A Quote From the Book, ‘Fast Food Nation’

Kids, there are companies that have conspired to control your eating habits even before you were born. They have NEVER had your best interests at heart. There is a epidemic of Diabetes in America. It took off thirty to forty years ago when fast food outlets started to replace our old fashioned home cooked meals. At that time, we young adults thought how wonderful, we can get food real quick, don’t  have to get out the car and it’s cheap! Well that’s when the diabetes epidemic began, back in the 1960’s. This is before you were born.  The food industry has has caused a undeniable change in eating habits in America. People are getting sick.  Young children and young adults are getting type 2 Diabetes.  Before the 1960’s type 2 Diabetes was over 95% diagnosed in men and women over the age of 60. Today it’s being diagnosed in children as young as two or three years old. Our fast food corporations are exporting our way of eating to other countries. The writing is on the wall. Their people are now beginning to suffer the same diet driven illnesses that are epidemic in America. 

I give a quote from the book ‘Fast Food Nation” written by Eric Schlosser and first published in 2001. The quote begans, “As in the United States, the fast food companies have targeted their foreign advertising and promotion at a group of consumers with the fewest attachments to tradition: young children. “Kids are the same regarding the issues that effect the all-important stages of their development,” a top executive at the Gepetto Group told the audience at a recent KidPower conference, “and they apply to any kid in Berlin, Beijing, or Brooklyn.” The KidPower conference, attended by marketing executives from Burger King and Nickelodeon, among others, was held at Disneyland outside of Paris.  In Australia, where the number of fast food restaurants roughly tripled during the 1990s, a survey found that half of the nation’s nine- and ten-year olds thought that Ronald McDonald knew what kids should eat. At a primary school in Beijing, Yunxiang found that all of the children recognized the image of Ronald McDonald. The children told Yan they liked “Uncle McDonald” because he was “funny, gentile, kind, and … he understood children’s hearts.” Coca-Cola is now the favorite drink among Chinese children, and McDonald’s serves their favorite food. Simply eating at a McDonald’s in Beijing seems to elevate a person’s social status. The idea that you you are what you eat has been enthusiatically promoted by Don Fujita, the eccentric billionaire who brought McDonald’s to Japan three decades ago.  “If we eat McDonald’s hamburgers and potatoes for a thousand years,” Fugita once promised his countrymen,  “we will become taller, our skin will become white, and our hair will be blonde.”

You young people must understand what you are dealing with. This food industry is about corporate profits. Most of the ads on TV is not about you. Its about the dollars in your household. Our American way of eating has caused a epidemic of Diabetes in America.  Young people today face a nightmare of health problems if no cure shows up. The medical community is working full speed to find a cure.  The food industry in this country gives you the illusion that it is being monitored. It is not. Your illness is not the fault of something you did. Your parents, your grandparents, aunts and uncles, and even your baby sitters have all been duped. I used to take both my daughters to McDonald’s. I felt great! We would eat the food and take home the free toys and everybody was happy! We didn’t know.  These companies are powerful enough to change the way a whole country consumes food. 

You must decide what is best for you and your health. Your parent are not always aware of what they put on the table. They love you and want you to have a good future. If they take you to McDonald’s or Burger King, or any of the other fast food chains on a regular basis, beware. You could be on the road to type 2 Diabetes.  If your parent or guardian is not aware of the dangers of a fast food diet, YOU must tell them.  It’s your life.

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