Is Fast Food the New Tobacco?

 When tobacco goes into your body, you are putting in toxic cancer-causing chemicals such as heavy metals, carbon monoxide, tar, nicotine, etc. It is hard to think that something worse than that could be put into your body, but could fast food cause just as much harm? At first glance, no one would think that fast food could be remotely close to being as harmful as tobacco, but that is the discussion we are looking at. Most fast food is filled with trans fats, seed oils, artificial additives, added sugar, etc. Overconsumption of fast food can lead to health problems such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity, etc. The topic of obesity was discussed in the article "What You Eat Is Your Business" by Radley Balko which looked into whether obesity should be more of a public issue or a personal problem.

Obesity is a global health issue that has had even more attention drawn towards it over the last few years because of how high the numbers are surging. Most recent data according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2017-2018, around 42% of adults in the United States were considered obese according to the BMI scale. Granted BMI has been proven to be a flawed statistic and way of measuring obesity because it does not account for muscle mass, if you cut 10% of that you are still left with 30% of the country being obese which is far too high. According to the Global Obesity Observatory, the United States ranks 14th in global obesity, but every nation that is in front are islands where the people there are usually just built significantly larger in size and bone density. So out of all the big countries with millions of people, the United States is ranked number one. The question most people ponder is why is America so obese compared to the rest of the world? The answers to those questions can only be found in our lifestyle, the ingredients being put into our food, and our leaders. 

In the "What The Health" documentary, it questions powerful industries and how they prioritize money over the well-being of people and pushes how we should be eating plant-based diets. I do agree with big cooperations not properly distributing things such as meat, dairy, and eggs but I whole heartadly disagree with how we should be eating plant-based diets and how meat, dairy, and eggs leads to chronic disease. For example, someone on a plant-based diet would opt to eat something like an Impossible brand burger over a regular grass-fed hamburger. Impossible burgers have soy protein, artificial presertivities, seed oils, and GMO's. The only ingredient in grass-fed ground beef, is beef. Putting plant-based meat into your body is the same as putting poisonous tobacco in you! 

No healthy food should have this many ingredients

The human body needs essential nutrients that are contained in meat, such as iron and calcium in dairy products. The key to solving the problem of companies that are distributing these products in a harmful way is to find the companies that aren't, and always buy organic, grass-fed, and pasture raised if possible. Putting harmful ingredients in your body from fast-food or processed foods over time can be just as harmful as smoking one cigarette per day, it's time for all of us to do better!