This whole "blaming fast food for obesity" thing really needs to stop.

[lucky_sharm]

Shouldn't the blame for obesity be given to the people who chow down on 3 Big Macs all at once or feed their kids excessive amounts of greasy food a day? Fast food isn't in the very least deadly so long as you eat in moderation or exercise often enough. Why can't people ever hold themselves accountable for anything?

 

[Verlander]

I'm not sure anyone seriously blames fast food places for obesity anymore.

 

[Bags159]

It's obviously McDonald's fault for providing those three burgers for him to consume. Yes, fast food should not be blamed for obesity. The person consuming their food every day is responsible. McDonald's didn't make you fat, the spoon in your hand did.

 

[Blood Countess]

blaming a fast food place is the easy scape goat though and lawyers need money

 

[TeeBs]

I think you already know this but, its both sides fault, I mean for god sakes McDonalds is still trying to convince people who don't look into it that they are healthy with there catch phrase "Its what you eat and what you do".

 

[smearyllama]

I think you already know this but, its both sides fault, I mean for god sakes McDonalds is still trying to convince people who don't look into it that they are healthy with there catch phrase "Its what you eat and what you do".

Pretty much this. While it is still your fault in the end, the fast food companies should at least try with their food. At one point, McDonald's actually had meat, not a substance containing meat.

 

[Stammer]

Yeah, fast food isn't bad if it's eaten in moderation. Like, that guy who did that "Supersize Me" movie essentially just proved that, yes, if you eat nothing but McDonald's 3 times a day for a month you're going to start getting sick.

But really, if you only eat fast food once a week (or less, obviously) and stay even remotely active then you're fine.

Hell I just ate a burger from one of the fattiest fast food places in Winnipeg. But I'm fine with it because this is the first fast food I've had in a couple of weeks and I'm doubling up my workout tonight.

 

[okogamashii]

Schools make people watch Supersize Me in health class. Well, they should also watch Fathead, which totally debunks everything that was said in Supersize me.

 

[HerbertTheHamster]

No shit. If you're fat then it's your own goddamn fault. If your metabolism is ridiculous, adapt. It's not hard.

Spoiler

Serious diseases and insanity excluded

 

[Kortney]

I'm not as one sided on the issue. Fast food is adding to the problem. Of course real fault and blame should lie on the person consuming so much of it, but I don't believe fast food companies are moral guardians. They do prey on these fat people.

 

[trooper6]

Yeah, and we shouldn't blame cigarettes for cancer...I mean its the people who are smoking, it isn't the cigarettes!

McDonalds et. al. have engineered their food to be quite unhealthy (because it is cheaper) and then for decades they lied about that. In much the same way that cigarette companies lied about the health risks associated with smoking. Then, when they got called on it and people started to catch wise, both cigarette companies and fast food companies started targeting young people who don't yet realize that the hype is just hype.

Fast food restaurants are not solely to blame. But they share part of the responsibility. Also part of the responsibility is socioeconomic. There are neighborhoods filled with low income people where there are no decent grocery stores with healthy foods and the cheapest food around is McDonalds. If you are trying to feed your family on minimum wage, and McD's is there and no healthy food options are...and maybe you only graduated high school, and not a very good one...and you never actually got taught that McDonalds is a liar...and you get their ads saying they are healthy. Well, you may not have the tools to realize you are being deliberately hoodwinked.

It is easy to say, "Oh it is that fat person's fault" -- but doing that only allows us to ignore the larger structural issues that has lead to a wave of obesity in the US on a mass scale. And that obesity generally being related to poor education and poverty. I grew up in a decent neighborhood in San Francisco that had no fast food restaurants at all in it. Then when I moved to a poor neighborhood in Oakland there were fast food restaurants and liquor stores everywhere...and there was no organic grocery store and fresh healthy vegetables were not easy to comeby...unless maybe you had a car. But if you took your hoopty car to the nice neighborhoods to go shopping (if you could afford the overpriced products at Whole Foods) you'd probably get harassed by the police for being in the wrong neighborhood.

Health isn't just an individual thing. There are also larger forces at work.

 

[Ken Sapp]

No, obesity is not and never has been the fault of fast food. But if they blame fast food then people feel as if they have absolved themselves of responsibility because the evil corporation fed them fattening and unhealthy foods when it should have known that they can't be trusted to make good choices regarding their diet.

 

[rekabdarb]

Obseity isn't a disease or gene... it's a choice. Do i put down the mcdoubleburger and go eat something that could be considered somewhat nutrious and exercise... or do i eat a fucking DELICIOUS LUTHER


(btw i've had one, fucking deliciousssssssss)

 

[Superior Mind]

Yeah but it's so easy. You should have seen the outrage over KFC here introducing the Double Down thing - something which isn't even the worst offender in fast food terms. Nutritionists were talking about the need to protect the "vulnerable members of society."

I don't know about you but when I see a big fat guy, "vulnerable" is not the first word that pops into mind.

People should be smart enough to know what they're eating. It's not hard any more with places like McDonalds displaying the nutritional information of all their products. Subway and McDonalds both offer healthy alternatives to their saturated-fat soaked items. The problem is just in getting most fat bastards to chose those things. Well there's really nothing that can be done about that, so who's at fault here? The fast food companies for offering what is dubbed unhealthy food or the fatties for refusing to eat alternatives?

After that Supersize Me "documentary" came out another bloke approached McDonalds with a proposition: he, a fatty, would eat nothing but McDonalds for a month and he would lose weight. He did it too. How? Because he chose the lighter options. Not hard.

 

[Ken Sapp]

Yeah, and we shouldn't blame cigarettes for cancer...I mean its the people who are smoking, it isn't the cigarettes!

McDonalds et. al. have engineered their food to be quite unhealthy (because it is cheaper) and then for decades they lied about that. In much the same way that cigarette companies lied about the health risks associated with smoking. Then, when they got called on it and people started to catch wise, both cigarette companies and fast food companies started targeting young people who don't yet realize that the hype is just hype.

Fast food restaurants are not solely to blame. But they share part of the responsibility. Also part of the responsibility is socioeconomic. There are neighborhoods filled with low income people where there are no decent grocery stores with healthy foods and the cheapest food around is McDonalds. If you are trying to feed your family on minimum wage, and McD's is there and no healthy food options are...and maybe you only graduated high school, and not a very good one...and you never actually got taught that McDonalds is a liar...and you get their ads saying they are healthy. Well, you may not have the tools to realize you are being deliberately hoodwinked.

It is easy to say, "Oh it is that fat person's fault" -- but doing that only allows us to ignore the larger structural issues that has lead to a wave of obesity in the US on a mass scale. And that obesity generally being related to poor education and poverty. I grew up in a decent neighborhood in San Francisco that had no fast food restaurants at all in it. Then when I moved to a poor neighborhood in Oakland there were fast food restaurants and liquor stores everywhere...and there was no organic grocery store and fresh healthy vegetables were not easy to comeby...unless maybe you had a car. But if you took your hoopty car to the nice neighborhoods to go shopping (if you could afford the overpriced products at Whole Foods) you'd probably get harassed by the police for being in the wrong neighborhood.

Health isn't just an individual thing. There are also larger forces at work.

The food is not engineered to be unhealthy, it is designed to be turned out in short periods of time at lowest cost. Why do fast food establishments build in "poor" areas? because there are more people per square mile who will purchase their food, not to mention that these areas also happen to be closest to businesses where people have little time for lunch breaks. Laziness is a factor because it is more convenient to go to the drive-thru on the way home than to cook dinner and clean up afterwards. On the other hands it is cheaper to cook for a family than to eat fast food, although cost may be near equal if you are only feeding yourself. As for education, we have had innumerable commercial campaigns over the past 20+ years as well as required health classes in public schools. Whether the classes are well taught or the students pay attention may be another matter but lack of information is certainly not a problem.

Ultimately it is the person's fault whether it be due to ignorance, laziness or apathy.

 

[LetalisK]

I consider fast food an enabler. Enablers towards yummy eats. Except McDonald's. They just suck.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Well, I eat at fast food joints quite a lot, being a student you find yourself in situations where you stay late in the uni, and have to eat, quick and cheap.

The flipside of this is that I have a good active lifestyle, I walk to and from lectures every weekday, (approx. 2 miles round trip) and usually go out cycling on Tuesdays for about 10 miles. Its a simple matter of burning more calories than you eat, although I wouldn't like to know my cholestoral level...

 

[ultrachicken]

I think that the fault needs to be put on the fact that organic, healthy food is so expensive. If someone can't afford fresh vegetables, then it doesn't matter how much they want to eat healthy, they're stuck at mcDonalds.

 

[ultratog1028]

You mean being responsible for your own actions? NOT IN MY AMERICA!/sarcasm.