hw due 10/24/2018

Jeremy Diaz

Eric Drown

English 122

October 21, 2018

When reading the “XXXL: Why are we fat” article a big question appeared to me. In my own view, I wondered how we can get big corporations such as Mc Donalds or Burger King to change their ways. Would we need to cut them out of our diet a little or should we boycott them completely? Many other questions came to mind and I continued to search for the answers in Kolbert’s article. I read interesting facts about rapid weight gain and Kolbert pointed out some possible reasons for this weight gain. I eventually came to the point where I was wondering why these people who run the fast food industry aren’t doing anything to help people with weight when it is primarily their fault. I realized that fast food won’t change so it is us that must change, but how? We must limit our fast food eating to little or none at all.

I thought to myself in order to get people to boycott these fast food places, I would have to find a way to convince them that the food isn’t good for them. But some people don’t care about how healthy the food is so then I realized I would have to prove to them that these fast food industries didn’t care about their health. There are multiple examples of this within Kolbert’s article, one of the main one’s being that the calories in the food has increased over time. Kolbert provides evidence of this with research that states  “Before McDonalds discover the power of re-portioning, it offered just a small bag of french-fries which contained two hundred calories. Today a small order of fries contains two hundred and thirty calories.” This is a clear sign that they don’t care about people’s health and wellbeing.  Kolbert introduces some facts that show people have been getting weight at an unhealthy amount based on research. She states, “in the early nineteen sixties, 24.3 per cent of American adults were overweight.” Kolbert eventually explains “During the nineteen-eighties, the American gut, instead of expanding very gradually, had balloon; 33.3 per cent of adults now qualified as overweight.” McDonalds, among other fast foods, should have taken these facts into account back then and changed what goes into their foods so it could be a little healthier.  But they didn’t change back then and won’t change their methods anytime soon. Instead, they feel as if they put more into the food that people will instead feel like they are getting a bargain and continue to eat at their restaurant and making them money. I feel like if people realize this is who they are buying from and supporting then they will feel a sense of urgency to discontinue their support of this food chain.

But that’s just for McDonald’s. What can I do to continue to convince people to not eat elsewhere? Well the answer is that they have an addiction. The definition of an addiction is  . In other words, it is something that you feel you can’t live without. Kolbert introduces Kessler to elaborate on this. Kolbert argues “Foods like Cinnabon and Starbucks strawberries and cream Frappuccino are like drugs.” He also  compares this to the addiction of gambling. It is similar to high risk high reward. People know that there is a high risk to gambling but they do it anyway because if they are successful there is a high reward. For food there is always the reward of enjoying the taste of what you are eating but at the same time you are putting your health at a high risk. The people Kessler is trying to reach here is fast food eaters as well as nutritionist. If fast food eaters hear this maybe they will be more cautious with the amount of fast food, they eat weekly. Nutritionist can use this as leverage when advising people what to eat and what is bad to eat. Hopefully by hearing about this some people who can’t stop eating these unhealthy foods everyday will try to reach out for help and be more cautious with what they are eating.

The last way I would try to convince people to stop eating fast foods is based on the recent rapid weight gain. What I have come to realize from Kolbert’s work is that people are gaining weight at an unhealthy amount and nobody can find out why. They went back and checked genetics to see if there had ever been a time period before when people gained weight at such an unhealthy  amount as we’ve seen in recent years and there is no correlation. The only major change we can see in now and back then is that we now have fast food. Therefore, this could be the cause for major weight gain. Back then people actually had to do hard labor to have good food. If you wanted chicken, you had to raise it and then kill it yourself. On top of that you would have to take all the feathers off and cook it yourself. Now people just go to the super market pick up a pack of ribs and throw it on the grill. In other words, it takes little to no work to get the food you so desperately want. So, I encourage people to at least find the healthiest way to prepare food and cook it ourselves. Yes, it is more time consuming and a little more expensive, but I think having a better body and feeling healthy is worth the investment.

In conclusion I think people will see that they need to cut back on all the fast food they are eating if not cut it out of their diet completely. Everyone deserves to be healthy but you can’t accomplish that if you are not eating properly. One day I hope we can reach a place where getting a meal isn’t about money or time but about others health and well being.