Com 315 Outline
Presentation due September 21
The Effects of Fast Food and Why You Should Stop Eating It
Introduction:
We’ve all had that urge to just go out to a fast food restaurant and eat enormous amounts of fried foods for less than five bucks. It can easily become habit to go get a tasty cheap meal. (slide) McDonald’s, KFC, Wendy’s, White Castle, Taco Bell, Chipoltle, Mad Mushroom Pizza, and the list goes on. They all sound like a cheap delicious way to just relax and eat lots of good tasting food, but as most of you know, there’s a down side to choosing the fast food restaurant. (slide) You’ve all heard that eating fast food is not good for you, but I’m going to tell you specifically what this “fast food” is doing to your body, why it is we get “cravings”, and what we can do to avoid these quick, delicious, and yet extremely harmful foods. (slide)
1. First, let me now explain the problem with eating fast foods.
- Let’s start with an example food: the medium French fry from McDonalds (slide)
- This data coming from the mcdonalds.com website, the ave. person 2,000 calorie diet, 380 in one of these (slide)
- so you’re healthy today and decide to get the Filet-O-Fish value meal with a medium fry and a medium coke. (slide)
- Just like you fuel your car with gasoline, you fuel your body with calories
- Would you rather fill up with premium or regular unleaded?
- The difference between a car and you body is your body actually becomes a better machine while car just runs a little better.
- The definition of a calorie is a “unit of quantity of heat or food energy” (slide)
- The simple equation is CALORIE INTAKE = CALORIES BURNED… then no weight is gained. If CALORIE INTAKE > CALORIES BURNED, then you will gain weight.
- This extra energy is stored in the form of fat, and it is in fact what hibernating animals do before winter for energy to fuel vital organs. So not all fat is bad but…
- An article in Obesity, Fitness and Wellness Week says this about high-fat foods “High-fat foods are the most concentrated sources of calories, and fast food, or any fried foods, have lots of fats…”
- These are called empty calories
- Empty because they’re composed of mostly fats, sugars, and salt… nothing of real value to your body.
- We ingest calories, or energy, our body breaks the calories down and produces glucose... our body’s fuel
- large amounts of calories in the form of fats and sugars ingested at once spike glucose levels for a short time leaving the person hungry in a short time
- similar to a caffeine spike
- FDA food pyramid (slide)
- Karen Johnson, a medical nutritionist puts it simply like this, “All fast foods are too high in all the nutrients we should limit and are too low in the nutrients our diets should be rich in.”
Transition: So we’ve found out that there’s nothing of real value in eating these high fat, high sugar, and highly salty foods. Then why do we have these “cravings” or strong desires to eat them? I’ll tell you why.
2. For centuries, we’ve not had such easy access to these types of foods. (slide)
- You see, fats, sugars, and salts are nature’s way of telling us that this food is good to eat.
- The human’s brain chemistry has been that way for thousands of years.
- Until recently with fast food restaurants, fats, sugars, and salts were hard to come by
- In the past, if one didn’t gorge on a single meal, this might have meant starvation in a week or two.
- Along with thousands of years of evolution telling us that these are good foods to eat, we have fast food industries spending fortunes to get us to act on these natural urges.
- McDonalds spent $600 million in advertising
- According to Consumersunion.org, the top-selling fast food restaurants spent $2.3 billion back in 2004.
- This is why we want that Taco Bell after taking a physics exam even if we know it’s not good for us
Transition: So what can we do to fight back at our own brain chemistry and this barrage of advertising?
3. If you haven’t already started a healthy diet, just take it one meal at a time.
- Here are some helpful tips that can help us avoid the fast food trap.
- Eat before you get hungry to prevent being tempted
- Eat breakfast every morning
- A 2007 article in the Health section of the South China Morning Post says this:“Breakfast literally means "breaking the fast". After between eight and 12 hours without a meal, our body needs to be refuelled with glucose, which comes from food.”
- ex. say you walk to school in the morning without eating breakfast, I personally would be passing within one block of 8 major fast food chains
- this means I could be eating fast food within 5 minutes at any point of my walk to and from class. Hence the name fast food.
- have healthy options like fruits and vegetables readily available like in front of your refrigerator or cupboard.
- According to a 2007 article in New Straits Times… fruits, proteins through lean meats, greens, and water are the key to feeling full and getting the most out of your diet.
- make healthy food convenient for you
- ex. Apples, bananas, protein bars and preparing food ahead of time or the night before
- drink water! Sometimes the brain confuses thirst with hunger!
- finally, just have an awareness of the food that you’re putting in your body!
- as Ricky said in his E. Coli presentation You are what you eat. (slide)
Conclusion:
Final transition to conclusion: “In closing, you now know the harms of fast food, why we get these urges to eat fast food, and what we can do to make better food choices.”
- Fast foods are full of fats, sugars, and salts that act as empty calories, not providing any vitamins, minerals, proteins, or good carbohydrates.
- Fast food companies spend billions to get us to act on natural urges to load up on fats and sugars.
- A little bit of planning as well as an awareness of the food we eat is a necessity to getting past fast food joints.
Closing statement: “So when you leave today and get that “craving” for fast food, keep these tips in mind and reap the benefits of a healthy diet. Thank you”
Works Cited
Chan, Wynnie “Breakfast Benefits.” South China Morning Post 8 March 2007. LexisNexis. Purdue University Libraries, West Lafayette, IN. 2 November 2007 http://www2.lib.purdue.edu:2116/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?risb=21_T2406968709&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T2406968712&cisb=22_T2406968711&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=11314&docNo=2
“Make Healthy Eating a Pleasure.” New Straits Times 13 May 2007. LOCAL pg. 42. LexisNexis. Purdue University Libraries, West Lafayette, IN. 2 November 2007
http://www2.lib.purdue.edu:2116/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?risb=21_T2406867839&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T2406867844&cisb=22_T2406867843&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=151977&docNo=12
“McDonald's USA Nutrition Facts for Popular Menu Items.” Mcdonalds.com 5 January 2007. 31 October 2007 < http://www.mcdonalds.com/app_controller.nutrition.index1.html>
“New Report Shows Food Industry Advertising Overwhelms Government’s “5 A Day” Campaign to Fight Obesity and Promote Healthy Eating.” Consumersunion.org 13 September 2005. 2 October 2007
United States Food and Drug Administration “Food Pyramid” 2 November 2007. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.uwm.edu/People/mcbair/pyramid.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.uwm.edu/People/mcbair/&h=466&w=600&sz=37&tbnid=ApRd0iig7PGYFM:&tbnh=105&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfda%2Bfood%2Bpyramid%26um%3D1&start=1&sa=X&oi=images&ct=image&cd=1
“Weight Gain; How to Avoid the ‘Freshman 15,’ and Why It Gets Packed on in the First Place.” Obesity, Fitness & Wellness Week 1 September 2007. EXPANDED REPORTING; Pg. 285. LexisNexis. Purdue University Libraries, West Lafayette, IN. 2 November 2007
http://www2.lib.purdue.edu:2116/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?risb=21_T2406926779&format=GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T2406926784&cisb=22_T2406926783&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=246798&docNo=14
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