Posts Tagged ‘fast food’

New research published in the American Journal of cardiology claims that fast food restaurants should give out statins to counter the effects of fatty foods. Fast food and statins are the new proposed combination plate.

Statin dangers

The statin pill can be as risky as the cheeseburger. Statins deplete your body of nutrients that you need to help the heart function. Statins have serious side effects. It can damage the liver, pancreas and muscles.

However, the reason some doctors give for not endorsing this idea, is that it would encourage people to lead unhealthy lives. This would mean that they would be at a higher risk for developing Type 2 diabetes.

This is the case of dumb and dumber. The logic from each side can only be understood from a medical perspective. The issue here; treat everything with a pharmaceutical. In other words mask the problem.

When the cholesterol numbers are lower and the diet is the same junk, you wind up without any benefit from the pills. The drugs don’t cut the rate of adverse events; it just makes the numbers look better. The second part of the problem isn’t the fat, but the carbs in the form or processed flour, and sugar. Diabetes risk is manly a processed food problem, not a fat one.

Junk Food Junky

People are hooked on the taste of fast food. Giving them drugs with the meal isn’t going to solve anything. It would compound the problem, there would be two dangers, instead of one. Only the medical community with a drug company’s education could come up with anything this ridiculous.

Fast food life is more about the way eating habits have shifted, and the way our culture tackles everyday life.

Fast Food

Fast food isn’t only about food, it is about time. This time food is not only bad for your health, but may harm your life in dramatic, but little noticed ways. The idea behind fast food is that time is valuable and if you can quickly order and finish a meal you can move on to more pressing projects.

What was created was a whole new way to keep an active population active. Think again, we are one of the most inactive generations. Exactly what has happened is to disseminate a system for inactivity. Hook line and sinker we buy into the notion that we need more time.

What we bought into is having a greasy fat belly and a membership in the husky club. Eating habits have shifted dramatically over the last few decades, making fast food a multi-billion dollar industry.

Fast Food Nation

Becoming a fast food nation has also seen us become an impatient people. Fast food is instant gratification 

Researchers at the Rotman School of Management have found that the mere exposure to fast food and related symbols can make people impatient, increasing preference for time saving products, and reducing willingness to save.

“Fast food represents a culture of time efficiency and instant gratification,” says Chen-Bo Zhong, who co-wrote the paper with colleague Sanford DeVoe to be published in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science. “The problem is that the goal of saving time gets activated upon exposure to fast food regardless of whether time is a relevant factor in the context. For example, walking faster is time efficient when one is trying to make a meeting, but it’s a sign of impatience when one is going for a stroll in the park. We’re finding that the mere exposure to fast food is promoting a general sense of haste and impatience regardless of the context.”

Fast Food Restaurants

At first sight the fast food restaurants have the secret ingredients that we want high sugar and sodium for our modern day taste buds, low costs, and instant delivery of our order.

It is a symbol of something different from the restaurant industry on the whole.

Restaurants are hyped as a dinning experience, a place to have a time away from the hectic and into the sanguine. A dinning experience that is both food centered and costly. The patrons don’t want to be rushed, but want time to savor both the food and experience.

“Fast food is one of many technologies that allow us to save time,” says Sanford DeVoe, “But the ironic thing is that by constantly reminding us of time efficiency, these technologies can lead us to feel much more impatience. A fast food culture that extols saving time doesn’t just change the way we eat, but it can also fundamentally alter the way we experience our time. For example, leisure activities that are supposed to be relaxing can come to be experienced through the colored glasses of impatience.”

Summary

The fast food industry has overhauled the American culture. At the same time we as a nation put the emphasis on instant gratification, so it is conceivable that fast food is a consequence of our commitment to saving time. We have put the health and time with family on the back burner, for a perceived need established by both the culture and the fast food industry.

The fast food industry serves up unmatched poor quality food at a record pace.

Childhood obesity affects health and that is critical when looking at this epidemic.

Obesity

Overweight children are at risk of developing adult conditions at a young age.

Genes

A parent’s job is to turn on their child’s longevity genes. This is done by neutralizing today’s lifestyle.

Parents

Parents have busy lifestyles, and it seems that fast food solutions are the norm. However, it can wind up being costly and time consuming in the long run. Sedentary children who consume a high junk food diet are not only on there way to developing atherosclerosis, type 2 diabetes, and high blood pressure, they also will need prescriptive drugs at a younger age.

We can go on and on about the culture’s influence on eating habits which are seen on TV network advertisements in the form of junk food ads. 

As a result of all these influences one in three children is overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Facts

The fact is overweight children are at risk of developing serious and costly health conditions that are usually seen in middle aged adults. The Center For Disease Control (C.D.C.) study found that 22 percent of overweight (and 43 percent of obese) young people had, abnormal blood lipid levels with high triglycerides, a known risk factor for heart disease.

If this is our culture’s way to save time and money by fast food purchases they are making a big mistake. This is the junk food generation that can bankrupt our nation. 

The fact is obesity is expensive, for the parent, child, and country.

Intervention

Intervention has to begin in the home. The food manufactures don’t have the incentive that the family has. For the faux food industry it is all about profit. For the family it is about raising healthy children. That means making wise choices about what is served at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. What goes on the grocery list and the table is one of the most important elements in your child’s life.

Comprehensive weight-loss programs for children are scarce. It is up to parents to begin their own intervention program. Making changes are not expensive and pay off big time.

“The family is the underutilized weapon in the fight against childhood obesity,” said Dr. David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children’s Hospital Boston.

Get Nutritional Advice

To change your family’s food habits, get good nutritional advice. The reason that this has become a learning process is because of all the misinformation put out for public consumption.

Children will tend to mimic what they see the adults around them do. This means to be a good role model includes what you stock your pantry with. The food industry is not as interested in your children’s health, as it is in successful ad campaigns. It is wise and prudent to seek the counsel of someone well versed in nutrition.

It is next to impossible for children to change eating habits if the rest of family is not changing their way of eating. When children eat better they have more energy for activities that are part of a healthy lifestyle.

A Child’s Health Begins with the Parent

That is why the L.E.A.N. Start Program is so effective. The parents go thought the learning process with the child, in an interactive and fun way.  This program was developed by one of the most highly respected pediatricians in America, Dr. William Sears.

Kathy Bee is a nutrition/lifestyle educator who is a certified coach for the L.E.A.N Start Program.