When you sit down at your favorite fast food place to eat a yummy burger or treat yourself to some bottomless fries, do you ever think about what that one meal could do, besides satisfying your hunger? Well, it’s time to spill the fries because fast food makes a bigger impact that that. Fast food actually has a big impact on the environment and our health. Fast food impacts our environment by wasting our crops, adding to litter and pollution, and treating animals cruelly. Our health is also greatly impacted by fast food. Fast food increases cholesterol, body weight and fat intake. It also causes premature aging, depression and skin damage.

The making and eating of fast food has a big effect on our environment. As Bryan Walsh explained in his article, The Triple Whopper Environmental Impact of Global Meat Production, the cows raised for fast food waste important crops. He says that in North America and Europe, a cow will eat about 75 kg to 300 kg of grass or grain only to produce a kg of protein. In sub-Saharan Africa, a cow will eat 500 kg to 2,000 kg of grass or grain and still only produce a kg of protein. Another way that fast food impacts the environment is the way it treats animals. In an article written by Abigail Geer, the cruelty animals endure besides their death for food is revealed. Most animal products used in fast food are produced in factory farms. In factory farms, animals are forced to endure cruel conditions that deprive them of all their basic instincts. In efforts to make more meat, animals are fed hormones which can lead to painful inflammation of the udder called mastitis, as well as crippling and debilitating conditions for chickens. In addition to that, Abigail Geer also explains how fast food adds to pollution and litter. She says that fast food packaging takes up an estimated 40% of all litter. As well as the fact that the trucks delivering fast food to restaurant’s add to pollution, emissions, and congestion. All of which contribute to climate change. As you can see, fast food greatly impacts the Earth as well as the creatures living on it. 

Fast food has a big effect on the environment, but it also greatly effects our health. Let’s take a closer look at some of those impacts. As explained by Abigail Geer on the website One Green Planet, eating fast food causes depression, premature aging and skin damage. She claims that studies have shown that eating unhealthy food is directly linked to depression. She says eaters of fast food are 51% more likely to develop depression or any mental illness. In addition to that, the sugars and trans fats in fast food cause insulin levels to rise, triggering an inflammatory response in the body that causes Glycation. Glycation quickens the aging process and removes our body’s natural age fighting antioxidants. Destroying those antioxidants makes us more prone to skin damage and premature aging. To add on to that, fast food can impact a person’s health by increasing cholesterol, body weight and fat intake. Mariah Johnson demonstrated this in her article Healthy Choices Can Make a Difference using facts from a study done by Morgan Spurlock. Johnson said that Spurlock had participants eat only fast food for a month and then had a doctor examine them. Spurlock found that on average, the participants had gained 24.5 pounds, their cholesterol had risen by 65 points, and their livers had close to a toxic level of fat in them. As these facts illustrate, fast food has a big effect on our health in many ways.

As you can see, fast food really does have some big effects on the environment and our health. It hurts the environment because it wastes our crops, adds to litter and pollution, and treats animals cruelly.  Our health is impacted by increasing cholesterol, body weight and fat intake. It even causes premature aging, depression and skin damage. In my opinion, fast food is a waste of time. When you think about the effects, hurting animals,  pollution, weight gain, is it really worth it? While fast food tastes good, eating it causes is the opposite of good. So now that you have learned the dark side of those french fries, will you think before you eat? 

 

Citation

Abigail Geer  “10 Ways Fast Food Is Destroying the World.” One Green Planet. One Green Panet, 7 Jan. 2014. Web. 8 Feb. 2017. http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/10-ways-fast-food-is-destroying-the-world/ 

Mariah Johnson “Healthy Choices Can Make A Difference.” Skipping Stones 1 Sept. 2013: 28. Middle Search Plus [EBSCO]. Web. 3 Feb. 2017.   http://web.a.ebscohost.com/src_ic/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=67a05ba7

Bryan Walsh “The Triple Whopper Environmental Impact of Global Meat Production.” Time17 Dec. 2013: n. pag. Vocational and Career Collection [EBSCO]. Web. 6 Feb. 2017.  http://web.a.ebscohost.com/src_ic/detail/detail?