Fast Food/ Food In America

As an athlete I often travel to many different schools to participate in sports. Sometimes I’d often become parched after a volleyball game and find myself looking for a vending machine in the schools I’m visiting. Now I don’t know about other places in the world but I’ve noticed that here in North Carolina (A school in the US) there has been a change in the food served at the schools and in the vending machines. One major thing I’ve noticed is the increase of diet drinks in the vending machines in the past few years. Forget what the commercials say, diet sodas do not taste the same as regular sodas but that’s not the point. The point is why? Why do they serve these things to high school students?

Studies have shown that drinking low calorie and sugar free drinks can actually lead to weight gain other than preventing it. Why? Because the sugar substitutes put in these drinks are sugar fakes therefore when in your system, your body doesn’t receive the energy it needs from glucose/ sugar (one of the main energy sources your body uses). This causes the brain to set off “hunger” triggers, making you crave more food to get that energy you need. What does that mean? Diet sodas equal weight gain.

What I don’t understand, though, is why do they give high school students these drinks? If scientists are any good, they should know that children of our age have the mind set that we will and can never get fat no matter what we eat and they knew that’s fictional. If we drink drinks that cause us to crave more food, we are destined to get fat. Who ever thought of the diet drink idea needs to be shot.

Then there’s the crappy lunch food they serve. In my school and probably many other schools, outside food companies often serve their food to our schools. For example, at my school Domino’s pizza used to deliver their food to our school for students to eat. Now it’s a place called Little Caesar’s. Why? Why do they do this to us? I’ll get to that later. This is not healthy at all. Then there’s the fact that my school serves French fries every single day. I often see student (especially the foolish freshman) eat fries and French fries alone everyday. I must admit I used to do the same and learned my lesson the hard way for doing so. It is very fattening. I often find myself asking them why they eat fries everyday and the answer is always, “because they’re good.” I tell them eating them will make them fatter and gain weight because I know from experience. And you know what they say? They say They. Don’t. Care.

Why do students eat this junk? Because the students who cannot go off campus for lunch seek food that will not disgust them and doesn’t taste awful. The lunch food at my school and many other schools is awful. I’ve found all kinds of unspeakable things in the lunch food in the cafeterias and it is often a shame that anyone would serve food like that.

Then this is where I get to the Food in America part. The student’s that can go off campus often head straight to fast food restaurants. There are many problems with this. To start, everywhere you go there’s a fast food restaurant. Hell, there’s about four right up the street from where I live. As of May 6, 2010, it has been verified that there are 160,000 fast food restaurants in America today. They serve more than 50 million Americans daily and generate an annual 65 billion dollars. And almost everyday the number is changing. Do you know what that means? We are FAT!

These off campus students go to fast food restaurants and stuff their faces with all kinds of junk and don’t care. They say they won’t get fat because they exercise and do sports. But I laugh at this. Presently they won’t get fat but as they develop these unhealthy lifestyles and one day will no longer be as active as they once were, the pounds will just keep going up unless they change. I don’t tell them anything because they are all knuckleheads and they’ll be calling me grandma (my name here).

There’s something seriously wrong with the food industry in America and things have to change. It’s all a government plan I say. They want Americans to eat this junk and spend all their money on it. It’s a drug, this stuff they feed us, a very bad drug. We bye this shit and eat it and eat it again. Then all these health problems show up. High blood pressure, diabetes, kidney failure, asthma from too much fat around the lungs. They gain all this weight and their bones start to give in, their knees hurt, they began to weaken. This leads to demands for doctors and the more demands we have for them the more money they make. They make money off of our deaths. Our death and sickness is their profit. It is no longer a job or care to them. Next thing you know, you’re broke out of your pockets because of that guilty pleasure. I see it happening to my friend now.

Do you not see it? We are doing this to ourselves. We need to fight for our lives. I can’t do it alone.

You don’t believe me? Michel Moore could explain it better… and some more information behind it all… but that’s another discussion.