Abstract

This paper will discuss the fast food effects on kids’ and adults’ obesity. Obesity is defined relative to body mass index at or above 95 percentile. Children having BMI at or above 85^th percent are overweight. Obesity has been in the rise in all countries of the world both developed and underdeveloped despite being considered as a problem of the affluent countries. Fast food has a considerable effect on the children and adults not only in America but also globally. The frequency of access to fast food as well as the quantity of fast food consumed increases the prevalence of obesity. Indeed, McDonald fast food restaurant has been found to have contributed to the prevalence of obesity among the Americans. Nevertheless, reduced consumption of fast foods has not been shown to lead to the prevalence of obesity.

Introduction

Obesity has been in the rise in all countries of the world both developed and underdeveloped despite being considered as a problem of the affluent countries. The public health problem of childhood obesity is today a problem of both developing and underdeveloped countries. The increased cases of non communicable diseases have been linked by several studies to be caused by the rising prevalence of obesity and overweight cases being witnessed around the world in the current century. Obesity is therefore considered by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a global epidemic due to the increase in the number of overweight and obese individuals that have been witnessed in the last twenty years (El Mouzan et al, 2010).

It is clear that Macdonald’s is one the largest fast foods restaurant in America and in the world. Besides MacDonald’s is different from any other restaurants, because it reflects American culture regarding food. Many Americans prefer eating fast foods at the MacDonald’s instead of preparing their own meals at home. Research has shown that typical Americans may eat fast foods from restaurants like MacDonald’s, at least five times within a week (Arndt, 2007). Due to the culture of eating out, it has been observed that most Americans have become either obese, or overweight. These restaurants including MacDonald’s have been largely blamed for the spread of obesity in America. Some analysts have commented that obesity is becoming an epidemic in America, with around sixty percent of all American adults being overweight.

Children have not been left out, because it has been observed that, child obesity is on the rise in America. The increases in obesity have directly been linked to fast food restaurants. This led some consumers of fast foods to sue MacDonald’s, arguing that it is responsible for their obesity, however, judges threw out the case, citing that, individuals are responsible for what the eat. This paper will discuss the fast food effects on kids’ and adults’ obesity.

Fast Food Effects on Kids’ and Adults’ Obesity

Janet Curie et al (2009) states that, “there is little consensus about the definition of fast food in the literature. For instance, the American Heritage Dictionary defines the fast food as “Inexpensive food, such as hamburgers and fried chicken, prepared and served quickly.” Moreover he argues that, “While everyone agrees that prominent chains such as McDonald’s serve fast food, there is less agreement about whether smaller, independent restaurants are also fast food.” However, Abdolla (2007) has provided the definition of fast food to be establishments as the ones that have a very limited menu as well as items heated quickly or prepared in advance and where there are no disposable wrappings, table service or containers

The increased cases of obesity and the other obesity related diseases have been reported to have been in the increase in the United States since the period of the mid 1970s. Indeed, obesity has become public health concern both at local and global scale in the last three decades. About 22 million children worldwide under the age of five are obese (Miller, Rosenblon & Silverstein, 2004).  Childhood obesity reduces life expectancy in adulthood. Pediatric obesity-related healthcare cost has tripled over the last two decades and are projected to continue escalating. The increased frequency and severity of this condition is coupled with expected clinical complications such as glucose intolerance and heart diseases. It also poses a threat to thwarting cardiovascular mortality reduction. Increase in frequency and incidence of T2D in young children parallel the escalation in frequency and chronicity of pediatric childhood obesity.

Obesity is defined relative to body mass index at or above 95 percentile (Diez & Gortner, 2001). Children having BMI at or above 85^th percent are overweight.  As a social, physical, and environmental disease, obesity is the basic example of holistic life or “nature of an illness process” (Diez & Gortner, 2001). The escalating rate of obesity is striking and alarming, taking into account the short-term and long-term health impacts caused by childhood obesity.  Multiple studies show that prevention is the effect approach to deal with the risk rather that waiting for its onset. Prevention efforts must target the interventions that physical activity and nutritional intake. As the total number of children who are obese increases in the U.S, so is the health issues that are actually directly a result of the effects of fast food on the childhood obesity. Statistics indicates between 10 percent and 15 percent.

The health costs and risks linked to obesity have been the primary focus for health and wellness agenda and health promotion. Most of the clients are from low socioeconomic status with limited resources to access health care. These vulnerable families require multiple needs under conditions of limited resources. Many of the victims are from low socioeconomic status with historical record of healthcare disparity challenges. Therefore, it becomes a challenge to design and implement interventions that are not only accessible but also affordable and behavior change oriented. Childhood obesity and diabetes are associated with huge health costs and consequences. Immediate plan and action are needed to reverse or slow this striking trend. Programs that have been directed at treating obesity and diabetes in children have not been such success. The annual medical expenditure made on obesity accounts for a third of the total cost allocated for health care system (Dunham-Taylor & Pinczuk, 2004).

There are a lot of dangers associated with obesity, ranging from economic impacts, societal impacts and health impacts in the next 40 years. The economic impacts arise from the fact that NHS attributes the cost of obesity to double to 10 billion pounds annually by the year 2050. The additional costs to a business and society in general are estimated to reach 49.9 billion pounds. The health risks associated with obesity include type 2 diabetes and other wide range of chronic diseases, cancer, coronary heart disease and stroke. Furthermore, obesity has also been associated to immediate health consequences of lipids profile and elevated blood pressure. There has also been an association with increased asthma and also psychological effects (HSE, 2009).

Comprehensive lifestyle prevention intervention such as behavioral change, dietary change and adequate physical activity are necessary for successive prevention and treatment of childhood obesity. The pandemic proportions of obesity in adolescents and children require interventions and strategies that stretch beyond traditional-based approaches. Integrating nursing, nutrition and wellness is core to developing effective interventions aimed at combating obesity. Nursing as a profession, focuses on wellness of communities, groups, families and individuals as expressed in their external and internal setting. The biggest culprit is actually the increased consumption of the fast food among the adults and children in the U.S. While it is very true that an occasional stop at the McDonald’s is not likely to lead to obesity, it is the individuals who consume the fast foods on the regular basis are the ones who are on the higher risk (Dehghan1 et al, 2005).

One of the strategies for preventing childhood obesity is the identification of an environment that can be able to influence the children to have healthy eating. The neighborhood is a very fundamental factor that can be used in developing interventions. There should be a strong support by the community aimed at ensuring that children are provided with enough space that they can be able to play in. Although it is true that the local environment which includes both the wider community and school plays a significant role in shaping the children’s physical activity and eating behavior patterns, the neighborhood is also very fundamental in providing children with an environment that can influence positive behaviors that can prevent childhood obesity. Any intervention strategy designed to prevent childhood obesity should focus on ensuring that the child’s environment is that which encourages activities that prevent childhood obesity. For instance, it should be able to provide the children with the facilities for physical activities, discourage unhealthy eating behaviors and several other behaviors that can encourage childhood obesity (Dehghan1 et al, 2005).

According to Greg Crister, if the prevalence of obesity in America is ignored, almost the entire America will one time be obese, or overweight (p. 186). He also points out that children are at the most risk of developing obesity. Crister argues that the calories responsible for obesity in most cases come from fast chain restaurants like the MacDonald’s. He also observed that, obesity is being spread to other countries by the same fast food restaurants; this is due to globalization, free trade and open markets. Fast foods from restaurants like MacDonald’s normally contain food sweeteners, which are normally added when the food is being processed. These sweeteners like fructose are mainly responsible for obesity in individuals who consume a lot of fast foods, or junk food. However, a review that was carried out indicated that the findings derived from the observational studies are actually unable to provide any demonstration of a correlation between the consumption of fast food and obesity (Rosenheck, 2008).

Macdonald’s operations also have contributed to the increase in obesity in America. Macdonald’s is known to spend millions of dollars in aggressive campaigns which are meant to further boost the sells to its fast foods like burgers. This will ensure that more people buy and eat foods from MacDonald’s, instead of preparing meals at home. This will further increase the rate of obesity prevalence in the American population. The restaurant also offers home delivery services as a part of its operations. This will ensure that many Americans can order fast foods at the comfort of their homes; this will serve as a substitute for cooking at home. This is because during the major eating hours, one can easily order lunch, breakfast or dinner. Therefore, instead of someone thinking what to cook for dinner, they think of what to order for dinner, from MacDonald’s. This increases the frequency of eating fast foods among Americans, a factor which further contributes to more obesity cases every year. MacDonald’s has also automated its ordering services, and introduced online ordering as part of its operations. This makes the access to junk food much easier and wide spread (Crister, 2001).

The twenty four hours operation by MacDonald’s ensures that their customers can buy food during odd hours at night. This makes individual reluctant to prepare their own meals, due to the comfort of knowing that, they can obtain fast foods at any time. The fast foods sold by MacDonald’s and other fast food restaurants, have been known to temporarily satisfy hunger. After individuals consume fast foods, they may only stay satisfied for an hour or so. This makes them to eat fast foods several times within a day, with the increase in fast food intake; the chances of an individual developing obesity also increase. Health Food Guide website has stated that, “there are a number of factors that are related to the rise of obesity in children in the United States, including television, video games, advertising, and the foods children eat.”(Para 2).

When children are eating fast foods in restaurants like the MacDonald’s, parents have no supervision or control over what they eat. They can order foods with large amounts of sugar like snacks; in addition, they can eat large quantity of these foods. This makes prevalence rates for being overweight and obese higher in children.

Critser has also noted that, feeding behaviors and pattern promoted by fast food restaurants encourage gluttony, a fact that violet diary restrained required for a healthy living. People, who eat from fast food restaurants, normally eat a lot of food within one day as opposed to those who prepare meals at home. The more fast foods they eat, the bigger they become, and require a large amount of food to be satisfied. Crister saw that fast food restaurants like the MacDonald’s, causes gluttony in people, by disrupting the normal eating patterns, and encouraging the consumption of large amount of food (Crister, 2001). In using the word gluttony in his writing, Crister did not mean to stigmatize obese and overweight people, but he meant to criticize the behavior which leads to obesity. However, some critics have noted that, the use of the word gluttony by Crister in his essay is judgmental to overweight people.

Crister also wrote that in order to reverse the increasing rates of obesity in America, people should stigmatize overeating, and epically of junk foods. Parents were also advised to teach their children that consuming too much fast food is a bad habit. Cheap and unhealthy foods offered by fist food restaurants like the MacDonald’s, have also inconvenience good nutritional habits, a factor which has led to a steady increase in the prevalence rates of obesity among children, and adults in the U.S. With the increased hectic lives of the children and adults, in most cases instead of having a well balanced meal, individuals are indeed turning the fast food for a more quick fix at the mealtime. This has actually become one of the habits of the adults and children and eventually ending up eating the fast food meals just about every day (Crister, 2001).

A study that was carried out in the U.S. reviewed the impact of fourteen school based interventions on the behavior, knowledge, and physical activity, showed that there was a very significant improvements for the three interventions. One of the interdisciplinary interventions used a curriculum based approach in influencing the eating habits and reducing the sedentary behaviors, with a very major emphasis on the television viewing, and promotion of higher physical activity among the school children. The intervention showed a higher in the prevalence of childhood obesity. In order to increase the participation of children in physical education and sports, there is a need to come up with policies in both the education sector and schools that encourages children to participate in the same. Moreover, the prevention strategies should encourage active modes of transport used by children to and from schools such as cycling, walking, and pubic transport. This can only be achieved if there are changes in the policies of the local government and schools with regard to creating safe routes for children to use in cycling or walking from and to school (Dehghan1 et al, 2005).

Conclusion

This paper has discussed the fast food effects on kids’ and adults’ obesity. Indeed the paper has clearly indicated that fast food has a considerable effect on the children and adults not only in America but also globally. The frequency of access to fast food as well as the quantity of fast food consumed increases the prevalence of obesity. Indeed, McDonald fast food restaurant has been found to have contributed to the prevalence of obesity among the Americans. Nonetheless, reduced consumption of fast foods has not been shown to lead to the prevalence of obesity. Finally, it is significant for all the other causes of obesity to observed closely and measure taken to curb them in order to reduce the prevalence of obesity not only in the U.S. but also globally.

References

Abdollah, T (2007). “A Strict Order for Fast Food,” Los Angeles Times, A-1, Sept. 10.

Arndt, M. (2007). By focusing on the hours between traditional mealtimes, the fast-food giant is sizzling. Bloomberg Businessweek: McDonald’s 24/7. Retrieved on March 03, 2012 from http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_06/b4020001.htm

Currie, J., Vigna, S. D. & Moretti, E. et al. (2009). The Effects of Fast Food Restaurants on Obesity and Overweight Gain. Working Paper 14721, National Bureau of economic Research.

Critser, G. (22 July 2001). Too Much of a Good Thing. Editorial. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved on March 03, 2012 from http://articles.latimes.com/2001/jul/22

Dietz, W. & Gortner, S. (2001). Preventing Obesity in Children and Adolescents. Annual Review of Public Health, 22, 337-53.

Dehghan1 et al (2005), “Childhood obesity, prevalence and prevention,” Nutrition Journal, vol. 4, no. 24.

Dunham-Taylor, J. & Pinczuk, J. (2004). Health care financial management for nurse managers: merging the heart with the dollar. Sudbury, Mass.: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.

HSE (2009). Health and Lifestyles: Summary for England, Retrieved on March 05, 2012 from <www.ic.nhs.uk/pubs/hse09report>

Mouzan El et al (2010). “Prevalence of overweight and obesity in Saudi children and adolescents,” Journal of Ann Saudi Med, vol. 30, no. 3.

Miller, J., Rosenbloom, A. & Silverstein, J. (2004). Childhood Obesity. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 89(9): 4211-4218.

Rosenheck, R. (2008). “Fast Food Consumption and increased caloric intake: a systematic review of a trajectory towards weight gain and obesity risk,” Obesity Reviews, 1-13.