Evan Allison

Prof. Richardson

English Comp. II

26 March 2019

Are Fast Food Restaurants to Blame for Obesity?

Fast food has been around for as long as just about anyone can remember. And for those

many decades, not much has changed food wise. Cheeseburgers and fries are the first thing that

probably comes to mind when you think of fast food, but over the last decade, these companies

have tried to change how we view fast food. Fast food companies are causing an increased

unhealthy environment due to their misleading advertising, marketing towards children and their

presence in and around media.

Fast food is seen as an easy meal for families, as many times they don’t have enough time

to prepare a meal or go somewhere else. In the mid to late 1900’s, fast food was extremely

popular, and seen as a generally good thing. As time has gone on, people’s views have changed,

but the amount of people eating at these restaurants hasn’t gone down drastically. This is due to

the new marketing that these companies have implemented into their advertising. This includes

new healthy options, along with brand new restaurants sprouting out, aware of consumers’ new

views on their health and what they are eating.

Restaurants of all kinds seem to put out more healthy choices, but it seems like fast food

has been the biggest market with this new view on what food could be. They know that they are

seen as unhealthy, so they have gone and put a lot of their resources in to healthy food in order to

gain back those who are looking for a better way to diet.
 The problem with this us that a lot of these healthy choices aren’t really as healthy as you

would be led to believe. The healthy options a lot of the time has just as much, if not more

calories in it than the traditional fast food meal. Salads seem to have been more popular at places

like Mcdonald’s and Wendy’s, but they are given with chicken, nuts, and lots of dressing which

all adds up to form a high calorie meal. While these options are for the most part still better than

eating a cheeseburger, they aren’t completely what the advertisements lead you to believe. They

aren’t exactly what you would be looking for if you were trying to eat a balanced healthy meal.

Another thing these advertisements do is promote unhealthy food in ways that attract

people. They will do something that has nothing to do with fast food at all and associate it in

some way with their brand. Sports are a good representation of this, as companies will sponsor

teams and mark them with their logos. If someone notices this, they may associate the sport as

good or healthy with whoever is sponsoring them. You can see this especially in younger tier

levels of sports like high school and college, sometimes even as low as elementary schools.

In many commercials you’ll often see these companies promoting around a special

promotion or deal going around. The Monopoly game has been going on for years at

McDonald’s, and it’s reported that during the time of this promotion, sales go up each year.

Money would be the thing that attracts people, or the other prizes that you have a chance to win.

Adults would probably be the audience that McDonald’s is trying to attract.

Kids are very easy to get an idea across to without much intervention, which allows for

ideas and thoughts about things to be very malleable to them and those who present them. This

leads me to another reason that fast food restaurants are causing obesity, and that is the part these

companies play in kids’ lives. For many children, they have been exposed to fast food since they
were a very early age. Whether it be just from their parents giving them food for quick meals or

they just went to these places in general, they usually get a good amount of it.

Since kids don’t really give much thought into what they are eating and whether it be a

good healthy choice or not, fast food is extremely tasty and known to them. If you go to a

restaurant to get a kids meal, you’ll probably find that a lot of places include a special toy or

prize that comes only with the kids meal. Of course young kids love this and it can be seen as the

only reason they want to eat there in the first place. TV commercials are often marketed directly

towards kids in an effort to get them in their store.

This leads me to talk about the presence fast food and unhealthy food in general has in

advertising towards children. Television may not be as popular as it once was with the rise of the

internet, but that doesn’t change the point I’m about to make. Kids have their own sources of

media they watch online, YouTube being an extremely popular site for kids and content for

them. While YouTube isn’t the only website with ads, they have an advertisement before almost

every video, no matter the audience. Kids are exposed to advertisements directed towards kids,

so a lot of the time they are food ads. Fast food ads to be more specific. Young kids see this and

really want whatever they were being shown. It’s not even the food itself, but rather something

extra being offered or a certain person in the advertisement.

Kids are the biggest target of all these ads as they occupy a very large part of their

consumer base, along with their parents. Having children eat an enormous amount of fast food is

not good for them, and can lead to larger problems that are health related in the future. It can also

lead to unhealthy eating habits all the way into adult life, which will lead to obesity.

Parents need to be on the lookout of what their kids are eating at fast food places, as they

are not always what is being advertised to them. Since kids don’t always know the true contents
of their meal, parents need to make sure what their kids are eating are what would be best for

them, and not something they think it really isn’t. False advertising isn’t exactly lying, but is is

extremely misleading. You may think you are getting a balanced healthy meal, but in reality you

are potentially eating something just as, or more unhealthy than other meals

Media is the biggest source overall with fast food. Companies can put any message they

want about their product, no matter what it may actually be like. As people grow more and more

self conscious about what they eat, it has become harder for fast food restaurants to serve

traditional meals. This means that better advertising needed to be changed to attract people.

Today most money that companies use goes to advertising. This advertising is meant to change

perspective of people and their views they have on fast food, promoting it to be a good thing.

Some people may say that it isn’t the responsibility of the companies to watch what we

eat, and for the most part, they’d be right. Companies goal in the long run is to make money, and

not just sell healthy diets to people. The problem arises when people are taken advantage of, and

given false information or sense of knowledge. Companies need to have some responsibility for

their actions with what they put out publicly, or we will be stuck with the same weight problem

for ages until someone decides to make a final change. People need to be made more aware of

their diet, and how what they are eating affects them, and the companies themselves can help

with this issue.

Fast food isn’t necessarily a bad thing, or something we shouldn’t eat at all. It’s just

something we need to be careful of when we are dealing with it. Fast food is actually very

convenient and is good for a quick meal, but shouldn't be the only type of thing you eat. It leads

to health risks and weight problems, especially in the United States. If we were able to look past
advertisements and focus on ourselves and what is actually going into our meals, we would all be

better off and apart of a much healthier society as a whole.

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