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Food is fuel to our bodies, but are we aware of what we're fueling them with? Fast food is more like a trend nowadays, therefore, people are starting to constantly consume it which affects many aspects of their life. As a matter of fact, 74% of restaurants traffic is made up because of fast food chains, and that's due to the excessive consumption of junk food[ CITATION Tur09 \1 1033 ]. Although people know exactly why fast food is harmful, there are several reasons and affects for them consuming it.
One reason why junk food is being extremely consumed is because it's convenient to many aspects of our lives.
Seeing that the number of fast food restaurants is dramatically increasing all over the world, junk food restaurants are easy to find. So regarding the busy schedule of our generation, people tend to eat fast food rather than healthy food which is nowadays harder to find. Another thing that proves the availability of junk food is the cheap prices.
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Therefore, ordering a 4$ BIG MAC burger meal would absolutely be more saying that having a costly salad at a healthy restaurant. On the other side, our life style does strongly affect the addiction that people have on junk food. Because we live in a very fast life, people never have enough time. For this reason, you wake up early in the morning with much laziness and no desire for anything to do. So you find no time for preparing a healthy breakfast for sure. Afterward, you get in the car, stop by the supermarket and buy some tasty donughts and an energy drink which you think will give you enough power to stay awake and focus on your work[CITATION Ess3a \t \l 1033].
And that's what we call satisfying the desires and not the needs.
Another main reason why people crave fast food is the power of advertisements. The most affected portion by these ads in the society is children. For instance, well known fast food restaurants like Mc Donald's offer some toys that come with the meals the kids order, so children start to think that these toys are their prizes which gives them wrong ideas about the reality of fast food[ CITATION Mel10 \l 1033 ]. Aside from that, cartoon shows and video games are one of the main contributors to this crisis because they have these burger meals' scenes in them, and these excite kids to try them out. Moreover, marketers surely have their own ways to lure customers. For example, they tend to use bright colors and artificial ingredients to make up that magnificent image of what their burger meal looks like which is of course nothing similar to the reality. Another way they use to attract fast food lovers is having their favorite celebrity or movie star show up in these ads[CITATION Ess13 \t \l 1033). From here on, our society is getting fooled by ads because we're gullible.
Because of some psychological reasons, people are excessively depending on junk food. Even though we live in the 21st century, there are still some unsophisticated people. At this point, these people lack discipline and knowledge which makes them underestimate the value of health. So that the amount of calories in the ingredients of their meals doesn't really matter to them which is linked to how unconcerned parents are nowadays[ CITATION Hopnd \l 1033 ]. Furthermore, seeing that everyone around you orders fast food, you'll find yourself ordering as well which develops addiction easily. And when addiction is developed, fast food will help ease your anxiety and give you that temporary satisfaction[ CITATION Bry11 \l 1033 ]. Indeed, over reliance on junk food leads to several psychological problems.
Counting on junk food as our first energy source has major effects on our health such as chronic diseases, where fast food is considered to be hard on the heart because of how high the sugar is in such foods, and how they're packed up with big amounts of fast, sugar and carbs which reduces the insulin resistance with its disturbance, for the energy to flow throughout the body. Besides striking the heart, junk food also happens to affect skin and bones [CITATION Car15 \l 1033 ]. For usually when someone is a big fast food consumer, it appears on their weak bones and their damaged skin. Therefore, when people tend to constantly eat fat food, their joints are weaker than others their age and they're prone to joint diseases because when the sugar level in the food is higher, chances of the joints getting closer to being fully wasted increase[CITATION Negnd \l 1033 ]. In addition to joint diseases, fast food lovers happen to have acne on their skin. Acne is a mechanic the body uses to try to somehow get rid of the toxic s inside which clearly tells how junk food will probably damage our skin. Junk food is now known for being the major cause of several health problems.
As a resultant of fast food consumption, psychological problems are developed. “Let's take depression for an example”. Getting depressed is one of the symptoms that junk food leaves afterwards. Depression happens due to the disturbance the high level of sugar does to the body chemicals, for it heavily activates the oxytocin which is one of the chemicals responsible for the amount of happiness and energy flowing in our body[ CITATION Buc14 \l 1033 ]. Meanwhile, family gathering also have a big role in preventing depression, but according to the research team from Rutgers, about 40% of the average family's budget is spent out, typically not together[ CITATION Sif12 \l 1033 ]. There's also a huge effect fast food has on the memory and the learning process because of how toxic it's to the brain, and its ability to kill brain cells and dysfunction the brain which of course will slow down the learning process. Thus, fast food doesn't only have physical impacts, but it affects the psychological side as well.
As an effect of the constant consumption of junk food, the economy is significantly affected. An individual's irresistible desire for a fast food meal results into constant consumption which is a waste of money[ CITATION Cas11 \l 1033 ]. On the other hand, marketers are the benefited category when it comes to the money spent on junk food, especially the fast food company owner because having their company become multinational is a great advantage that also happens to bring them great wealth and enormous amounts of money. An individual's and a marketer's economic status is majorly changed due to the consumption of fast food, whether it's an advantage or a disadvantage on their income.
Ultimately, despite the effects junk food has on us, we somehow tend to always rely on it for many reasons. So presumably, having fast food as our number one source of energy is usually easier and more suitable for our current lifestyle, whereas there also are psychological reasons for choosing such foods besides getting fooled by ads. Junk food is also a big cause of many problems such as health deterioration in an individual's life, and it's also a source of income for the fast food company owners. So looking back at all these side effects of fast food which only satisfy us for a minute or two, why shouldn't we choose the healthy lifestyle to achieve lifetime satisfaction?
The Causes and Effects of Fast Food to Our Bodies. (2021, Sep 16). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/the-causes-and-effects-of-fast-food-to-our-bodies-essay
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