What Everybody Ought To Know -- Fast Food And Obesity

et's face it, we are living in a world primarily where the foods we eat and the drinks we drink are no longer good for us. The vegetables are grown in soils that have been overused to the point
where nutritional values are much less than they were 50 years ago. The headlong rush to provide food for the masses is being driven by corporate profits where pressure is upon the producers to
create attractive produce quickly and efficiently, with the nutritional value being of second nature. And don't get me talking about the chemicals sprayed onto our foods either, that is for
another report.

So what all this gives us in essence is food on the table that may look good but has no real nutritional value. The body is being fed but the end result is a body still craving some sustenance, the portion sizes increase and the frequency of eating is also increasing and as a consequence the sugars and fats consumed are increasing. To make matters worse the corporate driven suppliers are choosing profit by public demand not public responsibility. This may seem
obvious but they are powerless to do anything other than provide what the customer is asking for.

People are from birth weened onto a diet of sugary fatty foods that seem almost impossible to avoid. The convenience of dropping by the local hamburger joint and picking up a quick meal is hard to resist. We have a plethora of fast food outlets waiting for our money and what do we get for that convenience? We get overweight. And ask yourself another question, how many of you have eaten a fast food meal and only an hour later could go out and have another one? Think about that for a second....nutrition deprived??

So what would happen if say one of our most popular fast food outlets decided in a fit of public responsibility decided to actually give us healthy nutritious food? What would happen would be the fast food chain would disappear overnight into a bankrupt oblivion, so do not expect any help there. It is not really their fault they are only giving us what we want. If they stripped all the fat from a hamburger you would have a tasteless product that customers would never buy, why?
Because the fat is what gives the food flavor. As a species we are practically genetically tied to fat and uric acid.

From the dawn of mankind fat from the food we killed helped us survive cold starving winters. Over the abundant warmer times we ate well and stored fat in our bodies in preparation for the next lean period. The trouble with this is that nowadays we do not need this survival mechanism anymore so the fat laden foods we crave are doing us a disservice. If the manufacturers take away the fat they have to replace it with another flavor enhancer such as sugar or an additive.
Another problem is that some manufacturers supply fat laden foods that also have high sugar content. All this offers a product that tastes great but is harmful to our bodies.

Another aspect of our obesity problem is that we no longer have to travel miles upon miles to track down our prey and carry it back to our home, the lower physical exertion we experience today is compounding the situation. Most of us find it difficult to go to an exercise class or work out at the gym week after week month after month because the only reward for all this exertion is a better looking body whereas in the past all that exertion meant we survived another day, the contrast and rewards are quite distinct.

One further point which is often overlooked is the time frame it takes to become obese. Most of us are not born obese it is an accumulation over many years. The old adage of dropping a frog in
a pot of boiling water would make it jump out straight away but if you sit it in the water and slowly over time brought the water up in temperature the frog would slowly boil and die, not a very nice story but I think you see my point. And here comes some more food for thought, if you have obese parents you are more likely to be obese as well. The main reason does not have to be genetic it has to do with lifestyle choices. If you are raised by parents that ate fatty sugar
laden foods and had higher than normal portion sizes how do you think the child would turn out?

I think we would all agree that obesity is one of those problems that will not fix itself and it will take time to put in place methods and choices that will make an impact. I believe that the first piece of the puzzle is to educate or at least provide the information about obesity so that we may make choices that are based upon better health