnecessary and a contributor to unhealthy living. If our country needs fast food restaurants, we should have fast food restaurants that serve healthy fast foods, not fast food that is unhealthy.
In conclusion, I believe McDonald’s should be limited as a fast-food restaurant choice. They could easily limit the number of calories in their food offerings, without changing them. Wendy's, a competitor, has done exactly that. To show the unhealthiness of McDonald's food, the subject of “Supersize Me,” only after a day or two of his trial, suffers a powerful “McStomach ache” and actually regurgitates all of the McDonald’s food he consumed. In the end, he almost suffers from a coronary heart problem that could of cost him his life. Shouldn’t this message tell people something?! In the future, all McDonald’s is going to do is create an unhealthy base for future children to develop diabetes or heart problems and become obese! It makes me sad to know that our country is the most obese country in the world. I blame a large part of our country’s obesity on the famous restaurant with the golden arches known as, “MickeyD’s.”
1 comment:
I don't believe it's the government's job to regulate food corporations such as McDonald's. It's not the government's right to choose for its people, but the people themselves have the right to do whatever they want, and each of them can eat whatever they feel is necessary to satisfy them. I don't mind looking at obese people, and I don't think that they are disgusting, that's just simply being mean to them. If people just let others do what they want, then there wouldn't be such a big fuss about this issue. The problem is not the food corporations, but it's the people that can't control themselves, and that's not an issue McDonald's have to worry about. If a person restricts his eating to only McDonald's for a month, then there is clearly a problem that he/she has to solve, many people are over weight because they are suffering with an inner issue, like confusing hunger with sadness. Talking about how obese people are disgusting isn't going to solve the problem, instead it will make them willing to eat more food. Addiction to food is like addiction to marijuana, people can't stop the addiction, because it makes them feel good. Lowering the calories isn't going to solve the problem either, they'll eat twice as more. But, obese people will realize the need for stopping their eating habits when they hurt themselves to a point where it could cause death. They need to talk to a physical therapist to help them adjust themselves, maybe have some relatives help them on their diet, but you can't just simply tell them to stop eating and exercize. Another way to solve this issue is to have negative advertising about overweight and obesity; Supersize Me is a great example, but I can't imagine how many times Morgan Spurlock said, "oh this feels good!" After the way I've seen him change physically and gain all that weight that's when I started having doubts about personal responsibility, and to tell the truth, I still don't know if this issue should be aimed at food corporations, or left to the people to deal with by themselves.
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