Food: Is Fast Food Really to Blame?

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Is Fast Food Really to Blame?
Monday, August 08, 2005

The media has latched onto a great scapegoat for America's obesity: fast food. The newspaper articles, magazine pieces, and television documentary pieces point with glee to the calorie count of fast food favorites and yell about how the fast food industry is to blame for the weight gain of most people in our country. If only these restaurants would offer more sensible portions, healthier choices, less interesting meals for kids, then people would be able to return to a more normal and healthy diet. Right? Right???

Not so fast! Yes, it's true that fast food restaurants offer choices that have enormous calorie counts. Yes, it's true that much fast food fare is laden with fatty oils, cholesterol, and carbohydrates. Yes, it's true that most traditional fast food is about as far from a healthy diet as you can get without succombing completely to junk food and existing solely on potato chips and cookies. But do we have the right to blame the entire industry?

Like most businesses, the fast food industry responds to market forces. They want to make a profit; that's the bottom line. They want to sell what their customers want to buy. That's the way to make money. The argument can be made that if customers want to buy more healthy choices, then businesses will rush to supply them. And actually, isn't that what's happening right now? Check out the menu of any fast food restaurant and you will find that they have increased their selection of salads, fruits, and other more healthy alternatives. Their public has spoken, and they are indeed responding.

The problem doesn't lie in the menu offered at these businesses, but in our very own lifestyle and choices. Fast food has become popular because it is just that: fast. Our hectic, on-the-go lifestyles have necessitated eating many more meals away from home. Even when we are home for dinner time, there's often no time to cook. We order take out from the fast food restaurants.

In addition, we have developed an entire culture based on instant gratification. When was the last time you were willing to wait thirty minutes to an hour for your meal? We want what we want and we want it now if not sooner. Fast food restaurants fill this need. And guess what? It's hard to cook quality, healthy meals in under ten minutes. Even when you cook at home, it's difficult to manage this feat. There's no way that a restaurant can mass produce such a luxury.

So the fault probably doesn't lie with the restaurants or their menus at all. The problem is ingrained into our culture. The whole process of trying to squeeze too many activities and commitments into too little time is what is actually undermining our nutritional choices. The home cooked, family dinner is almost an anachronism. Very few families manage to gather around the dinner table more than a few times per month, if that. And guess where the primary nutritional stop of the day was in times gone by? Those carefully planned, four course meals that the lady of the house used to prepare while everyone else was at school or work.

Fast food malnutrition isn't going to magically go away. In order for America to take back control of its diet, some major changes in lifestyle are going to have to happen. We all must take a hard look to see if our hyper-extended schedule and lifestyle are worth the costs in health and wellbeing. I'm not sure they are for me and for my family. How about you?

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