This obesity epidemic is affecting America. Two-thirds of American adults are overweight according to a study by Odgen in 2014. Furthermore, one fourth of children between the ages of 2-5 and one third of school age children are overweight or obese. Why is obesity an epidemic? It's because fast food companies are using luring advertising to attract customers to their establishments. Advertisements such as, making food look extremely pleasant and inexpensive. In addition, there are few healthy options at fast food restaurants and they usually aren't as healthy as advertised.
Fast food companies hire professional photographers to make their food look more enticing.They use billboards, TV commercials and internet advertisements to bring that image to life. Some show a bun shiny and puffy with the meat perfectly proportioned and lettuce shiny and crispy. Others, like banners and posters used in windows of fast food restaurants, draw customers through the door for a cheap and fast meal. Americans can't fight that temptation and will end up buying fast food for a quick meal. They never think about the healthy option the fast food restaurants have to offer. Most of the time we tend to order the advertised special and never the healthier option. .
There are healthy choices in fast food restaurants but they are overpriced and are not healthy in terms of nutrition. For example, McDonalds offers premium chicken salads but for a whopping 5 dollars. With 5 dollars you could buy 5 items from their Dollar Menu, so why buy a salad? That is the idea they are trying to put in your head, so you would opt to buy more so they could make more profit. Even if you do order Premium Bacon Ranch salad, it contains 390 calories and 870 mg of sodium. That is nearly 40% of your daily intake. Even if you order the salad, it would overload you with salt and this, in turn, will probably cause you to drink more of the soda, resulting in more calories.