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Why Fast Food Should Be Banned: Overview of the Arguments in the Debate

Table of contents, the health crisis argument, the environmental impact argument, the counterarguments, social and cultural considerations, the conclusion.

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Fast Food Industry: Arguments for and Against Essay

Executive summary, introduction, managing expectations, managing perceptions, evaluations, list of references.

The fast food industry has experienced massive growth over the last one decade. Health experts have linked foods offered in this industry to the increasing lifestyle diseases. They argue that the industry subjects people to junk foods, causing serious health concerns in the society. Some members of the society have also associated fast food industry with a lot of social evils that make them believe that the industry should be strictly regulated through government policies. However, it is unfair to associate all the lifestyle diseases such as coronary complications and diabetes to the industry. Every type of food has its negative effects when it is consumed in large quantities. What needs to be done is to increase awareness campaigns about dangers of overconsumption of some types of food.

The role played by this industry is so vital that it would be unreasonable to propose punitive regulatory policies against it. There are those who depend a lot on this industry. Some people believe that they get maximum variety of foods they need from the fast food stores. A standard McDonald’s store will have a variety of meals to choose from, making them very popular with the youth. This industry is also known for its innovative nature. We need to promote healthy eating among members of the society. When we visit fast food stores, we should ask for healthy foods that do not pose any health risks to us. It would be okay to take some of the delicacies such as fried chicken once in a while, but it should not form the basic dish in the daily menu.

Fast food industry has experienced a massive growth over the last two decades in various countries across the world. McDonald’s, KFC, Subway, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Burger King, and Domino’s Pizza are some of the leading fast food restaurants that have managed to expand their operations beyond their local market. However, there has been a raging debate about the benefits and negative consequences of this industry. The controversy has been on the health consequences of the industry against some of the benefits it offers. While a section of the society believes that this industry is very beneficial, especially to those who have limited time to prepare their own meals, another section has been complaining about some of the negative health consequences and financial impact this industry has on people.

The arguments against fast food industry are just as strong as the argument for it. It is important to analyze specific facts that are put forth by the group opposed to it, and those who are in support in order to determine the relevance of the industry (Carney 1995, p. 66). Basing our arguments on business ethics, this research will analyze benefits of this industry against the negative consequences it has on people.

In a piece of research, it is always important to be able to manage expectations of the audience in order to improve chances that they will accept the findings of the research. According to Schlosser (2012, p. 25), the society is highly diversified, and when approaching specific issues, people are likely to take sides based on their feelings about the issues. Their feelings will define their expectations. For instance, those who believe that fast food industry is beneficial to them and other members of the society will expect the findings of this research to be in support of their beliefs. On the other hand, those who are opposed to the industry will expect this report to give strong points that will be against the industry.

Each of the two sides has its own reasons why it takes a specific stand on the issue, and this must be respected. However, both sides must appreciate that in research work such as this one, there will be a need to take a stand based on the findings that will be made. The findings will form the basis of evidence that will advice whether the report will support or reject specific point of reasoning.

Different people have different perceptions towards fast food industry. There are those who believe a mention of fast food industry means such delicacies as fried chicken, hamburgers, hotdogs, and those other fancy foods that they enjoy taking along the city streets (Cate 2011, p. 69). This group therefore, associates this industry with fun, and it may be difficult to change their perception from this. It may be difficult to convince them that the fun they generate from such food may pose some threats to their health. On the other hand, there are those who believe that this industry is the main reason why countries like Qatar, the United States, and the United Kingdom is spending a lot in the health sector.

These extreme perceptions must be managed so that they can appreciate that in one way or the other, they may be wrong. Before getting into the evaluation of different scholarly opinions, it is strongly suggested that those who have strong beliefs over the issue should take a break and appreciate that they could be wrong. This way, it becomes easy to open a fair ground of debates over the issue.

Fast food industry has been in existence for some time now, and the recent statistics shows that it is expanding at an unprecedented rate. According to Jakle and Sculle (2002, p. 45), fast food stores have outmuscled conventional hotels that was popular before, both in the developing and developed countries. Hotels are currently considered a preserve for the rich, or those on tours. Despite massive campaigns by the medical fraternity and other members of society against fast foods, there have been no indications that people are willing to withdraw from eating such foods. They continue to ignore for reasons they believe are justifiable enough. It would be important to analyze specific reasons that make them support or denounce this industry.

Arguments for the Fast Food Industry

According to Smith (2006, p. 55), fast food industry is one of the fastest developing industries not only in the developed nations but also in the developing world. This scholar argues that for the last one decade, there has been over 70% growth of this industry worldwide. Travelers find it easy to pope into fast food stores, and so do those at work or in a picnic within the city or city suburbs. This research sought to identify specific benefits that people get from this industry, making it one of the most robust industries in many countries around the world. One of the reasons that have been cited as the reason for the growth of this industry is its convenience. In the current economy, most people find themselves working in town settings. As a result of the pressure that employers have on their employees, it becomes difficult for people to find time to rush home for lunch.

In some cases, some of these employees only have one hour or less to get their lunch. Scherer (2010, p. 53) says that ,it is during such breaks that these employees get some little time to address some personal issues, or complete some assignments that they were not able to do, just to ensure that they can beat their deadlines. For this group, what they need most is a convenient location that is near their offices, and can offer foods they need within the shortest time possible.

Such locations are definitely not hotels where they will have to wait for over 45 minutes for their meals to be ready. Fast foods offer a perfect solution to this group. With a list of foods that are always ready such as fried chicken and hamburgers, customers get to be served in less than five minutes. It would take them another five to ten munities to take such meals, and less than two minutes to pay the bill. This means that in less than twenty minutes, one would have taken lunch and would be ready to go back to their work stations (Emerson1979, p. 88). This is one of the main reasons why this industry has experienced tremendous growth.

According to Johansen (2012, p. 87), the friendly prices that fast foods offer must have been the main source of attraction, especially among the middle class people. With the ever increasing cost of living, people are looking for alternatives that would cost them less as compared to other alternatives. Smith (2012, p. 78) says that a meal that costs $ 180 in a standard hotel may probably cost $ 60 or $ 70 in some of the fast food outlets. The middle class is very sensitive about the cost they have to pay for various products. Such a massive difference in price would easily make them be drawn to fast food stores. Given the fact that they have to eat in such outlets for at least five times a week, they easily find it economical to eat at the fast food stores.

A section of the society believes that they get maximum variety of foods they need from the fast food stores. For instance, a standard McDonald’s store will have a variety of meals to choose from, making them very popular with the youth. This industry is also known for its innovative nature. While hotels tend to be conservative by preparing only those meals that are known to their customers, fast food outlets always try to bring something new into their menu. This way, they get to present a variety of meals to their customers. Some of these customers like the experience of having new types of food every time they visit these stores. This makes them anticipate for more new products on every visit they make. This has seen many people, especially the youth, flock in fast food stores.

The societal structure is changing, and some of the roles that were associated with a specific gender, have to be redefined in an environment where both parents are bread winners. The notion that women were supposed to take care of children and home, while men look for family bread is no longer in existence. Women are currently as active in the corporate world just as their male counterparts. They leave their houses in the morning, and come back in the evening as tired as their husbands. It becomes difficult for them to go to the kitchen and prepare meals for the family. Such families have found their solace in the fast food industry (Rosoman 2008, p. 97).

On their way home from work, they can easily walk into a fast food outlet and buy a complete meal for the entire family. This way, they do not have to subject themselves to a tedious task of preparing meals once they get home. Given the friendly pricing of most of the fast food stores, they find it easy to manage their budget easily, while still ensuring that every family member is pleased with the meals they get. Fast food stores have been viewed as a symbol of diversity that we currently have in our society.

The world has been turned into a global village, and it is easy to find people from various corners of the world staying within a small part of town within this country. Qatar, just like the United States, has been attracting many visitors from all parts of the world. With such diversity comes the need to have food outlets that will offer a variety of food products that would meet the diversified needs. Most of the hotels prefer sticking to specific types of food that are popular within a given region. However, giant fast food stores such McDonald’s will find it easy to prepare a variety of meals as long as there is a ready market for these foods.

This not only make such stores convenient for people, but they also act as forums where members of the society get to appreciate the diversity they have in the country. Such social forums encourage integrations among people of different cultural settings. This makes the industry an integral part of the society whose role goes beyond offering meals, but also fostering peace and unity among people from different cultural backgrounds.

Arguments against the Fast Food Industry

Fast food industry has been viewed as one of the leading health concerns in the current society. Some members of the society have also associated fast food industry with a lot of social evils that make them believe that the industry should be eliminated through government policies. It would be necessary to analyze some of the specific claims that have been made against this industry to determine if they are relevant.

According to Dalgleish (2006, p. 67), most of the foods offered in the fast food industry are associated with a series of health problem. The fast food industry offer junk food that many people prefer simply because of their tastes or the belief that they are cheap. The deep-fried chicken or meat, the hamburgers, and such other related foods are rich in calories. When taken regularly, such calories may accumulate in the body leading to serious health consequences.

Currently, the leading causes of death in the United States are the coronary related problems. Other lifestyle diseases such as diabetes are also on the rise. These diseases are directly related to the kind of meals we take, and that is why many health experts have associated them with the fast food outlets. Foods offered in these stores also pose other health problems to the innocent population (Duram 2010, p. 47). As the name suggest, most of the meals at such stores take very a short period of time to be prepared. For example, meat would be fried within the shortest period possible because of the large number of customers that have to be served.

This means that if that particular meat had some infections, then it would be easily consumed by people, a fact that puts their lives into a great danger. The main problem is that the victims do not appreciate that they are subject to some serious health problems that may affect their lifestyle. They know that these risks exist, but prefer to live in denial. This may require some interventions from the government to make the players in this industry comply with some of the standards that should be set by relevant governmental agencies on health.

Fast food industry is one of the strongest forces that lead to distortion of the traditional family structure. According to Hargreave and Hill (2001, p. 95), one of the most important moments in a family is during the meal time. It brings together all members of the family at a table, and this helps strengthen family ties. Members of the family may get to discuss other important matters after meals, and this helps in developing strong foundations for children. This way, children develop as responsible members of the society who appreciates social structures. Parents also get to understand their children, and the specific issues that may be affecting them in one way or the other.

Fast food stores are changing this attractive family structure. Parents now know that they can work till late hours, pass by a fast food outlet and buy food for the entire family. When they reach home late at night, children are always too sleepy to engage in any healthy discussion with their parents. They are forced at eat in a hurry so that they can go to bed. The parents also fail to get quality time for each other. They slowly get withdrawn from each other, and the feeling that they do not need each other starts developing in their minds. The man develops the feeling that he can do without the wife because some of the duties he expected her to address can be taken care of by these outlets. This explains why there is a consistent rise in the rates of divorce (Hayes & Laudan 2009, p. 83).

Most of the fast food stores have been associated with human rights abuse and total disregard to some of the labor laws. According to Torelli (2011, p. 77), the law defines that every American is entitled to work for 7-8 hours in a day. Any other extra hours must be treated as overtime, and such overtime must have higher remunerations. However, a recent study by Aaseng (2001, p. 68) shows that some of these fast food stores are not following this regulation. They subject their employees to poor working environment, and some are forced to be on duty for over 12 hours in a day. While some pretend to pay a little higher for the extra hours worked, most of these stores pay a flat rate even for the overtime that employees are subjected to work. In New York, there have been demonstrations by workers in this industry claiming that their rights are being violated.

In Qatar, things are not any different. Most of the fast food stores prefer employing people as casuals. They would lay them off when they realize that they have worked for them long enough to qualify for permanent employment, only to higher them latter as new employees. According to the report by Pendrys (2011, p. 96), this tactic is very common among the leading firms in this industry. In order to perfect this impunity, they have developed a strategy where their employees are paid per day. This is to confirm that they are treating these employees as casuals whose services are only needed at that moment they are within the firm. As Sacco and Schott (2011, p. 86) observe, poor pay that employees receive from their work is one of the reasons why there is social strife in parts of the society. Such cases as industrial actions have negative impact on the economy.

Some of these employees may even consider engaging in criminal acts to help them increase their income to supplement with what they get from these stores. The increasing numbers of people who visit hospital with lifestyle related diseases have overstretched capacities on most hospitals. This has lowered the quality of service delivered at such institutions.

It is clear from the discussion above that there are people who strongly believe that fast food industry is important in the normal developmental processes in our society. On the other hand, another section believes that fast food industry is associated with health problems and other social evils that make it an undesirable industry. These two factions have very strong reasons that make them believe in their stand. However, a review of both sides’ views reveals that there is some truth in what both sides say. It is a fact that some of the foods offered in the fast food outlets are junk, and therefore, pose serious health problems to the users.

These health problems not only affect the victims but also the government and public in general. When many people fall ill with some complex diseases such as heart problems, the government will be forced to spend a lot to take care of this population. Government expenditure on health sector has been increasing over the last one decade. This is closely related to the foods offered by this industry. As mentioned above, some of these foods pose serious health problems to those who consume them.

The government has the responsibility of ensuring that its citizens get access to quality medical care. Given the increasing number of those who visit hospitals with diseases related to their eating disorders, government facilities are overstretched. This makes it difficult to offer them quality healthcare. In the meantime, the number of people who will be working in the government or private institutions will be decreased. This in turn lowers the output level of the society. Ethically, this may be an unacceptable trend that this society may not tolerate.

On the other hand, it is also true that fast food stores have offered a cheap alternative to the middle class who are struggling to make ends meet. These food outlets are conveniently located along the streets, making it easy for the working class to have access to meals during lunch hours without much struggle. This industry has been very supportive to women who have gotten into the corporate world. They can now get ready meals for their families, lessening the burden of having to prepare meals on their own. In order to find a middle ground between these two contradicting arguments, there is need for a rational reasoning.

Everything when taken in excess has its negative consequences. The society needs awareness campaign to let them know the specific foods to eat in moderation to avoid any negative health consequences. This way, the society will know how to eat responsibly. When the demand for food classified as junk by medical experts reduces, these fast food stores will be forced to stock healthy foods.

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Emerson, R 1979, Fast food: The endless shakeout , Lebhar-Friedman Books, New York. Web.

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Torelli, S 2011, The fast-food kitchen , Harvest House Publishers, Eugene. Web.

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An opinion essay about fast food.

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Writing Essays About Fast Food

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Academic writing

It is not a secret that the fast food sphere has come a long way from the convenience product cafe in the outskirts of Southern California to the multi-billion-dollar industry today. Since multiple studies show that cardiovascular and obesity problems of Americans in most cases are linked with overconsumption of foods filled with fats, salts, and carbs, careful exploration of the fast food market is highly demanded today. This demand inevitably brings every student to write essays about fast food. While this is quite a mouthwatering topic to write about, we should consider all the details for crafting an A+ essay. This article can be your guide in writing essays on fast food step by step.

Facts about the fast food industry are inexorable and striking. Let’s consider some of them: 

• The highest death rates connected with junk food consumption and consequent weight-related complications have been reported in Nairobi, Kenya - that was nearly 2.8 million people each year.
• In more than 160,000 fast food locations in the US, more than 50 million Americans eat burgers daily.
• A third of children eat fast food on a daily basis.
• McDonald’s is more recognized than the Christian Cross.

We could continue with shocking facts and statistics even further, but what is crucial to understand that fortunately, the problem of eating too much junk meals is largely addressed by scholars from all around the world. As a result, multiple studies of recent years are available for you both on the Internet and in academic libraries. That might be exactly the reason why writing on this subject could be difficult, especially for students that are unfamiliar with professional essay writing. Why? Because it’s not that easy to gather all the overflow of the evidence and group it all into persuasive arguments, flowing through the pages of your academic assignment smoothly and in a scientifically correct way.

Whether you are writing a rationally constructed fast food argumentative essay or another type of paper requiring more opinion judgments, you should apply the same highly specific principles of academic writing. In addition to that, it’s also crucially important not to be too prejudiced about fast food. If you start your argument straight from the judgmental view of street meals as products that possess incontrovertible danger for human health, by doing this, you also start from the point of broken informational balance. Instead of taking the negative approach as an axiom, try to think like a scientist and explore any of fast food argumentative essay topics without the influence of your own point of view.

Nevertheless, fast food is a hot topic that might fuel some of the fiercest battles in your class, that’s why writing on this theme is especially interesting for a student of every faculty. So let’s get this show down the road and start our step by step guide of how to write an essay on what role does fast food play in our life and culture.

Fast food and obesity essay

The studies conducted at the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington clearly show that unhealthy eating habits are being the second biggest threat of early death worldwide, right next to the dangers of smoking. The risk factor here is a high body mass index, which signifies obesity and is a sign of increased cholesterol level. The high cholesterol level, high blood glucose level, along with high blood pressure, are all the consequences of obesity that is typically caused by regular consumption of fast food. Moreover, this problem also has an economic nature. This means that, when you are writing an unhealthy eating habits essay, it’s also useful to seek the roots of this issue in the economy field. By doing this, you will be able to propose a valid solution to the problem.

While we mentioned only one of the approaches above, when crafting your fast food and obesity essay, you could employ different techniques as far as your university professor considers it acceptable. Anyway, you need to start with the basics. First thing first, you have to find a proper topic. It is best if it will sound somewhat challenging and provocative because you have a chance to uncover the new approach and propose ideas that have never been addressed before by other students. Meanwhile, the general topic like a junk food and obesity essay could give you also more freedom in choosing the argument line, which you can shape after you perform extensive research on this theme. Some students come up with ideas for their titles after they do all the research and group their evidence by type and strength. While the other ones prefer to go with the flow, to apply their creativity and opinion right from the start by creating a compelling title in the first place, and then do all the most difficult parts. You can try both tactics and then choose whichever suits best for your pace, schedule, and style of writing.

Nevertheless, the research part is often being the key to crafting successful fast food is unhealthy essay. So what you do is begin to look for the evidence that supports the notion that any burger is a potential reason for one of five deaths in the world. Objectively speaking, eating one burger might not cause immediate and irreversible health problems. But the regular consumption of foods with low nutritional value, the high fat, calorie, and sodium content makes these meals potentially hazardous for health. As you can see now, whether writing an essay or a speech on fast food, it is crucial to employ an all-round approach to the exploration of this topic. This will help you sound rather professional than biased.

The good idea for your essay is to provide medical studies that prove the link between overconsumption of fast food and health as the first argument. You can find tons of information about this subject in scholarly articles on obesity and fast food from all around the world. For example, the Guardian research indicates that in 2011 alone, the number of people suffering from diabetes worldwide has increased nearly twice since 1980, and that was 153 million to 350 million people. This fact could be linked to junk foods available at any convenience store or shopping mall nearby, but this could be rather indirect evidence. Instead, it is much more relevant to look for specific studies on the topic that you are writing about.

Nevertheless, it is also worth noticing in a good persuasive essay on how fast food contributes to obesity about the hazards of obesity and the reason why we should talk about it more. According to recent studies, obesity rates have doubled in 2008 since 1980. The US, unfortunately, continues being an epicenter of this problem, where 2 of 3 Americans are clinically overweight. In addition to that, 500 million people were recorded in 2011 as obese with body mass indexes greater than 30, while 1.4 billion were clinically overweight with body mass indexes exceeding 25. A good opening phrase for effects of fast food essay could be based on the study that suggests that obesity kills more people than car crashes.

But if we return to specific studies about fast food and obesity relation, another research that you can highlight in your essay about junk food shows that fast food diminishes our basic instinct, which is the sensory-specific satiety. This instinct is responsible for feeling full after you eat your meal. You’ve probably noticed how soon you want to eat after visiting fast food restaurant. That’s the catch to mention in fast food essays. After experiments done on rats in e School of Medical Sciences at Australia’s University of New South Wales, it was proved that so-called junk food alters our brains’ motivational control and reward behavior. To put it simply, when someone stops eating traditional meals, they know when it’s enough. However, this trigger doesn’t work with fast food, which provokes overeating and results in health implications like mitochondrial dysfunction, weight gain, and tissue inflammation.

Finally, one of the studies shows that regular fast food consumption doubles the risk of insulin resistance being one of the reasons for the development of type 2 diabetes. They also point out that not only fast food affects obesity, including diabetes overweight, but also it increases cases of hospitalization with coronary diseases.

You could also mention in any of your future essays on junk food the marketing side of this problem. One of the reasons why people are overeating at fast food restaurants is the high number of them located in places where people usually work, live, and recreate. The Canadian Journal of Public Health researchers at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Ontario, Canada, published the results of their findings indicating that the density of fast food places increases the chances of eating too much junk food. Another research from the University of South Australia supported this information indicating in their European Journal of Epidemiology that in 2010, each 10% rise of the fast food locations resulted in 1.39 times more deaths from cardiovascular conditions. Similarly, the University of California, Berkeley, scholars found in 2009 that people living nearby fast food restaurants have a 5.2 percent greater risk of obesity.

In this regard, it is also valid to point out the reasons for eating too much fast food. Try to think about why people of different ages and backgrounds prefer eating at fast food diners rather than healthy food restaurants. Of course, one of the reasons for this is an attractive marketing image. First of all, eating something tasty is an essential part of how young people like to go out and socialize. In addition to that, specific chemicals and technology of production of junk food ingredients imply that they perform kind of a sensory attack to our receptors being enormously delicious, while also turning off the sensory satisfaction instinct and leaving us craving for more even when we are full. Make sure you don’t forget about this argument when writing an essay about what is really in fast food. Fast foods are also convenient for a variety of reasons for different people. Some of them don’t like cooking at home, so they go the easiest way and buy fast food. Also, people working in the office are also prone to eat at fast food restaurants. Such a meal is simply cheap, tasty, and convenient on the go.

Burgers and chips, chocolate bars and brightly colored candies, soda and ice-cream are also being an affordable treat for children from low-income families. It could appear as your central argument for a fast food and childhood obesity essay. Unfortunately, fast food is a highly desirable meal, especially for children. Various promotional offers and toy cartoon characters in the kit are another marketing trick that targets children to crave those burger menus. In many schools in the US, junk food is a part of the menu that any child can eat daily, which is also worth mentioning in a fast food in America essay. While in Mumbai, India, fast food is already totally prohibited for from selling in schools and next to their territories. We will talk more about this a couple sections below, so keep reading to know more about what you could write about the fast food industry with regard to the increasing worldwide childhood obesity rates of recent years.

Effects of fast food on health essay

In the section above, we have briefly touched upon the areas of research that could be relevant when writing the effects of fast food on health essay. The causation of regular fast food consumption is also strongly related to a wider variety of health issues. An essay on harmful effect of junk food is one of the most popular assignments to cover the topic of adverse effect of fast food on health. Even though the issue is rather serious, don’t overload it with negative assumptions and attempts to prove it in the most horrific way. Instead, keep things clear, reasonable, and rational. Try to dig into the roots and causes of the problem. Investigate the exact way of how fast food becomes hazardous for the health of children and adult people. You simply need to find that borderline that makes a tasty treat and turns it into a dangerous habit.

You may also alter the approach, creating something like eating at home vs eating out essay. Here, you have an opportunity to include all the pros and cons of healthier food, which one can easily cook at home. Moreover, this is also a good title for an argumentative essay because this type of academic assignment essentially needs to contain a counter-argument to your thesis statement, even if it’s quite common like a fast food kills argumentative essay. Further, you can examine things that stand in the way of cooking at home. For example, that could be the lack of knowledge of how to cook tasty and simple meals or the false assumption that home-cooked dinner is more expensive than eating out. People might also think that cooking at home takes a considerable amount of time.

Fast food and health problems have been widely discussed by academics from the leading universities around the world. Many famous dietologists also emphasize the incredible harm of junk food. While the most popular question to talk about is the threat of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular problems when writing the fast food and physical health essay, you also might want to mention that regular fast food consumption has proved to cause real brain damage and might even lead to a mental meltdown. The thing is that our brains just don’t get enough nutrients and vitamins with fast food, that’s why our bodies keep asking for more when being hungry shortly after you eat that French fries.

If you are writing the effects of consuming too much fast food essay, the great approach to choose to fascinate your professor and class is to go deeper into the chemistry of its ingredients. By carefully examining what fast food is made of and how nutrients work, you can find answers to your thesis statement proposed questions in order to resolve your argument and prove your point. You may look for ready answers as there are a lot of researches that have been performed to let people know what hides inside junk food. Meanwhile, it could also be much more interesting to propose your own ideas about the researched topic. As we already mentioned above, you may compare home-cooked meals with fast food in relation to its price, affordability, easiness, and the after-effects on the human body; this info will be especially relevant for a processed food essay. You might also explain how processed food is made, how to read nutrition labels, what foods are safe to buy, and what you should avoid. Your fast food informative speech will only benefit from that on the way to your A+ grade. Luckily, it is relatively easy to monitor what you eat thanks to the nutrition labels that fast food places and pre-packed food makers are obliged to make. You may enlist some especially dangerous elements so that the readers of your fast food warning labels essay will be aware of their harm.

The easiest way to know what you are buying is to read nutrition labels. A quick guide on them might be useful for you, but for shaping a persuasive essay about junk food, this information is obviously not enough. Our advice is to look for evidence to support your ideas in academic sources while also performing your own junk food research in restaurants and convenience stores. Due to the fact that the variety of food labels give too much specific information, try to start from simple steps. For example, you want to watch for a color-coding. To buy something healthier, look for more green ones (low fat, sugar, salt), than amber (medium fat, sugar, salt), or red (high amount of fat, sugar, salt). You also want to mention which amount of those ingredients plus energy (kJ/kcal), saturated fat carbohydrate, sugars, protein, and salt, is mentioned on the pack. These facts are great to explore in the essay on junk food a silent killer.

If too many students write about the current hazards of fast food relating to our physical health, and you don’t want to repeat the same ideas over and over again in one more essay, there is an alternative way to go. By choosing a slightly different topic, you can reserve yourself the highest grade of them all for sure. You will stand out from the crowd and be noticed by your professor. The only problem is that you will have to perform much more profound research to deliver your ideas in an academically proper way. So by now, you might be wondering, what are those mysterious alternative topics?

Well, for example, you can go for the history of fast food essay and examine the root cause of the whole problem that has got so globally large and important nowadays. How the burger culture went all the way from small and convenient products at the gas stations and suburbs diners to the leading worldwide industry that develops so well in almost every country? By watching its development, you might also propose the same approach for tackling the obesity problem. For instance, if promotion and smart marketing campaigns you consider as key factors to the overall fast food business success, then most likely, it is also the potentially most successful way to target the same audience and to promote healthier food choices.

However, if you want to go even further in your creativity, you may choose such a controversial topic as the benefits of fast food essay. Here, you will need to think out of the box. What benefits could have something so widely regarded as hazardous? Well, we have a few tips on what you could propose in such an essay. First of all, as we mentioned before, all food manufacturers and restaurants have calorie counts and nutrition labels on their foods. So in any renowned fast-food restaurant, you will get the portion that doesn’t exceed the recommended value of fats, sugars, salts, sodium, calories, etc. The good advice is just to eat one burger and say no to the second one in case if you want more.

Another benefit of fast food is that you can also pick healthier options in restaurants like the oatmeal for breakfast and the summer salad with grilled chicken for lunch. They also have a wide variety of affordable offers. You can try the best of Chinese, Mexican, Italian, and Middle-East food just for a few dollars.

Argumentative essay about junk food in schools

While fast food topic is quite popular today, still, writing an academic research paper, you shouldn’t let your emotions getting away with you. Your personal opinion and emotional approach are good for another kind of essay, which we will be talking about in the following sections. Meanwhile, it’s time to discuss what is so special about writing an argumentative essay about junk food in schools, and what you should do to make it the most appealing for a professor.

First and foremost, you should remember to maintain a rational approach to your subject. It is extremely important to keep the informational balance of both your arguments and counter-arguments; otherwise, it’s quite simple to get blown away by the most popular notion that fast food is simply unhealthy and then continue writing your essay based on that argument as an axiom that doesn’t need proving. However, simply a negative view of this topic cannot be considered the ultimate truth. When you are writing an academic assignment, you are acting as a scientist that explores the nature of things and makes their own conclusions on the basis of all the data and knowledge. All the info stated above might sound difficult at first, but when you look at this technique more closely, you will notice that performing this kind of research along with gathering the documentation as a proof of your assumptions from the trusted academic sources actually sounds like a very interesting way to work on an argumentative essay on fast food consumption.

When outlining your argumentative essay, you should also remember to put forth the strongest argument right in the first body paragraph. As you move on through your topic, keep uncovering the details about the ideas that you want to discuss in your paper, such as should junk food be banned in schools essay. According to the academic rules that define what an argumentative essay is, it should necessarily contain a tension of the argument. What do we mean by this? You can simply put together the opposing views right after another and discuss what evidence overweight the argument, thus making a point that proves your thesis statement. For example, the opposing view on the subject due to the previously stated example topic could be the essay about why schools should serve fast food options.

As you can clearly see now, here, you can explore both benefits and hazards of fast food being sold in schools. It would be extremely relevant to support your opinion on one or another argument by discussing the real examples. What happened to the schools that have already banned fast foods? Do they have statistics about the health of pupils learning in those schools? Do they run the promotional campaigns of encouraging kids to maintain a healthy diet, and if yes, do they work? See, here you can find a whole large field of investigation that is engaging and relevant for every student.

While writing about fast food selling in schools, it would also be valid to explore the topic in order to write children and fast food essay because particularly the younger generation is targeted by global brands marketing campaigns of junk food. The famous TV presenter, blogger, and cook Jamie Oliver runs a whole social media campaign against that tendency, which is called #IAdEnough, which you might also want to mention in your paper. It’s important to mention, though, that Jamie Oliver doesn’t argue against fast food promotional campaigns in general; he only insists that they should not be targeted at children and teenagers since they are more vulnerable and prone to copying the behavior shown in the advertisement.

Having said that, your thesis statement of a good argumentative essay could also focus on the questions that you could explore in an essay on effects of fast food on our new generation. Picture the societal advantages and challenges of our times and how they affect the choice of food for the younger audience. Of course, the global development of pocket-size smart devices, the Internet, and social media affects modern culture greatly. The overflow of various unfiltered information going through all of these sources makes it even harder for modern kids to make conscious decisions about what they want and what they really need. 

When looking at all these social tendencies globally, you may shape the argument of essay writing on fast food towards finding the root cause for the problem of the overly high popularity of fast food in the market of the younger generation. You might also propose solutions to this problem. For example, why not making healthy food also cheap and quick to cook, as well as incredibly tasty and visually appealing? 

Research paper on fast food

While an argumentative essay on any topic requires putting together two opposing points of view and make your own reasonable conclusions as a result of that exploration and comparison, when you are writing a research paper on fast food, you want to apply a slightly different approach. The main point to remember here is that the research paper doesn’t concentrate on the single one point of an argument, nor does it consider only one polarity view to be ultimately outweighing another. When writing this kind of an academic assignment, you want to focus on analyzing the problem that you pose in your thesis statement from various points of view, considering different facts and evidence along the way. The aim of the research paper is rather rationalizing on a particular subject than trying to convince or to discern certain ideas.

The first thing that you need to do while working on a fast food and obesity research paper is to carefully gather all the possible references on your topic that you can find. We know it is the most comfortable to look for them online, but at the same time, try to do something that’ll make you stand out of the crowd. For example, go to your university or public library. You will be surprised how much useful information is presented in the sources you find there.

However, if you are still looking for some fast food research paper topics, it is not necessarily to look among research papers that you see all around on the Internet. In order to sound original, try to look for scientific articles on fast food, as well as some popular media resources that cover the topic of junk food consumption effects. Often, these articles contain a lot of useful information given in quite a short form. When you know all the thesis sentences and claims that it covers, you can note them and then develop these ideas and use the given data throughout your research paper.

After you have collected all the data that will support your train of thought, you need to organize your facts and quotes by certain criteria. You decide what criteria will be the most significant for you. Anyway, it should reveal the idea of your thesis statement. You could also make notes along the way that will appear useful when you will write the body paragraphs. After you’ve done all that, it’s time to plan and write down the fast food research paper outline. This could be a simple topic phrase outline or a more advanced annotated outline with whole topic sentences. Whether you should choose the first or the second one, it depends on your academic level and requirements of the teacher.

Research essay about fast food

Another kind of academic assignment that you might be asked to write is a research essay about fast food. You might be wondering how this is different from all the other kinds of academic papers. Well, the specific requirements really differ from one university, college, or school to another. To know exactly what rules and norms of formatting, what style and scientific approach you should abide by, ask your professor. And of course, don’t forget to visit lectures on a regular basis.

Moreover, a research essay is different from, for example, a persuasive essay on why fast food is bad in the way that you want to prove and explain your thesis statement. In the first case, you perform extensive research of various credible sources on your topic and then analyze it in a rational and logical kind of way. Of course, all these principles you also apply in your persuasive essay about fast food, but that is slightly different. In the last case, you apply more of the emotional and moral evidence. Persuasive essays are pushier; they are designed to convince your audience to agree with your point of view on the subject that you are talking about.

Persuasive essays that require less of a logical approach and designed to assess mostly your ability for critical thinking are also called something like the opinion essay about fast food. When writing this, don’t forget that you shouldn’t be blown away by your emotions. Your ideas also shouldn’t be left without the support of relevant references in case you have a more advanced academic level. Yes, this is all about your opinion, but it also suggests that you have carefully researched the given topic before writing about it and not just reflected on something you know little or nothing about. The same goes for the fast food discussion essay. Here, you want to discuss various, often controversial points of view on the given subject, not relying much on your personal opinion.

Fast food essay outline

In order to get the best grade, you might start your work on the essay, looking for the catchy essay titles for the topic of the popularity of fast food restaurants. However, this approach might not always be the best idea to employ for writing an academic assignment. First off, what the excellent student really wants is crafting a relevant, strong, and persuasive fast food thesis statement that will lead them all along the way of writing the paper. A perfectly posed question can do miracles with your assignment. It will be so easy to write down paragraph by paragraph if you know for sure how you are going to deploy your topic.

You might not want to spend some considerable amount of time on shaping the perfect thesis statement, but you got to trust us, it’s definitely worth the hassle. Don’t be afraid to alter it on the way, for example, as you do your research, you get to know more and more important data and evidence about the subject. When you feel that you’ve done all these things right, it’s time to move on to the next step. And that is writing the fast food essay outline. You may be wondering how the perfect outline actually looks like. If you type in the search engine of your browser when starting to work on your fast food argumentative essay sample, the sample essays that you find might contain some advanced and long outlines. It looks professional, maybe even too much. Your task is creating a short and concise outline that can be accepted by your professor.

However, even the outline doesn’t have as much influence on your eventual grade as the fast food essay introduction. This part is the first page or two that the professor will read, and of course, he or she will memorize it the most at the end of the day when going through dozens of similar essays like yours. It may also be the main reference point if you have to stand out in front of the class and defend your point discussed in your essay. By the way, one more tip for you: competitive and engaging fast food essay hook makes the perfect introduction. It might take some time to think about mainly because the topic of junk food is largely addressed.

To find a perfectly new and fresh attention grabber for essays on effects of fast food persuasive essay, we recommend you look up the popular social activists and bloggers forums, websites, and groups in social media. This might not be the most reliable source of information to state in a reference page, but you need it for other reasons. Namely, for finding the newest and the most accurate information to hook the audience of your fast food persuasive essay. For example, one of the recent blog posts of the healthy diet community claimed that obesity kills more people annually than dictators and political regimes in the times of World War II. Does it sound shocking and attention-grabbing? For sure! And that is exactly what you are looking for when thinking how to write a persuasive essay introduction on fast food linked to obesity. After you have found this perfectly challenging hook statement and shaped your thesis statement in the proper way, don’t rush to finish your introduction right away. Wait for a few hours and even days so you can go back to it with fresh ideas and maybe alter it to perfection.

What is no less important for a good essay grade apart from the introduction is also a conclusion for a fast food essay. The first thing that you need to remember is that rephrasing all the arguments from your essay is not simply rewriting it. Strive for pointing out all the major turning points while thinking of your thesis statement as a proven fact. Thus, your conclusion will sound strong and persuasive. The next thing that you definitely want to do is finish your essay with a persuasive clincher phrase that encourages the further exploration of your essay topic.

Fast food essay topics

Given that writing about fast food consumption and its long-term effects on human health became a common thing to do for students at most of the universities across the world, it is fair to say that most of these essays include almost the same information. The facts about the link between fast-food restaurants density and health issues of people living nearby, the consequences of overconsumption of trans fats, sodium, and salts in fast food - all these data and statistics are surely known by your professors since they might have read it thousand times before. So, what should you do to really stand out and to gain the best grade in your class? We have the right answer! What you need to think of in the first place is picking some fresh and new topics for fast food essay. Do you think that there is not much place for creativity? We will prove to you in this section that there are lots of areas in the fast-food exploration field that haven’t been largely discussed by the scholar audience.

As we already mentioned in the previous sections, a good way in which you could start your exploration is the essay about how fast food places use kids to market their brand. Indeed, this is a global problem that requires spreading the carefully researched data and academic knowledge. As a result, you might contribute to the healthier development of our younger generations. Just think about all those toys in the food kits and children menu options in the fast-food restaurants that you know. The imagery that they use are is highly appealing to the younger audience. Meanwhile, due to the tremendous amounts of information that appears online and in advertising (oftentimes hidden in social media context), the unfiltered advertising portions process through our brains without much resistance. We almost subconsciously assume, without even giving it a second thought or doubt that a highly sweetened carbonated beverage is associated with happiness while chilling with your friends and family. We associate burgers with socializing and having a good time. Thus, the advertising is targeted directly at young and unprotected by media literacy and awareness minds.

The next paper you may want to work on is the causes and effects of the popularity of fast food restaurants essay. Here, you should employ a classic academic structure of the paper that requires a binary approach, i.e., you have to look both at causes of this problem and its direct consequences, also known as effects. In this regard, you should watch carefully to maintain a perfectly logical order and reasoning. To be completely sure about the links between certain facts and data and your comments on its consequences, look through the list of the most common logical fallacies in order to stay away from things like wrong reasoning or the ‘straw man’ effect. The cause and effect essay can have a few different kinds of structure to begin with. The first and most common type is the chain of causes and effects. In cases when you are working on one little write-up like an addiction to fast food essay, you can use only one to three causes and effects. For example, the regular habit of eating out causes the risk of obesity. The chain of causes and effects would look like a more expanded view of this general cause and effect link: the regular consumption of fast food delivers too many calories and too little nutrition, which causes an unsatisfied desire to eat more, and overeating, in its turn, provokes bad digestion and obesity as a result of it. That would be the chain of causes and effects.

The next type of causation and consequences linkage could also be deployed in a why is fast food bad for us and we keep going back essay. You could have a structure like this. Either there could be one cause and many effects, or it could be many causes that lead to one effect. Basically, here you can find a lot of similar features with the induction and deduction processes. If talking about examples, regular eating out at fast-food restaurants could be the one cause that provokes many long-term effects associated with health risks like obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, high blood pressure, insulin resistance, and so on. Don’t forget to keep an eye on the latest researches in this field to possess the newest information that hasn’t been disproved by scholars recently.

The next structure that we are going to talk about is many causes that lead to one effect. For example, you are writing a should fast food be served with warning labels essay. You can include here many causes that lead to the overconsumption of fast food. That could be the lack of attention to the nutrition labels, the lack of knowledge about what those labels mean or how to count your daily calories, and which amount could be considered the optimal if thinking individually. There are many causes why we don’t care about what is written on those labels. There is also a number of reasons why they could be considered ineffective for reducing the health risks linked with fast food consumption. The labels might contain deceptive or improperly stated information, or they could be confused with advertising labels (like low-calorie, eco, natural, no gluten labels that potentially hide lots of sugars and other chemicals in the same product).

You can also go in the opposite direction in your research. Instead of focusing on the fast food hazards, explore why it became so popular and why so many people from various societal groups prefer eating fast food over other healthier options at full-serving restaurants. This could be examined in a convenience of fast food essay. Similarly, you can also explore both short-term and long-term consequences that the fast-food culture has for people of your country or in the world. You can also discuss the medical and health issues as a direct consequence of the regular fast food consumption and think about how the fast-food culture affects people regarding other social spheres in the effects fast food has on society essay.

Another interesting field for exploration is a comparison of opposing phenomena. They are easy to find in a topic that you are currently working on. Fast food is largely regarded as the opposite of a healthy diet. It is also being polarized to homemade meals. You could discuss the relations between one or a few of these opposing subjects in the fast food vs home cooked meals contrast and comparison essay. Just remember not to paint the fast food all black because this contrast could not be as obvious as you could think at first. For instance, I personally know a few families that cooked their meals only at home. They had lots of fried foods with an enormous amount of fats and carcinogens. Of course, as a result, all the family had an obesity problem, high blood pressure, and heart diseases.

Since the consumption of fast food has a huge impact on society in general, many students and professors tend to look at it from a political point of view. They try to assume and explore whether it would be effective to solve the problem on a governmental level. As a result, questions like the tax regulation of fast-food brands often arise these days. If you like to think of politics, you could pick a “should the government regulate fast food” essay topic. Remember to maintain a balanced approach and to discuss opposing points of view with a rational critical thinking attitude. It would be easier, if you know how to write a critical thinking essay. For example, you may tell about soda tax, which is a tax designed to reduce the consumption of drinks with added sugar. This tax became a matter of public debate in many countries, and beverage producers like Coca-Cola often oppose it.

Often, if you write a persuasive essay, you would be interested in what are people talking about fast food in advertising, political speeches, editorials, newspapers, forums, and blogs. This is exactly the reason why professors and teachers choose contemporary topics for you to discuss, like the dark side of fast food essay. To write this kind of a persuasive essay the best way possible, try to think of yourself as a journalist or a lawyer that fights for a certain opinion to be widely considered. Pick the side you wish to advocate and stand for at all means. The next essential thing to know is your audience. Are they opposing your viewpoint, inclined to favor your side, or still undecided? Depending on that, you would structure your essay.

We could talk for hours about the various ideas for fast food essay topics, but your creativity could do this job even better. The most important thing to do when writing an academic essay is to show your personal approach to the topic and the ability to think critically. Of course, your essay should be adjusted to all the rules and norms of the university formatting, but that is not the main thing that professors usually assess when deciding on what grade to give to some particular essay writing.

So now you know how to approach such a broad and burning topic. We really hope that with the help of our guidelines, you will get the best mark possible. Good luck!

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Home — Essay Samples — Nursing & Health — Junk Food — Why Junk Food Should Be Banned In Schools

Why Junk Food Should Be Banned in Schools

• Categories: Healthy Food Junk Food

About this sample

Words: 823 |

Published: Feb 8, 2022

Words: 823 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Works Cited

• Black, J. A., & Macinko, J. (2008). The changing distribution and determinants of obesity in the neighborhoods of New York City, 2003-2007. American Journal of Epidemiology, 171(7), 765-775.
• Brown, M., & Flint, S. (2013). School food environments and practices affect dietary behaviors of US public school children. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 113(7), 901-903.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2017). Childhood obesity facts. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html
• Gibson, S. (2012). Sugar-sweetened soft drinks and obesity: A systematic review of the evidence from observational studies and interventions. Nutrition Research Reviews, 25(1), 354-374.
• Ludwig, D. S., Peterson, K. E., & Gortmaker, S. L. (2001). Relation between consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks and childhood obesity: A prospective, observational analysis. The Lancet, 357(9255), 505-508.
• Malik, V. S., Pan, A., Willett, W. C., & Hu, F. B. (2013). Sugar-sweetened beverages and weight gain in children and adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 98(4), 1084-1102.

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Junk Food Should Be Banned

Many children in America eat large amounts of junk food, and this can cause health problems. In fact, junk food is even sold in the vending machines of many schools. This debate is about the good and bad points for how junk food should be banned. Whether you believe junk food is unhealthy, or you think it’s good, please add to this debate.

All the Yes points:

Junk food is unhealthy, junk food can cause obesity, unhealthy food may be bad for brain function, junk food can increase the risk of diabetes, banning junk food in schools could decrease the frequency of heart disease, junk food can have negative affects on bone health, habits are often formed during childhood and it’s important to ensure that kids eat a healthy diet in school, bans on junk food have been successful, some regions have already put warning labels on junk foods, fast food chains have even made efforts to make their foods less “junky”, all the no points:, yes because….

Junk food is highly unhealthy and can transform fit, healthy human beings into obese, lazy people. Is this what we want Earth to become for the future generations? I should think not. Eating too much junk food can cause your life to be shortened, and this is terrible. This is why I believe that junk food should be banned.

No because…

Junk food isn’t that bad. Healthy food can be just as bad sometimes. And when people try to change it, it just doesn’t work. For instance, my school’s canteen had a food change to make the food healthier. One day they cooked “healthy” fish and chips, and the people who spent $5 on it, got no chips and a tiny half-frozen piece of fish. This could happen to any other canteen, and I strongly advise against it happening, as it will turn out not to work.

The rate of obesity in the United States has risen dramatically. According to the CDC , more than one third of the population is considered obese. The rate of obesity is similar among children to the rate of obesity in the general population. Many more people are not obese but overweight. According to USAToday , around two thirds of the population is overweight. According to ScienceDaily, even moderate obesity can substantially shorten life expectancy. Over consumption of junk foods is a major contributing factor in the obesity epidemic. Many junk foods are extremely high in calories, and it’s easy for a person to exceed the recommended number of calories when they eat junk foods. Banning junk food in schools would reduce the amount of junk food that kids eat. Furthermore, some schools have already taken this step.

If junk foods are banned, kids will still eat junk food while in school. Instead of getting it from the school vending machines, they’ll sneak it in. This could create a climate of evasiveness among students. In some cases, students may even sneak out of school to buy junk food. Additionally, junk food is still likely to be freely available at home. Therefore, it’s possible that kids would simply binge on junk foods when they aren’t in school. This could cause their overall consumption of junk food to remain unchanged. Furthermore, banning junk food could increase the sense of boredom among students. This could potentially result in decreased academic performance. Another drawback to banning junk foods in schools is that it could be more difficult to prepare meals for students. By contrast, many junk foods can be prepared quickly. Furthermore, healthier food tends to be more expensive. The increased expense could result in an increase in school taxes. It also could result in an increase in the cost of school lunches.

According to WebMD , eating too much junk food could result in decreases in brain function. According to Consumer Health Digest , there are several types of food that are bad for brain health. The additives and preservatives in junk food can have impairing effects on cognition. Foods with a high level of salt also have been shown to reduce cognitive performance. Studies have also shown that fatty foods impair cognition. In addition, foods that contain residual amounts of pesticides might cause negative effects on brain health. Many healthy foods contain chemicals that are necessary for optimal brain function, such as Omega-3s. According to the University of Maryland , Omega-3s are extremely important. A deficiency of Omega-3s has been linked to a number of common mental health disorders, such as depression and ADHD. It’s even thought that a deficiency of Omega-3s could make one more prone to develop severe mental health conditions, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Banning junk food in schools could encourage students to eat more healthy food. This could reduce the prevalence of mental health problems among students. It also could improve the school performance of students.

Type 2 diabetes is becoming more common, and over consumption of junk food can increase one’s risk of developing it. There are two reasons why Type 2 diabetes can be caused by eating too much junk food. Many junk foods contain a high volume of sugar. If high volumes of sugar are consumed over a long period of time, the body can stop producing enough insulin. This can lead to Type 2 diabetes. In addition, Type 2 diabetes can be induced by becoming overweight or obese. In fact, many people who have Type 2 diabetes are able to cure the condition by losing weight. Serious health complications can result from Type 2 diabetes. In fact, Type 2 diabetes can even result in serious circulation problems that can result in amputation. In fact, diabetes is considered to be one of the primary causes of death in the United States. According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases , Type 2 diabetes can develop during one’s childhood under some circumstances. Banning junk foods in schools could result in a decreased rate of obesity, and fewer kids would over consume sugar. These habits may stick with kids for life, and this could further reduce the frequency of Type 2 diabetes.

Heart disease is a common cause of death in the United States, and it has been known to develop in children younger than age 18, according to WebMD . Poor diet is a major contributing factor to the development of heart disease. Therefore, an improved diet from a junk food ban in school could help to reduce one’s risk of developing heart disease. The reduction in obesity rates that could result from banning junk food in schools could have a particularly significant effect in terms of reducing the frequency of heart disease.

It’s unknown how much kids’ consumption of junk food would be reduced by banning junk foods in schools. If the ban didn’t reduce the amount of junk food that kids eat, the rate of heart disease would likely remain unchanged.

During childhood, bones are developing. Growing children need a significant quantity of calcium each day for bone development. Without enough calcium, serious defects in bone development can occur. A poor diet can increase one’s risk of developing osteoporosis, according to UPI . In addition to the lack of calcium in junk food, many junk foods contain high levels of sugar and fat. This can weaken bones. If junk foods are consumed in schools, this may cause kids to continue to eat a poor diet as adults. It’s thought that the first six years of life are crucial in ensuring that a proper diet for bone health is maintained throughout one’s life.

Banning junk food is likely to have an impact on one’s diet throughout their entire life. Prominent psychologists feel that healthy habits are formed during childhood. According to Blakeslee , a prominent psychologist, dietary habits formed in childhood tend to last throughout life.

If children sneak in junk food from home, banning junk foods in school wouldn’t help children to learn healthier ways of eating for life. Instead, the time and effort that went with sneaking in junk food could reinforce the habit of eating it even more.

Some schools in California have changed their policies on junk food. Instead of serving it in the school vending machines, they have switched over to serving carrots and other healthy foods. At these schools , it’s been estimated that students consumed an average of 160 calories less over the course of the school day. This is a significant decrease, and there was no evidence that these students over consumed junk food to any greater degree at home. This would be a significant enough reduction in caloric intake to significantly reduce one’s risk of becoming obese. If food that is served in vending machines at schools has health benefits, it would help to ensure that students get proper nutrition. If students are given the opportunity to buy healthy foods or junk foods from the vending machines, it’s likely that many students would choose the junk foods over healthier foods. Given the success of these bans, it’s likely that more and more schools will begin to follow suit in banning junk food. At least, it’s likely that more schools will stop selling junk food in their vending machines.

San Francisco has put warning labels on sugary sodas. This effort is also being considered by a state lawmaker in California, according to Reuters . While the products haven’t been taken off the shelves in any location, the effort is intended to inform the public about the dangers of drinking large amounts of sugary beverages. Given the fact that governments have issued warnings about sugary sodas, it makes us wonder if we really should allow them to be sold in schools. In addition to warnings on sugary sodas, warnings have been considered for foods that have a high concentration of salt. This is due to the fact that excessive salt intake can cause hypertension (high blood pressure). Some school aged children suffer from the condition. Many popular junk foods, such as potato chips, tend to have extremely high levels of salt. It’s not just San Francisco that is taking a stance on over consumption of junk food. In France, there recently was a law passed to prohibit free refills of sugary sodas.

While these laws have been successfully implemented, many feel that this is evidence that bans on junk food in schools could be a stepping stone to giving the government increased power over our day to day lives. A bill was even considered in New York City that would prevent sodas larger than 16 ounces from being sold. There was a large amount of opposition to this law. It can be difficult to determine where to draw the line as to what constitutes junk food. Foods vary considerably in terms of their nutritional value. So, it could be challenging to create a universal definition of what junk food is.

While many things on the McDonald’s menu are still very much junk food, the chain has begun to make an effort to reduce the amount of trans fats in their foods. According to CBS , one of their french fry oils no longer contains any trans fats. This helps to reduce the negative effects of the grease on the cardiovascular system. Furthermore, they have begun to incorporate healthier menu options in addition to the junk foods they offer. For instance, McDonald’s has started offering a variety of salads. In addition, they have begun to offer snack wraps with a relatively low amount of calories. This illustrates that Americans are becoming more and more health conscious. Therefore, many people would likely be in favor of banning junk foods in schools.

The fact that McDonald’s and other fast food chains have made an effort to make their menu items healthier doesn’t necessarily mean that people would tend to support banning junk foods in schools. McDonalds and other fast food restaurants still sell quite a lot of junk food. Therefore, many people would likely be disappointed about a ban on junk foods in schools.

To ban junk food would be a complete failure. It would also leave people feeling that their freedom of choice was taken. A better way to handle junk food is to make laws more strict about ingredient labels. Perhaps require foods with little nutritional value to have their nutrition facts be bolder and in a bright colour.

Every moving Junk Food franchise accumulates approximately $1 million a day. There are over 500 such franchises all over Australia and USA. Multinational companies like Lay’s, Doritos, etc. also make in the millions and billions. So imagine the amount of money international money, that would be drawn in every month. This kind of a cash flow is a necessity for big country economies to run. Hence, we should no let fast food joints or Junk food producing companies should not be shut down.

i think it is unhealthy i do not want OBESITY

I know junk food is good but at the same time junk food is not. Most people buys junk food but they don’t know that they are just wasting money and destroying their health. So I’ll got for “JUNK FOOD SHOULD BE BANNED”.

Hey! Very well written blog. According to The American Heart Association, we consume more than three times the amount of sugar over the recommended daily limit. Furthermore, these processed foods are tearing holes in our intestinal lining, allowing partially or undigested foods entry into our blood stream. It causes inflammation which not only effects the body but also effects the brain.

“junk food” is healthy and does not deserve a ban people say it is unhealthy and junk but it is NOT people are just jelous

Yes because it can cause a lot of stuff like brain damage and 108millon died cause of dieibites and it can cause cancer and more

keep the animals safe and healthy

ban all junk food so the animals will be saved

dave was here

Junk food can be good for the body if eaten in moderation, your body needs sugar and variety. The only people who get obese because of it, is people who are addicted to takis and stuff.

but…i love takis

takis are the best get a different example

you are grounded for that comment

Sure, junk food is bad for you, but it shouldn’t be banned; we should cut down on it. Junk food should only be eaten in moderation.

Junk food is unhealthy but it shouldn’t be banned because it creates jobs to help with economic debt we should just lower the amount of junk food we eat.

it will make people go to school but they could only get fast food if they do their woork

there were some of the other teams arguments in the other team’s speeches, but overall, this was great!

yes because

i am da god

Yes you are good god

someone wrote their sentence wrong it says ‘negative affects on bone health’ but it is actually ‘effects’.

Does anyone know who wrote this

I am concerned with all of the junk food that my school sells, and what my friends consume, from this school. The school is literally selling obesity, and I am kind of getting sucked into the junk food circle! I want it, but I know that it is horrible for you. I love chips and soda, but I don’t want diabetes, and I don’t love cholesterol.

That you can solve by eating a controlled amount and limiting your pocket money so you can’t afford more and you won’t get addicted.

Then don’t eat it…

All the people who liked this comment were probably adults with children that are obese, lol. Here’s a trick, if you don’t want your children to become obese, feed them healthily, maybe? Your probably buying all the junk food for them…

What are we calling junk food though.? I’m guessing we mean things with little nutrional value that have lots of fat sugar salt etc I’m on a low fat, low sugar, low carb diet due to health issues. I’m not sure we can ban ‘junk’ totally. A burger is deemed unhealthy but surely it’s grilled beef, meat bread and salad if wanted. Bakeries and take aways would disappear as would anything with sugar fat in it. It’s a lovely utopia dream but not really possible, if we eat too much of any one thing it’s not healthy. We can’t survive on just lettuce. Obesity isn’t just about junk food. It you eat large portions that too will encourage weight gain as well as lack of exercise. You can’t make people be more healthy. It’s down to the individual at the end of the day. But if people suffer health issues due to obesity then I think they owe it to the NHS to make an effort. We need to issue overweight people more options like prescribing a membership at the gym. A dietician, or perhaps vouchers to buy more healthy food, which is more expensive. Be hard to monitor though. I do want to cry when I see chubby kids though as that’s not their choice, its down to parents to buy cook their food, therefore allowing a child to become obese amounts to child cruelty in my eyes.

Junk food and fast food should be banned for all of the reasons mentioned. Another reason I feel it should be banned is because people don’t appreciate where the meat in their meals has come from . It’s more than likely been farmed intensively meaning an unfair quality of life for the animal, not the kindest ending to their life. The more worrying thing is that most intensively farmed animals are given antibiotics to prevent disease spreading and speed up their growth . HUMANS are eating this either through meat or dairy consumption and not to mention how much comes out through animal waste ! We are already starting to build a resistance towards antibiotics and surely this is just speeding the process up ? I feel need to go back to basics and start cooking, eat less meat ( or less cheaper intensively farmed meat and dairy) and stop paying these big takeaway companies and supermarkets to continue supplying us with this type of meat. The more we demand the more they supply. How do we get people to wake up to the fact that what they put in their mouths for their convenience is doing a lot more harm than what they realise.

No, and here are 6 reasons why. 1 restricting junk food early on only makes it more irresistible later when it’s their choice. 2 eating junk food can actually be healthy, a recent study shows that certain junk food has antioxidants that are good for the heart. 3 junk food like candy, cookies, and biscuits. 4 children should learn to make their own choices. 5 in school garbages the most wasted food is healthy food. 6 people like it and that’s their choice!

1: NOT restricting junk food early on makes it irresistible later, when you have gotten into a habit of eating delicious foods constantly, it becomes extraordinarily hard to stop later on-especially on young minds. 2: While certain types of junk food have antioxidants, there are much better ways to introduce these antioxidants. Throwing a few chemicals on candy and saying it is healthy is an overkill. 3: These foods could include milk, vegetables, or wholesome breads. 4: Its proven that children have a harder time making the right choice when there is a much more appealing choice. Children who need to learn to make the right choice have much more efficient options to help them learn independence. 5: By only providing healthy food to eat, children will eat that instead of starving themselves because they only eat junk food. By telling them junk food is bad and withholding it they won’t get into a habit of only eating junk food. 6: That’s there is home. At school, they should be educated on making good choices and we shouldn’t expose them to bad foods-even if they like it. Schools are a learning environment after all.

I agree. children should stay healthy but sometimes, they should be able to have it. it shouldn’t be an all the time thing.

I agree most definitely

I’m 18, I had a fairly happy and stable childhood, parents that were together and took care of me. I had many friends, got really good grades and had nothing to stress about. I also had anxiety and depression for the past four years of my life. It has honestly been the worst and most baffling period of my life. I have never been able to understand it. Until recently when i wanted to lose weight and started looking into healthy food alternatives and their health benefits I also started looking into why I started picking up weight in the first place. in my research I found that one of the causes might be a thyroid imbalance I went to the clinic and after a couple of tests they confirmed it. I looked into what caused thyroid problems(junk food) and what effect this would have on me ( one of the symptoms are anxiety and depression). I went to the doctor again because of some other issues I was having with my body and they said I had a gluten intolerance ( also causes anxiety and depression also caused by junk food). I can not explain how badly anxiety and depression ruined my life. It robbed me of so many precious feelings and moments in my life that I will never get to experience again and also simultaneously made me remove any people I might have cared for out of my life because of my fear of hurting them. Four years of my life I will never get back, all because no one explained to me what the labels at the back of my food actually meant. All because no one informed me of how these chemicals effect our bodies, All because buying healthy food is ridiculously expensive in comparison to unhealthy food. I mean this literally ruined my life, if something can cause thus much harm to someone surely it should be illegal. Sorry if this comes across as bitter, its just I would much rather someone had taught me about this in school rather than the Pythagorean theory.

I couldn’t agree more and Thankyou for sharing your experience . Sorry to hear about your health suffering but I am so happy you’ve found out the cause and know how to feel good again . I have a young daughter and I’m scared to let her see what rubbish food restaurants are out there . Everyone thinks I’m overreacting when I don’t want her eating at these places and get offended if I don’t have meals with them . I can understand how it ruins part of your life . I home cook everything and know I’m giving my daughter the best start . Thanks again for your story

Do you know how ridiculous this looks? All because SOMEONE ELSE never showed you how to read labels? So basically its SOMEONE elses fault. As someone who has spent years of their life in therapy/psychiatry I can tell you the root of your problem was more based on blame than food. If you magically got better after you learned something to blame it on.. Sure a crappy diet doesn’t help.. but basically it looks like you finally took action to a problem…and fixed it. Like normal adults. Its part of growing up.

I really appreciate you for sharing your experience with us. It was so sad to hear about your health suffering but on the other side I feel so happy on your recovery. We all know that banning the junk food is not the solution, the children should let themselves think about what is bad or good for their life. I am a seventh standard kid from india. I just want to let the government think about what they would do, we also have the right to chosen that is why our country is a democratic country. Once again I thank you for sharing your experience with us.

Agree that junk food should be banned

Oof dude u alright?

We would love to hear what you think – please leave a comment!

I think junk food should not be banned , because some children does not like eating veggies,i did’nt mean tha t we shoul’dnt eat veggies, we should eat but if we ban it children will stay hungry, and will not be able to concentrate.

Starving is better than being bullied because of your obese self therefore junk food should be banned

great work there bro.

• I think junk food should be banned because of obesity bullying some people commit suicide because of how big they get and the bigger you are the more of earth atmosphere gets used up you die faster than most people And if Global warming is a thing then stay skinny so less of global warming is reduced

What exactly is Junk Food? How does one define junk food? I heard a can of peas is consideered junk food while dry peas is not? Really? I takes time, to prepare dried peas, if one still has their utilities still in tact, no shut off because they can not afford the cost.

Home > Advice > What's Bad For You > 5 Reasons Junk Food Should Be Banned

5 Reasons Junk Food Should Be Banned

It’s not a secret that fast food is bad for you. I don’t think I just blew your mind by writing that. I do, however, think that people believe that there’s nothing wrong with eating fast food in moderation. It really comes down to ignorance being blissful.

I love the analogy that our bodies are like vehicles. You want the best fuel for your car, but do you always provide the right fuel for your body? The fast food industry gives that option to people, giving you regular when your gas-guzzler requires premium.

The main reason fast food should be foods to avoid is an obvious one: it can lead to many health problems such as obesity, heart disease, and diabetes . Fast food consumption is probably one of the most common addictions that nobody talks about. The addiction leads to disease.

People talk about the seriousness of alcohol and smoking addictions; however, how many fast food addiction help centers are there? It doesn’t appear to be a big concern because people have to eat. And, if there were public service announcements about how you should limit your fast food consumption, how do you think the big corporations would act? Let’s just say it’s not going to happen anytime soon.

The solution is about making informed and healthier choices . A lot of people realize that the Big Mac is causing health problems, but do they relate that mouth-watering meal to why they are angry at the world or are getting divorced? When you realize the role fast food plays on your health and on society, you may discontinue your daily or weekly trip to your favorite burger or pizza joint.

Here Are Five Reasons Fast Food Should Be Banned

1. fast food isn’t even food.

Pretty much every nutritional expert will tell you not to eat any processed food, especially fast food. They don’t even consider it food, not even the so-called “healthier” options with fewer calories. For your body to function properly, it needs quality nutrients.

There is very little fiber, vitamins, or minerals in your fast food, which means your digestion is instantly compromised. Fast foods should definitely be foods to avoid. They are highly processed, piled with refined sugar, salt, saturated fat, and hydrogenated fat.

It’s also no secret that factory-farmed animal products and genetically modified foods are the fast food industry’s best friends.

2. Fast Food Affects Your Brain

Have you ever wondered why you feel so calm and clear-minded, and other people are so angry at the world ? The fast food industry plays a big part with this. Omega-3s are essential fatty acids that are beneficial for brain health. A fast food-oriented diet lacks these nutrients, one of the reasons fast foods are foods to avoid.

Magnesium, tryptophan, and low glycemic foods are all essential for proper cognitive function. B vitamins such as folic acid (B9) will help prevent mental issues like paranoia and decreased memory.

Eating too many carbohydrates such as hamburger buns, French fries, and pizza will affect your mood and may cause depression and anxiety. It makes sense then that people who regularly eat fast food are 51% more likely to become depressed, according to a study.

Whenever you have a goal to accomplish, adding fast foods to your list of foods to avoid and eating plenty of real foods (fruits, vegetables, grains) will help you focus.

3. Fast Food Quickly Drains Your Wallet

A lot of people justify their fast food habit based on cost. “I want something cheap and easy,” they might say. The truth is the cost really adds up! Depending on the location, basic fast food meals can range between five and eight dollars.

You could easily spend $15-$20 making a homemade meal, instead of spending $40-$50 on a family of four eating one fast food meal (another reason to add them to your list of foods to avoid).

Related: Comparison Of Fast Food Vs. Home Cooked Meals

4. Fast Food Teenagers Become Unhealthy Adults

I believe nutrition education should be a priority from a young age. The impact of what you put into your body definitely should be drilled home in the classroom but it’s not. Whenever they are not at home, teenagers are free to eat what they want, and they might choose foods to avoid, like unhealthy fast food.

Fast food options like greasy pizza and fatty burgers are even cafeteria options. A student’s grades are greatly affected by the foods they eat and they play a role in concentration and misbehavior.

Taking an omega-3 and a multi-vitamin/mineral can help produce smart and goal-oriented students. The longer a kid or teenager continues their fast food habit, the more nutrient deficiencies they will obtain, and they will also be more prone to disease later in life.

5. Fast Food Increases Your Disease Risk

Your risk of disease increases when the majority of your diet is foods to avoid like fast food. Fat intake accounts for more than 40% of the American diet and fast food is high in fat. Also, weight gain and blood sugar spikes often go together, just as obesity and diabetes.

You will crave certain fast foods at different points of the day when your blood sugar levels are too low, such as your coffee and donut in the morning or your triple fudge sundae for dessert. This is why all fast and convenience foods are foods to avoid.

A healthy diet is the best way to protect against disease and balance your blood sugar levels with a significant amount of low glycemic index foods, such as salmon, tuna, avocado, broccoli, kale, and other dark green leafy vegetables.

Healthier Options

I realize it may be hard to make every meal in today’s constantly on-the-run society; however, there are healthier options when you have the right mindset. Think outside the take-out box, so to speak. I’m not saying never eat out because it really depends on your schedule, circumstances, and your habitual tendencies but there are some better options like:

• Organic health food hot table buffets
• Natural foods restaurants
• Ordering healthy soups, preferably lentil, split pea, and other bean and vegetable options
• Eating at Mexican, Brazilian, or other Latin places that may offer healthy bean and rice dishes.
• 5 Fast Food Meals That Are Actually Healthy!
• What’s Really Inside Your Fast-Food Sandwich?
• Drive-Thru Dining: Tips for Choosing Healthy Options
• Why Are Hot Dogs Bad for You?

Sources: “Fast-Food Consumption and the Ban on advertising Targeting Children: The Quebec Experience” AMA Journals; http://journals.ama.org/doi/abs/10.1509/jmkr.48.5.799?code=amma-site , last accessed Mar 10, 2014

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Proper Argumentative Essay Example About Junk Foods Should Be Banned In Schools

Type of paper: Argumentative Essay

Topic: Food , Junk , Students , Foods , Family , Junk Foods , Children , Schools

Words: 1200

Published: 03/08/2023

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Obesity is one of the leading problems in the society today and many persons believe that this stems from the unhealthy eating practices that are present in the schools’ cafeterias. More often than not, students will gravitate towards eating junk foods as this practice is less time consuming and is more fascinating for children who want foods that are appealing to their sight and tastes. But, recent studies have shown that junk food can cause serious risks to the health and lifestyle of children. The problem intensifies as students are able to access junk foods in the school canteens. The consumption of junk food is unhealthy as these foods lack the nutritional value that the body needs to grow and develop. The truth is that school is a place for learning, but learning should not just include the academic framework of the development of the child. It should be the place where children learn the benefits and the challenges that come with social and health development in the body. The truth is that junk foods should be banned in schools as it allows from poor nutritional development and increases the likelihood of health problems in young children. Researchers show that “junk food is generally defined as food items that have little nutritional value beyond providing fat or sugar” (Junk food 2003) in the body. Additionally, junk food contains ingredients that are highly processed and have “excessive amounts of potentially harmful ingredients like salt” (Junk food 2003) and high fructose corn syrup. Junk foods often taste much better that healthy food and this is one of the main reasons for children gravitating towards junk foods. But, these “tasty” treats lack “the daily requirements of vitamins, protein, fiber, or other essentials” (Junk foods 2003) and as such they created a number of concerns for the health of these children. Most of the snacks that student purchase from the vending machines at schools have low or moderate nutritional value and yet students continue to consume these foods because they are easy to prepare and cost less (Svokos 2014). The excessive junk foods in these canteens in schools can lead to serious health challenges including unhealthy growth and development and obesity. Childhood obesity arises from the increase in the kilojoules that the students consume through junk foods and this problem intensifies as most students do not perform exercises that will help to reduce the intake of junk foods. The obesity challenges are not the only challenges that students face because of the consumption of junk foods. The problem intensifies as children continue to consume high levels of sugar and fat that are common to junk foods. Students who consume junk foods in school run the risk of consuming a high level of sugar and increase the likelihood of health challenges. Therefore, junk foods must be removed from the school canteens in order to prevent serious challenges for the children. The consumption of junk foods prevents healthy growth and development of the children. There are chemical additives in junk foods that help to improve or enhance the color and flavor of these products. But, these addictives also increases the level of hyperactivity in children and leads to poor concentration in classes. Additionally, the increase in the hyperactivity among students will lead to a lack of concentration and in turn leads to the decline in educational performance in students. Joel Fuhrman suggests that “there is a clear impact of nutrition on the potential development of Alzheimer’s disease and other late-life cognitive disorders” (Fuhrman 2013).  In addition, the author suggests that “the damaging effects of unhealthy foods on the brain occur throughout life” (Fuhrman 2013) mainly because children’s early diets include pizza, burgers, chicken nuggets, pasta, French fries, sodas and sweetened cold cereals. These junk foods are served daily in many school cafeterias and present a negative impact on the school learning and performance. Parents support the learning and development of their children and yet they allow these children to partake in the junk foods that are served daily in the school’s cafeterias. The truth is that junk foods are unhealthy for learning and performance and therefore parents need to raise the calls for bans on junk foods in schools if they want the best possible outcome for their children. Schools form the early stages of development and this development should include health development in the eating patterns of the children. School cafeterias earn revenues from the sales of junk foods and this is one of the reasons from schools promoting junk foods. But, Jonathon M. Seidl argues that schools can become successful in enforcing bans on junk food in schools in order to improve and promote healthy eating habits and in turn fight obesity in children (Seidl 2016). The introduction of healthy foods in the diet will not detract from the financial revenues that the schools amass. But even if this occurs, schools should be more concerned with the health of these students and not so much with the financial benefits that they receive from the sales of junk foods in their cafeteria. The reality is that unhealthy snacks cause negative health challenges for children and schools should become responsible for their contribution to the negative health problems that arise from the sale of junk foods in the cafeterias. In concluding, junk foods are unhealthy for children in many ways. The consumption of these foods lead to obesity and heart related conditions and yet the schools continue to act as the champion of educating young minds academically and forgetting to educate these young minds on healthy eating practices. Children consume junk foods in their homes on a regular basis because of the changes in the family structure and the fact that parents have less time to prepare healthy meals for their children. As such it is important for schools to help these parents to improve the eating patterns of children by removing junk foods such as sodas and other high fructose corn syrup products. In addition, schools should assess the related literature on the health challenges that may arise from the consumption of junk foods on a whole and ban the sales in the schools. This process will undoubtedly improve the health conditions of children and in turn improve the health of the future generations.

Dunham, W. (2011) "Junk Food Should Be Banned in Schools." Should Junk Food Be Sold in Schools? Ed. Norah Piehl. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2011. At Issue. Rpt. from "Expert Panel Urges Junk Food Ban in Schools." Reuters, 2007. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 25 Mar. 2016. Fuhrman, J., (2013) Junk Food May Limit Children's Intelligence and Learning Ability, Retrieved from http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/children-junk-food-may-limit-childrens-intelligence-and-learning-ability.html 5 Apr 2016 "Junk Food." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection. Detroit: Gale, 2015. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. Retrieved from http://ic.galegroup.com.ezproxy.cpcc.edu 25 Mar. 2016. Seidl, J. "Banning Junk Food in Schools Is Effective." Should Junk Food Be Sold in Svokos, A. (2014) Children Who Eat More Fast Food Show Less Academic Improvement, Study Shows, The Huffington Post Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/23/fast-food-school-effects_n_6369284.html 5 Apr 2016

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Fast Food (Argumentative Essay Sample)

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Fast food is viewed in different ways by different consumers. Some are stuck on fast foods, unable to prepare proper foods in their houses. Others dread such foods, citing health consequences linked with the high salt and calorie content of such foods. While proponents and opponents on each side of the debate point to key reasons for their positions, fast foods are generally unhealthy and unfit for humans.

On the positive side, most fast food restaurants serve large quantities of foods, and this guarantees them of return customers. This enables them to offer more employment opportunities, an example being McDonald outlets which have offered employment chances to thousands of employees across the world, thus improving their standards of living. Fast foods come in handy for individuals whose tight work schedule does not allow them adequate time to prepare traditional food in their houses. Such individuals regularly consume fast foods from restaurants.

Fast foods significantly save on time. There is no waiting time as time is served and consumed instantly. Food is prepared within a few minutes and is ready for consumption. Some restaurants have drive-through services which allow customers to place orders quickly, which saves hours on working consumers’ busy schedules.  In the current world where consumers are health-conscious, some restaurants have turned to offering healthy alternatives. Such alternatives are, however, more expensive.

The health consequences associated with fast foods, however, render such foods harmful and worthless as they reduce human lifespan. Due to high-calorie content, consumers risk suffering from such diseases as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and high cholesterol. Obesity is a risk factor for diabetes. Given that a significant number of consumers make poor choices regarding their diet, most of them end up consuming hot dogs, pizza, hamburgers, chips, ice cream, chicken nuggets, fried chicken, sandwiches, among other tasty but high-salt, high-calorie fast foods. Fast foods are made from high saturated fats, increasing the likelihood that such fats end up clogging arteries in consumers’ bodies thus increasing the risk of obesity and heart disease.

At times, the demand for fast foods is so high that hygienic standards are often compromised in some restaurants. In some cases, cows and pigs are hung upsides down, while chicken is cramped in stuffy, enclosed spaces, slaughtered and quickly prepared for consumption. Food-borne illnesses sometimes occur in such cases, resulting in inflated health care costs to individual families and at national levels.

Having evaluated the arguments above, it is clear that the health consequences of fast foods supersede the benefits. A wide range of research literature has proved that fast foods contribute significantly to adverse health conditions as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Such conditions cost the healthcare sector millions of dollars annually, and adversely affect the global economy. For instance, obesity is one of the most devastating health conditions that drain the healthcare sector of the United States. It is surprising that the greatest number of obesity cases is not genetic- it is linked to consumption of high-calorie foods.

In conclusion, fast foods present more problems than benefits to users. Consumers need to either avoid such foods or choose healthier alternatives, such as less salted foods although such options may cost more. Traditionally prepared food is relatively expensive and more time-consuming to prepare but it is certainly healthy. In the long run, good health is more important.

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Ielts essay # 1324 - fast food companies should not be allowed to advertise, ielts writing task 2/ ielts essay:, many people think that fast food companies should not be allowed to advertise, while others believe that all companies should have the right to advertise., discuss both these views and give your own opinion..

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The Grim Reality of Banning TikTok

T he U.S. government, once again, wants to ban TikTok. The app has become an incontrovertible force on American phones since it launched in 2016, defining the sounds and sights of pandemic-era culture. TikTok’s burst on the scene also represented a first for American consumers, and officials—a popular social media app that wasn’t started on Silicon Valley soil, but in China.

On March 13, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to force TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell TikTok or else the app will be banned on American phones. The government will fine the two major mobile app stores and any cloud hosting companies to ensure that Americans cannot access the app.

While fashioned as a forced divestiture on national security grounds, let’s be real: This is a ban. The intent has always been to ban TikTok, to punish it and its users without solving any of the underlying data privacy issues lawmakers claim to care about. Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw said it outright : “No one is trying to disguise anything… We want to ban TikTok.”

But, as such, a ban of TikTok would eliminate an important place for Americans to speak and be heard. It would be a travesty for the free speech rights of hundreds of millions of Americans who depend on the app to communicate, express themselves, and even make a living. And perhaps more importantly, it would further balkanize the global internet and disconnect us from the world.

Read more: What to Know About the Bill That Could Get TikTok Banned in the U.S.

This isn’t the first time the government has tried to ban TikTok: In 2021, former President Donald Trump issued an executive order that was halted in federal court when a Trump-appointed judge found it was “arbitrary and capricious” because it failed to consider other means of dealing with the problem. Another judge found that the national security threat posted by TikTok was “phrased in the hypothetical.” When the state of Montana tried to ban the app in 2023, a federal judge found it “oversteps state power and infringes on the constitutional rights of users,” with a “pervasive undertone of anti-Chinese sentiment.”

Trump also opened a national security review with the power to force a divestment, something Biden has continued to this day with no resolution; and last year, lawmakers looked poised to pass a bill banning TikTok, but lost steam after a high-profile grilling of its top executive. (Trump has done an about-face on the issue and recently warned that banning TikTok will only help its U.S. rivals like Meta.)

TikTok stands accused of being a conduit for the Chinese Communist Party, guzzling up sensitive user data and sending it to China. There’s not much evidence to suggest that’s true, except that their parent company ByteDance is a Chinese company, and China’s government has its so-called private sector in a chokehold. In order to stay compliant, you have to play nice.

In all of this, it’s important to remember that America is not China. America doesn't have a Great Firewall with our very own internet free from outside influences. America allows all sorts of websites that the government likes, dislikes, and fears onto our computers. So there’s an irony in allowing Chinese internet giants onto America’s internet when, of course, American companies like Google and Meta’s services aren’t allowed on Chinese computers.

And because of America’s robust speech protections under the First Amendment, the U.S. finds itself playing a different ballgame than the Chinese government in this moment. These rights protect Americans against the U.S. government, not from corporations like TikTok, Meta, YouTube, or Twitter, despite the fact that they do have outsized influence over modern communication. No, the First Amendment says that the government cannot stop you from speaking without a damned good reason. In other words, you’re protected against Congress—not TikTok.

The clearest problem with a TikTok ban is it would immediately wipe out a platform where 170 million Americans broadcast their views and receive information—sometimes about political happenings. In an era of mass polarization, shutting off the app would mean shutting down the ways in which millions of people—even those with unpopular views—speak out on issues they care about. The other problem is that Americans have the constitutional right to access all sorts of information—even if it’s deemed to be foreign propaganda. There’s been little evidence to suggest that ByteDance is influencing the flow of content at the behest of the Chinese government, though there’s some reports that are indeed worrying, including reports that TikTok censored videos related to the Tiananmen Square massacre, Tibetan independence, and the banned group Falun Gong.

Still, the Supreme Court ruled in 1964 that Americans have the right to receive what the government deems to be foreign propaganda. In Lamont v. Postmaster General , for instance, the Court ruled that the government couldn’t halt the flow of Soviet propaganda through the mail. The Court essentially said that the act of the government stepping in and banning propaganda would be akin to censorship, and the American people need to be free to evaluate these transgressive ideas for themselves.

Further, the government has repeatedly failed to pass any federal data privacy protections that would address the supposed underlying problem of TikTok gobbling up troves of U.S. user data and handing it to a Chinese parent company. Biden only made moves in February 2024 to prevent data brokers from selling U.S. user data to foreign adversaries like China, arguably a problem much bigger than one app. But the reality is that the government has long been more interested in banning a media company than dealing with a real public policy issue.

There is legitimate concern in Washington and elsewhere that it’s not the government that controls so much of America’s speech, but private companies like those bred in Silicon Valley. But the disappearance of TikTok would further empower media monopolists like Google and Meta, who already control about half of all U.S. digital ad dollars, and give them a tighter choke hold over our communication. There’s already a paucity of platforms where people speak; removing TikTok would eliminate one of the most important alternatives we have.

Since it launched in 2016, TikTok has been the most influential social media app in the world, not because it affects public policy or necessarily creates monoculture—neither are particularly true, in fact—but because it has given people a totally different way to spend time online. In doing so, it disrupted the monopolies of American tech companies like Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and forced every rival to in some way mimic its signature style. There’s Facebook and Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, Snapchat Spotlight, and every other app seems to be an infinitely-scrolling video these days.

Still, Americans choose to use TikTok and their conversations will not easily port over to another platform in the event of it being banned. Instead, cutting through the connective tissue of the app will sever important ways that Americans—especially young Americans—are speaking at a time when those conversations are as rich as ever.

The reality is that if Congress wanted to solve our data privacy problems, they would solve our data privacy problems. But instead, they want to ban TikTok, so they’ve found a way to try and do so. The bill will proceed to the Senate floor, then to the president’s desk, and then it will land in the U.S. court system. At that point, our First Amendment will once again be put to the test—a free speech case that’s very much not in the abstract, but one whose results will affect 170 million Americans who just want to use an app and have their voices be heard.

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