Post date: Oct. 13, 2008 5:57 p.m.

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The fast food industry has added every chemical possible that they can legally get away with to addict people to their food. In fact, if you eat fast food and you stop eating it, you actually go through withdrawal symptoms. It’s like a drug. Not only that, the preservatives are so high in these fast food burgers these days that the product does not even break down. Fast food has been linked in the increase in obesity in both adults and children. Obesity has reached epidemic proportions in our country, particularly in children. Here are some startling statistics to consider:

• 65% of American adults are overweight
• 30% of Americans are obese
• According to the American Obesity Association, 127 million Americans are overweight, 60 million Americans are obese, and 9 million are “morbidly obese”: they weigh 100 pounds more than they should.
• In the last twenty years, the rate of obesity has doubled in children and tripled in adolescents and teens.
• As of September 2004, nine million American kids between the ages of six and eighteen were obese.

OBESITY: A KILLER
Obesity-related illnesses will kill around 400,000 Americans this year–almost the same as smoking. Americans have gotten so big that their coffins have to be supersized!
Related illnesses caused by obesity:

• High cholesterol
• High blood pressure
• Heart disease
• Breast Cancer
• Colon cancer
• Gout
• Arthritis
• Asthma
• Diabetes
• Strokes

In 2003, The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that one out of three kids born in America in the year 2000 will develop type 2 diabetes.

The life of a ten-year-old child who has Type II diabetes will be, on average, between seventeen and twenty-six years shorter than that of a healthy child.

Diabetes can lead to heart attacks, strokes, blindness, kidney failure, and nerve damage in the lower legs which may result in amputation (82,000 of these cases occur every year).

Diabetes is currently the sixth-highest cause of death in America.

Fast Food is Everywhere
The rise of the fast food industry plays a critical role in why our country is plagued with obesity. Fast food is everywhere: in big cities, small towns, shopping malls, the airport, the bus station, schools, and even hospitals!

There are 31,000 McDonald’s worldwide- almost 14,000 of them are in the U.S.

People are Eating a lot of Fast Food
Fast food has become cheaper and easier to buy. In 2004, Americans spent $124 billion dollars on fast food. That same year, The American Journal of Preventive Medicine published a study showing that the percentage of fast food calories in the American diet has increased from 3 percent to 12 percent over the last twenty years.

Fast food culture was introduced to other countries around the world in the 1980’s. In countries like Japan and China, people have abandoned traditional healthy diets in favor of fast food and as a result the rate of obesity and other diseases has soared.

Fast Food Restaurants Serve More
Not only is fast food everywhere, but fast food companies encourage the consumer to eat more by supplying over-sized burgers, extra-large servings for fries, and buckets of soda.

Products like The Whopper, The Big Gulp, and Super Size meals pack in a whopping amount of calories, sugars, and fats. Let’s take a closer look:
• The Double Gulp soda at your local 7-11 holds 64 ounces of soda – that is half a gallon! It contains the equivalent of 48 teaspoons of sugar.
• A typical hamburger at a fast food restaurant weighs six ounces. In 1957, it weighed one ounce.
• According to one nutritionist, your average fast food meal is more like three meals.
• The average meal at a McDonald’s has 1,550 calories.

Fast Food is not Good For Us
We’re eating more food that is not nutritious. Most fast-food meals are high in fat, high in sugar, high in calories, high in starch, high in salt, and low in fiber and nutrients. Because fast food lacks nutrients, after we eat it we’re not satisfied. That makes us hungry for more soon after.

Why kids are at a major risk
Our children are exposed to an onslaught of advertising for fast food. Fast food chains spend more then $3 billion every year on television advertising. They intentionally campaign to kids so they become life-long customers. These are known as cradle-grave advertising strategies. Researchers have found that children can often recognize a company logo, like the Golden Arches, before they can recognize their own name.

In one year, the typical American child watches more that 40,000 TV commercials. Around 20,000 of these ads are for junk food: fast food, candy, soda, and breakfast cereals. This means that your child sees a junk food ad every five minutes when they’re watching TV.

To further motivate children to eat fast food, companies like McDonald’s have Happy Meals with free toys. McDonald’s gives away more than 1.5 billion toys every year. Almost one out of every three new toys given to American kids each year is from McDonald’s or another fast food restaurant.

In order to combat these calculated advertising strategies, educating our children on healthy eating habits that are easy, fun, and taste great is paramount. By teaching our children how harmful fast food is and how to eat healthier, they are empowered to make the right choices.

I recommend if you are serious about your health, you AVOID fast food AT ALL COSTS!

There are so many healthy alternatives that can not only satiate your cravings, but deliver the vitamins and nutrients your body needs for peak performance. Please browse this site and read all about delicious superfoods, superherbs, and other superior healthy foods.

BeWellBuzz

Our mission and goal is to provide you with the best, factual natural health information on the internet. Created by Larry Oz, a natural health journalist who seeks to empower people informational tools needed to make educated health decisions. Please spread this article far and wide by sharing it with family and friends. As always, please seek professional advice before implementing any practice.BeWellBuzz.com is brought to you by Halcyon Publishing.

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