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Americans are among the most overweight individuals on earth. However, nations in Asia as well as Europe are following behind. By eating like Americans, people all over the world are beginning to look more like them. Americans consume the most goods both, perishables and durables, then any other nation in the world. They like big cars, big hair and big burgers even if they are all pretenses and full of smoke. The United States now has the highest obesity rate of any industrialized nation in the world. Adult and child obesity is growing proportionally with each new fast food restaurant being built, in the United States, as well as around the world.
The low price of a fast food hamburger and fries does not reflect its real cost. It does not reflect its cost on society. The fast food industry has turned a bulk agricultural commodity into a manufactured, value added product. By changing eating habits and encouraging poor eating habits at an alarmingly high rate, the fast food industry is propagating obesity and an American way of eating around the world.
With an increasing world population and the need to feed more people, it is more economical to use large suppliers and distributors. It would be too time consuming to grow and harvest our own food, and at a sacrifice of doing other productive things. Agriculture has diminished as a profession in more industrialized countries, whose agriculture accounts between five and ten percent. Yet, as more standardized and processed food appears on supermarket shelves and in restaurant the more our diet becomes more homogenous (Schlosser, 2001). .
History.
It all started when brothers Maurice and Richard McDonald introduced the Speedee Service in one of their restaurants in California. They got rid off all their wait-staff and utensils, making the food fast and easy to eat in a car, a perfect combination. The love affair with the American car and fast food was created in 1948; the new lifestyle and the new way of eating both revolved around cars.