Samiul Bashar Samin
It would be impossible for us to even think about our lives without the convenience of fast food. I mean how life can even be conceived without the warm caress of a beautiful cheese-filled one pounder burger. Although, it is okay to sometimes treat yourself to a submarine sandwich every now and then, it is very easy to develop a fast food addiction. And that is where health concerns kick in and trust me, there’s a lot to be concerned about here.
Obesity is a problem that’s sweeping over the world like a dark cloud. Fast food usually contains high amounts of carbohydrates, fat, added sugar and salt. The problem arises when fast food starts to replace the nutritious food in your diet. When you have fast food regularly, your body keeps absorbing these harmful elements and you end up having a low amount of the actual nutrients that your body needs in its system.
The fact that fast food is called slow poison is hardly new news. The fast food industry has been slowly injecting us with venom in the shape of french fries and fried chicken. As the food gets absorbed by your system, you develop risks of great magnitude when it comes to your health. Fast food causes high cholesterol levels and also leads to Type 2 diabetes. Also, because fast food is usually processed there has even been research linking them to cancer.
Fast food has changed our food habits over the decades and now is linked to a vast majority of cases of obesity, heart disease and deaths of e-coli. Right now, it is estimated that one in every 5 child suffers from fast food addiction. This could have dangerous repercussions on the future generations unless we can curb the issue at hand.
Health issues are not the only criticism that the fast food industry is guilty of. They’ve also been guilty of providing their workers with near negligible minimum wages and forcing the employees to work in substandard conditions. This can hardly be the ideals of an ethically run industry.
There is something very ironic about the way society looks on fast food. The same society that condemns the use of cigarettes seems to turn a blind eye to something that might potentially be much more devastating for our bodies. Don’t get me wrong here.
I doubt that the fast food companies are out to get us. But I do believe that the interests of a profit driven industry and the interests of a society can hardly be the same.
With all the lucrative advertisements and marketing strategies to lure kids and adults alike inside, it’s becoming very difficult to break the grasp that all this junk food has over our lives. At the rate at which the consumption of fast food is increasing, one is forced to wonder whether this will be the end of us.