NEWSFLASH: McDonald’s existed back when I was a kid

kirili3

They made their nutritional information available because people campaigned for them to do so! in those documentaries all the cool bros here don't watch. People can campaign further, and have been - that's WHY mcdonalds serve things like broccoli and salads alongside crap.

Take personal responsibility! I never said people shouldn't.

The nutritional information, the salads, that's all due to consumer action. Not smug statements that completely ignore the context people live in.

These restaurants started mass producing cheap, terrible food and realized they could make lots of money of it. They are taking advantage of people. Yes, we can all study nutrition and stay way. But we can also demand that the company makes things that are good for people, and buy food conditional to that.

Yes you did. You said repeatedly that McDonalds should be legally forced to change their menu and prices and the way they produce food. Now I have to assume you don't just mean McDonalds, but every food company like them.

Imagine for a minute the world you're suggesting. Unhealthy foods won't even be an option for people who want to eat them. Prices will be manipulated by whatever government agency you think should control the way people eat.

Nobody wants that!

McDonalds isn't taking advantage of people. They offer a product. People choose to buy it. That's the end of their responsibility as a business. It's YOUR responsibility to take care of your own health. No one else's.

Let go of your excuses, take personal responsibility, and maybe you'll see some progress.

Brett, we're never going to agree.

I'm with the people campaigning for healthier food options. You can go around being angry at people for eating cheap food and feeling smug about yo bad self. We'll live separate lives.

flimflamfloz

As if individuals were always going be in a position to "react intelligently" to fast food propaganda, ease-of-access, poverty, depression and corporate lobbying.

This idea that "people should know better" coming from the USA - I should remind you with one of the most terrible/expensive for the individual education system in the world, where more money is spent by the government on military than education, or where the most idiotic debates regarding whether or not creationism should be taught in school are still happening - simply makes me laugh.
Does it really feel to anyone that people are actually getting smarter? Are in a better place to make decisions than they were years ago due to a combination of factors?

It's OK to expect people to be intelligent if you allow them to get a proper education, but it really doesn't seem to be the case right now.

leodora1

Yum. Chicken foam.

This pink slime thing drives me crazy. This is actually a "feeding the masses" type of genius invention. Before equipment allowed, carving meat from the bone took great skill. Even with the greatest skill, getting all the meat was impossible. An invention allowed the last bits of meat to be pulled off the bone so there was as little waste as possible. It is not pretty. It looks gross. It is meat. It seems genius to me. Now, preservatives are another story but the media drives fear and mania and it is no different in this case. I just wish that instead of this product being used in fast food and as filler, it was put to use to feed those starving.

http://www.bestfoodfacts.org/food-for-thought/truth_about_pink_slime

brianpperkins

Salads account for less than three percent of McDonald's sales.

Lazy and willfully ignorant people choose to buy crap on a consistent basis ... not because it is more cost effective but because it is easier. When their terrible decisions have consequences, they blame companies or other people. Blame fast food eateries ... blame QVC .... blame 7/11 ... all are easier than taking responsibility.

fittoday14

OP, you are only seeing half of the problem. The other half is that low SES people live in low SES areas, where healthy food is difficult to access because the only sources of food in the area are fast food restaurants and corner stores, and even if the low SES people have a car (which is not likely) and can drive to a relatively distant grocery store, they don't know how to eat healthy and especially how to eat healthy on a budget.

I was raised in a very poor family, but my mother was raised by someone who knew how to eat healthy on a budget: canned/frozen vegetables, meat on sale, pasta/bread/rice is cheap and she always made sure our meals were balanced. No soda except as a treat, no fast food except once every few weeks as a treat, etc. Most low SES families don't have this knowledge and truly believe that fast food and cheap unhealthy food from corner stores is the best they can do or don't understand how to feed their kids (and themselves) proper nutrient balanced meals. I'm not saying it's all McDonald's fault, but it's certainly not solely an individual problem either.

I don't really get this line of thinking. You're agreeing with a post suggesting McDonalds feeds their customers "crap"... if that's the case, why do so many people eat it? You're saying people don't know how to eat "healthy"... not sure that a generic term like "healthy eating" could be any vaguer, but in the context of this discussion, we're simply talking about obesity and so ultimately we're talking overconsumption. I'm pretty sure even the dumbest, poorest American knows that you'll get fat if you shovel down multiple burgers with large fries every single day, if you aren't doing enough exercise to compensate for those calories. They may not be able to engage in a discussion about TDEE, protein requirements, and the like, but I don't buy that anyone struggles to grasp the basic concept of "if I eat too much, I'll get fat(ter)." Even if they somehow didn't know this, you could figure it out by watching yourself get fatter and fatter as you eat more and more burgers, but I'm pretty sure they don't need to self experiment to figure that out. Frankly I think it's a bit condescending to suggest that the obesity epidemic is just because they're too stupid/poor to know better. They know EXACTLY what they're doing; they just choose the short term pleasure of overconsumption, despite the long term consequences of fat gain.

Do people still do it? Of course they do. Burgers are delicious. Soda is delicious. Pizza is delicious. And they're all inexpensive to boot. But blaming McDonalds for making food so tasty that people overconsume it, rather than the people making conscious decisions and paying money to overconsume the food, is faulty logic (common today as people are so quick to blame everyone but themselves for their problems). What you're saying your family had was the ability to eat in moderation. What families that overconsume McDonalds lack is the ability to eat in moderation. McDonald's isn't to blame for that; the other families are.

At the end of the day, it IS solely the individual's responsibility to take care of his own body. You can lose, maintain or gain weight by eating at McDonalds. Which one you do is up to you.

I think you are wrong here. Actually, before joining MFP I might have agreed a little more, but it is shocking how many people know so little about nutrition.

And a "healthy diet" is easy to define. It's a diet that promotes good health. A diet of "healthy foods" that leads to obesity is not a heatlhy diet because obesity =/= good health. And it's very hard not to overeat on cheap crappy food, because cheap crappy food is not filling and leaves your body lacking in nutrition. So you hunger for more food.

Sure everyone knows if they eat too much they'll get fat. But not everyone know WHEN they are eating too much. How can they be hungry if they've eaten too much?

Of course McD is not to blame for the obesity epidemic, but to say that cheap, nutrient deficient, easily accessible food has played no role is oversimplifying the matter. Just as saying personal resposibiltiy is solely to blame is over simplifying the matter. There are so many factors at play.

You can say that about pretty much any place that sells food : Starbucks, Panera Bread.. even any sit down Restaurant.. supermarkets that sell junk food loaded with pesticides and/or junk meat (like hot dogs). That's why you have a choice. Choose wisely.

juliemouse83

FWIW? I didn't get fat on fast food. I got fat on healthy food. A whole LOT of healthy food. I can't tell you when the last time was that I had anything from Mickey D's. I think I've had a Taco Bell lunch once in the last couple of months, and that's cuz I made it fit my macros and calories.

That said? I got fat because I didn't move and ate more than I burned. I got up, sat in my car to get to work, sat at my desk in front of a computer, sat in my car to get home, and then either sat in front of my computer or the TV there. Rinse, repeat, for several years. One day I realized, "Holy *kitten*! I'm obese!"

I ate more fast food when I was a kid and underweight...of course, back then I either walked, skated, or biked where I needed to go. All of my schools were within walking distance, and I only rode a bus on field trips, and if it rained I was given an umbrella. I didn't have computers or video games to occupy every waking hour like kids do now. (Ok, we did get an Atari 2600 when I was a senior in high school, but that was not a thing we did for hours on end.)

I don't think it's the fast food to blame. I mean, yeah, it's apparently cheap and readily available, but I also think that the decline in physical activity due to the "lure" of technology has a lot to do with it, too...NOT, mind you, that I'm blaming technology. It all boils down to personal choices and responsibility.

Many people have just become lazy, all the way across the board, but that is another whole topic entirely. :flowerforyou:

NancyKhuu

OP, you are only seeing half of the problem. The other half is that low SES people live in low SES areas, where healthy food is difficult to access because the only sources of food in the area are fast food restaurants and corner stores, and even if the low SES people have a car (which is not likely) and can drive to a relatively distant grocery store, they don't know how to eat healthy and especially how to eat healthy on a budget.

I was raised in a very poor family, but my mother was raised by someone who knew how to eat healthy on a budget: canned/frozen vegetables, meat on sale, pasta/bread/rice is cheap and she always made sure our meals were balanced. No soda except as a treat, no fast food except once every few weeks as a treat, etc. Most low SES families don't have this knowledge and truly believe that fast food and cheap unhealthy food from corner stores is the best they can do or don't understand how to feed their kids (and themselves) proper nutrient balanced meals. I'm not saying it's all McDonald's fault, but it's certainly not solely an individual problem either.

I don't really get this line of thinking. You're agreeing with a post suggesting McDonalds feeds their customers "crap"... if that's the case, why do so many people eat it? You're saying people don't know how to eat "healthy"... not sure that a generic term like "healthy eating" could be any vaguer, but in the context of this discussion, we're simply talking about obesity and so ultimately we're talking overconsumption. I'm pretty sure even the dumbest, poorest American knows that you'll get fat if you shovel down multiple burgers with large fries every single day, if you aren't doing enough exercise to compensate for those calories. They may not be able to engage in a discussion about TDEE, protein requirements, and the like, but I don't buy that anyone struggles to grasp the basic concept of "if I eat too much, I'll get fat(ter)." Even if they somehow didn't know this, you could figure it out by watching yourself get fatter and fatter as you eat more and more burgers, but I'm pretty sure they don't need to self experiment to figure that out. Frankly I think it's a bit condescending to suggest that the obesity epidemic is just because they're too stupid/poor to know better. They know EXACTLY what they're doing; they just choose the short term pleasure of overconsumption, despite the long term consequences of fat gain.

Do people still do it? Of course they do. Burgers are delicious. Soda is delicious. Pizza is delicious. And they're all inexpensive to boot. But blaming McDonalds for making food so tasty that people overconsume it, rather than the people making conscious decisions and paying money to overconsume the food, is faulty logic (common today as people are so quick to blame everyone but themselves for their problems). What you're saying your family had was the ability to eat in moderation. What families that overconsume McDonalds lack is the ability to eat in moderation. McDonald's isn't to blame for that; the other families are.

At the end of the day, it IS solely the individual's responsibility to take care of his own body. You can lose, maintain or gain weight by eating at McDonalds. Which one you do is up to you.

I think you are wrong here. Actually, before joining MFP I might have agreed a little more, but it is shocking how many people know so little about nutrition.

And a "healthy diet" is easy to define. It's a diet that promotes good health. A diet of "healthy foods" that leads to obesity is not a heatlhy diet because obesity =/= good health. And it's very hard not to overeat on cheap crappy food, because cheap crappy food is not filling and leaves your body lacking in nutrition. So you hunger for more food.

Sure everyone knows if they eat too much they'll get fat. But not everyone know WHEN they are eating too much. How can they be hungry if they've eaten too much?

Of course McD is not to blame for the obesity epidemic, but to say that cheap, nutrient deficient, easily accessible food has played no role is oversimplifying the matter. Just as saying personal resposibiltiy is solely to blame is over simplifying the matter. There are so many factors at play.

As I understand from your logic, it boils down to the PEOPLE not knowing when to stop eating. So then the problem becomes more of a lack of education than McDonald has anything to do with.

Not really related but I somehow think this is similar to the rape victim blaming, you know, when girls are blamed for dressing inappropriately or going to somewhere they shouldn't, and end up being raped because it's their fault. WRONG! The people who choose to rape others are to blamed. It's the PEOPLE's actions that carry consequences.
I don't know what I'm talking. Lol.

brianpperkins

As if individuals were always going be in a position to "react intelligently" to fast food propaganda, ease-of-access, poverty, depression and corporate lobbying.

This idea that "people should know better" coming from the USA - I should remind you with one of the most terrible/expensive education system in the world, where more money is spent on military than education, or where the most idiotic debates regarding whether or not creationism should be taught in school are still happening - simply makes me laugh.
Does it really feel to anyone that people are actually getting smarter? Are in a better place to make decisions than they were years ago due to a combination of factors?

It's OK to expect people to be intelligent if you allow them to get a proper education, but it really doesn't seem to be the case right now.

Because throwing money at education created a better product ... right? If you bother to read the Constitution you might notice that the military is a federal responsibility while education is a state/local issue (that pesky 10th amendment thing that big government types tend to ignore).

parkscs

I think you are wrong here. Actually, before joining MFP I might have agreed a little more, but it is shocking how many people know so little about nutrition.

And a "healthy diet" is easy to define. It's a diet that promotes good health. A diet of "healthy foods" that leads to obesity is not a heatlhy diet because obesity =/= good health. And it's very hard not to overeat on cheap crappy food, because cheap crappy food is not filling and leaves your body lacking in nutrition. So you hunger for more food.

Sure everyone knows if they eat too much they'll get fat. But not everyone know WHEN they are eating too much. How can they be hungry if they've eaten too much?

Of course McD is not to blame for the obesity epidemic, but to say that cheap, nutrient deficient, easily accessible food has played no role is oversimplifying the matter. Just as saying personal resposibiltiy is solely to blame is over simplifying the matter. There are so many factors at play.

Let's say you begin eating out more often and you put on 10 pounds over a few months. Your pants no longer fit or they're uncomfortable. What can you conclude from this? It doesn't matter if you've been hungry or not, the evidence is slapping you right in the face that you're eating too much, and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. Some people will decide to cut weight at this point while others will buy new pants, but you can't tell me that people simply don't understand they're eating too much when they gain weight. They may not want to admit it, but I'm pretty sure everyone that's overweight or has been overweight knows deep down that they overconsumed and/or had some bad habits that got them there.

As for "cheap, nutrient deficient (arguable), easily accessible food" playing no role - I never said that. It DEFINITELY plays a huge role, as does our society's fixation with huge portion size. What I'm saying is that the responsibility for your health ultimately rests on your shoulders. A culture of big portions and cheap food definitely provides a lot of temptation for people to overeat, but that doesn't mean the food vendor is responsible for your weight and your health.

DebbieLyn63

I agree wholeheartedly that we are each responsible for our own health and choices.

That said, society has changed in the past 30+ years, in what is considered 'normal'.

In the 70s, McDonalds had a very successful ad campaign going with a commercial showing a grown man walking in, ordering a burger, fries, and a drink, and getting change back from his dollar.
The meal that he ordered is now a SMALL Happy Meal, marketed towards kids 4 and under.
Back then, only very large men ordered Big Macs and large fries. Now, you see 8 yr olds ordering that.
The largest drink size back then is now considered a small.
There were no Super-Sized fries or drinks back then.

People ate less and moved more, and therefore you did not see a lot of Obese people in the general population.

I remember the days when if you wore larger than a size 14 or 16, you had to order your clothes from a catalog, or even make them yourself. Now, the plus-sized clothing market is enormous (pun intended) and if you look at Walmart, the plus size Women's department is the largest adult section there.

We just recently watched a very volatile thread of almost 40 pages of comments, where a 22 yo girl did not consider a 3700 calorie meal, a binge. She asserted that if it was a binge, then all her friends are binge-eaters. DING DING DING! We have a winner.

Many people today have the same mentality- if a restaurant puts x amount of food on a plate, that means it is 'normal' to eat all of it.
Plus you MUST have an appetizer and dessert to go along with it. They feel 'entitled' to satisfy every craving they have and they 'deserve' their treats whenever they want them. And then when they end up 100, 200, or more lbs overweight, they insist that society accommodate their much larger size.

We can't blame the restaurants for giving the public what they ask for.

But somehow we must educate people that what might appear as 'normal' is not healthy nor wise.


'Entitled' pretty much describes much of society today. In every aspect. It is really sad, and makes me feel sad for future generations.

kirili3

OP, you are only seeing half of the problem. The other half is that low SES people live in low SES areas, where healthy food is difficult to access because the only sources of food in the area are fast food restaurants and corner stores, and even if the low SES people have a car (which is not likely) and can drive to a relatively distant grocery store, they don't know how to eat healthy and especially how to eat healthy on a budget.

I was raised in a very poor family, but my mother was raised by someone who knew how to eat healthy on a budget: canned/frozen vegetables, meat on sale, pasta/bread/rice is cheap and she always made sure our meals were balanced. No soda except as a treat, no fast food except once every few weeks as a treat, etc. Most low SES families don't have this knowledge and truly believe that fast food and cheap unhealthy food from corner stores is the best they can do or don't understand how to feed their kids (and themselves) proper nutrient balanced meals. I'm not saying it's all McDonald's fault, but it's certainly not solely an individual problem either.

I don't really get this line of thinking. You're agreeing with a post suggesting McDonalds feeds their customers "crap"... if that's the case, why do so many people eat it? You're saying people don't know how to eat "healthy"... not sure that a generic term like "healthy eating" could be any vaguer, but in the context of this discussion, we're simply talking about obesity and so ultimately we're talking overconsumption. I'm pretty sure even the dumbest, poorest American knows that you'll get fat if you shovel down multiple burgers with large fries every single day, if you aren't doing enough exercise to compensate for those calories. They may not be able to engage in a discussion about TDEE, protein requirements, and the like, but I don't buy that anyone struggles to grasp the basic concept of "if I eat too much, I'll get fat(ter)." Even if they somehow didn't know this, you could figure it out by watching yourself get fatter and fatter as you eat more and more burgers, but I'm pretty sure they don't need to self experiment to figure that out. Frankly I think it's a bit condescending to suggest that the obesity epidemic is just because they're too stupid/poor to know better. They know EXACTLY what they're doing; they just choose the short term pleasure of overconsumption, despite the long term consequences of fat gain.

Do people still do it? Of course they do. Burgers are delicious. Soda is delicious. Pizza is delicious. And they're all inexpensive to boot. But blaming McDonalds for making food so tasty that people overconsume it, rather than the people making conscious decisions and paying money to overconsume the food, is faulty logic (common today as people are so quick to blame everyone but themselves for their problems). What you're saying your family had was the ability to eat in moderation. What families that overconsume McDonalds lack is the ability to eat in moderation. McDonald's isn't to blame for that; the other families are.

At the end of the day, it IS solely the individual's responsibility to take care of his own body. You can lose, maintain or gain weight by eating at McDonalds. Which one you do is up to you.

I think you are wrong here. Actually, before joining MFP I might have agreed a little more, but it is shocking how many people know so little about nutrition.

And a "healthy diet" is easy to define. It's a diet that promotes good health. A diet of "healthy foods" that leads to obesity is not a heatlhy diet because obesity =/= good health. And it's very hard not to overeat on cheap crappy food, because cheap crappy food is not filling and leaves your body lacking in nutrition. So you hunger for more food.

Sure everyone knows if they eat too much they'll get fat. But not everyone know WHEN they are eating too much. How can they be hungry if they've eaten too much?

Of course McD is not to blame for the obesity epidemic, but to say that cheap, nutrient deficient, easily accessible food has played no role is oversimplifying the matter. Just as saying personal resposibiltiy is solely to blame is over simplifying the matter. There are so many factors at play.

You can say that about pretty much any place that sells food : Starbucks, Panera Bread.. even any sit down Restaurant.. supermarkets that sell junk food loaded with pesticides and/or junk meat (like hot dogs). That's why you have a choice. Choose wisely.

Companies will do whatever they can do make money. Many people here seem to think that's some kind of genius argument and stop their thinking there.

Consumers have power too. If consumers demand healthier food, nutritional information (as they have) and choose healthier options, companies have to change. It's a combination of personal responsibility and an understanding of consumer rights.

usmcj80

I think maybe you don't enjoy critically looking at problems. Which is fine, but McDonalds is part of the cheap fast food that is making people obese - it's unhealthy food that is cheap. They do have some duty towards their customers not to feed them crap. Yes, McDonalds existed when you were a kid. People became more and more obese during your lifetime so far.

Your comments about the Occupy Wall Street movements are similar.

It's possible to lose weight, but there's no known cure for conservatism/libertarianism/whatever it is that stops you seeing things in context. As Stephen Colbert pointed out, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."

Nobody forces you to eat fast food. Just saying

No, they don't force me. I don't eat fast food often, but when people are busy and they need access to a cheap meal, they go to places like McDonalds and other places. It's not a crime to want a cheap lunch. The places that purport to serve food have a responsibility to the people they serve.

Yes, everybody could pack their own lunch and all the restaurants could close down during lunch hour. But many people, many working people, eat out. The places where they eat should take some responsibility not to serve heavily processed, terrible food.

Companies have some responsibility to consumers. For example, they can't poison you. The next step is to ask them not to serve ridiculously processed crap to people. No, people don't have to eat it, but removing responsibility from the company is ridiculous. Or, to put it another way, Republican.

The OP apparently considers that the Occupy Wall Street movement "blamed big corporations for their plight in life and thus decided to go on a rampage to destroy private property." A complete lack of social consciousness.

It's not a crime to eat food out. Restaurants should serve reasonable food. It's not the 19th Century, 'buyer beware'.

Also, when kids go out, a lot of them go to places like this because it fits with their pocket money. McDonalds very directly marketed towards children, though I take the point of the poster above who says that it's less so today.

If you are busy and want lunch Buy a salad from a grocery store or something. Go to subway. You have choices you can make even in a busy day. I am a single parent...trust me I understand busy days. If I stop for fast food I ensure I pick what fits within what I am allowed to eat for the day. Fast food places are now posting calories for meals and such. It isn't McDonald's fault people consume 1100 calories in one meal, they have healthier choices on the menu. If people didn't want it McDonald's wouldn't serve it. It is basic supply and demand. Fast food places are continually becoming more transparent and it hasn't stopped very many people from choosing to eat there.

ValGogo

(I know some may be offended by this post since it is a very sensitive subject, but no offense or disrespect was intended)

There is an article in the Lexington Herald Leader about a local mom who, in my opinion, is hammering the McDonald’s corporation. She is comparing Ronald McDonald to Joe Camel (Camel Cigarettes) and again, in my opinion, making McDonald’s the scapegoat for overweight kids. Has anyone ever considered that maybe the reason we have so many overweight children is because we have so many overweight parents? McDonald’s existed when I was a kid. McDonald’s advertisement was very active when I was a kid. In the spur of the moment I can still rattle off the Big Mac song: “Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame bun.” No, I did not Google the song and haven’t heard the commercial in 30 or 40 some years. A Big Mac has 550 calories (I did Google that.) And Newsflash: In grade school we had one or two kids that would be considered obese and I personally knew of maybe a couple of parents that were quite overweight. In Jr. High (now Middle School) and High School the numbers went up, but nothing compared to the obesity problem we see in America today.

Adults and children are not overweight because of a silly looking clown and super sizing meals. They are overweight because they consume too many calories and are too inactive in their lives. What I really think is going on here is the Blame Game, people not taking personal responsibility for themselves. Last year it was the Wall Street Movement who blamed big corporations for their plight in life and thus decided to go on a rampage to destroy private property. It’s the Democrat Party’s fault our country is in such turmoil, says the Republicans, or is it the other way around? Last night I overdid it on Domino’s Pizza and will have to either eat less today or exercise a little more to make up for it. Whose fault was it that I ate too much last night: Domino’s Pizza or the fact that they have delivery service? Or should I blame my wife since she ordered the pizza on a whim? I’m not stupid, no way am I going to blame her.

Maybe it’s time we started up an AA group, you know, and call it Adult’s Anonymous. And I’ll begin. “Hi, I’m Ernie and I’m an adult responsible for my own behavior and actions.”

THE BLAME GAME:

I can’t help losing my temper, nor control my appetite.
I get so mad at mom and dad and blame them for my plight.
I may not be successful, I’m a failure, yes, it’s true.
But if society has taught me anything, it’s all because of you.

If only my spouse would listen, if only my spouse would change,
If only the world would accommodate me, is that so terribly strange?
If only this, if only that, if only you could see,
I’m not selfish or self-centered, I just want you to please me.

So I went to see my psychiatrist, to see what she would say,
To find the reason why so many folks just don’t see things my way.
The secret, she said, is simple, why you’re always under assault.
It has nothing to do with you, it’s true, it’s always someone else’s fault.

So now my friend, before I end, before I cease to complain,
Before you start pointing the finger and think that I am vain.
The answer is so obvious, and I think it’s time you knew,
I now know why I’m so miserable, it’s all because of you

The naive believes everything, But the sensible person considers his/her steps.

YUP!

Let's add Sugar Bear, Lucky, The Trix Rabbit, Count Chocula, Boobery, and Frankenberry, and of course, Aunt Jemima.

cccoursey

This always ends up being a debate over whether people should make choices and take responsibility for those choices or take no responsibility, have choices made for them, and complain when those choices do not meet their expectations.

I am in agreement with the OP. As a kid I ate McDonalds, Arby's, and Burger King weekly if not daily. I also played football, baseball, soccer, tennis, swam, jumped on the trampoline, ran, cycled all over my neighborhood, and had war with my GI Joes in the garden. That is a bit different than eating it and doing nothing more than sitting down in front of some piece of electronics for 8 to 12hrs a day. Which unfortunately is my job. Some people have become inherently lazy. Allowing everyone else to make their choices for them. They blame everything they can because they cannot or will not make the conscious decision to do or not do something. I know plenty of people that eat fast food and look shredded. They put in the effort to look that way. I ended up overweight because I ate anything I wanted and moved a lot less than I used to. I and thousands of people here are doing the same thing. We have made a choice. We may all have different points of view but we know the truth. We cannot eat just anything and everything and end up looking the way we want. That takes some effort on our part. Demanding a fast food restaurant to become nutritionally conscious on each individuals caloric and nutritional needs is ridiculous. "Well that isn't what we are saying." That is where you are heading. To make sure people do not have to think, sit on their bottoms, and look like they desire, the epitome of health, without making a conscious effort. Not going to happen.

Will I invite you to the barbecue? Absolutely! Will I make everyone else eat tofurkey and drink nonalchoholic beer because you deem it best for you. No. I will agree with you on some things and disagree with you on others. And you will demonize my difference of opinion. I know. People like me are the reason for all the woes of this world. Btw when you are done telling me how much I suck lets get a smoothie, walk the strip, and play some xbox.

kirili3

OP, you are only seeing half of the problem. The other half is that low SES people live in low SES areas, where healthy food is difficult to access because the only sources of food in the area are fast food restaurants and corner stores, and even if the low SES people have a car (which is not likely) and can drive to a relatively distant grocery store, they don't know how to eat healthy and especially how to eat healthy on a budget.

I was raised in a very poor family, but my mother was raised by someone who knew how to eat healthy on a budget: canned/frozen vegetables, meat on sale, pasta/bread/rice is cheap and she always made sure our meals were balanced. No soda except as a treat, no fast food except once every few weeks as a treat, etc. Most low SES families don't have this knowledge and truly believe that fast food and cheap unhealthy food from corner stores is the best they can do or don't understand how to feed their kids (and themselves) proper nutrient balanced meals. I'm not saying it's all McDonald's fault, but it's certainly not solely an individual problem either.

I don't really get this line of thinking. You're agreeing with a post suggesting McDonalds feeds their customers "crap"... if that's the case, why do so many people eat it? You're saying people don't know how to eat "healthy"... not sure that a generic term like "healthy eating" could be any vaguer, but in the context of this discussion, we're simply talking about obesity and so ultimately we're talking overconsumption. I'm pretty sure even the dumbest, poorest American knows that you'll get fat if you shovel down multiple burgers with large fries every single day, if you aren't doing enough exercise to compensate for those calories. They may not be able to engage in a discussion about TDEE, protein requirements, and the like, but I don't buy that anyone struggles to grasp the basic concept of "if I eat too much, I'll get fat(ter)." Even if they somehow didn't know this, you could figure it out by watching yourself get fatter and fatter as you eat more and more burgers, but I'm pretty sure they don't need to self experiment to figure that out. Frankly I think it's a bit condescending to suggest that the obesity epidemic is just because they're too stupid/poor to know better. They know EXACTLY what they're doing; they just choose the short term pleasure of overconsumption, despite the long term consequences of fat gain.

Do people still do it? Of course they do. Burgers are delicious. Soda is delicious. Pizza is delicious. And they're all inexpensive to boot. But blaming McDonalds for making food so tasty that people overconsume it, rather than the people making conscious decisions and paying money to overconsume the food, is faulty logic (common today as people are so quick to blame everyone but themselves for their problems). What you're saying your family had was the ability to eat in moderation. What families that overconsume McDonalds lack is the ability to eat in moderation. McDonald's isn't to blame for that; the other families are.

At the end of the day, it IS solely the individual's responsibility to take care of his own body. You can lose, maintain or gain weight by eating at McDonalds. Which one you do is up to you.

I think you are wrong here. Actually, before joining MFP I might have agreed a little more, but it is shocking how many people know so little about nutrition.

And a "healthy diet" is easy to define. It's a diet that promotes good health. A diet of "healthy foods" that leads to obesity is not a heatlhy diet because obesity =/= good health. And it's very hard not to overeat on cheap crappy food, because cheap crappy food is not filling and leaves your body lacking in nutrition. So you hunger for more food.

Sure everyone knows if they eat too much they'll get fat. But not everyone know WHEN they are eating too much. How can they be hungry if they've eaten too much?

Of course McD is not to blame for the obesity epidemic, but to say that cheap, nutrient deficient, easily accessible food has played no role is oversimplifying the matter. Just as saying personal resposibiltiy is solely to blame is over simplifying the matter. There are so many factors at play.

As I understand from your logic, it boils down to the PEOPLE not knowing when to stop eating. So then the problem becomes more of a lack of education than McDonald has anything to do with.

Not really related but I somehow think this is similar to the rape victim blaming, you know, when girls are blamed for dressing inappropriately or going to somewhere they shouldn't, and end up being raped because it's their fault. WRONG! The people who choose to rape others are to blamed. It's the PEOPLE's actions that carry consequences.
I don't know what I'm talking. Lol.

Hah!

neandermagnon

Yum. Chicken foam.

This pink slime thing drives me crazy. This is actually a "feeding the masses" type of genius invention. Before equipment allowed, carving meat from the bone took great skill. Even with the greatest skill, getting all the meat was impossible. An invention allowed the last bits of meat to be pulled off the bone so there was as little waste as possible. It is not pretty. It looks gross. It is meat. It seems genius to me. Now, preservatives are another story but the media drives fear and mania and it is no different in this case. I just wish that instead of this product being used in fast food and as filler, it was put to use to feed those starving.

http://www.bestfoodfacts.org/food-for-thought/truth_about_pink_slime

good point. Hunter-gatherers eat every part of the animal apart from the bone, hide, antlers and any other parts that they use to make tools. Nothing is wasted. There's nothing bad about the grisly bits of animals, or about organ meat. Just modern people are ridiculously squeamish. Better to eat all the animal than to throw bits of it away because we only want to eat the delicate parts... talk about first world problems....

starling01

My grandmothers were born in the 1890s. They spent hours cooking non processed food. They kept a bucket on the stove where they poured grease from the cooking. When they needed grease for the next meal, and it was used every single meal, they dug in there, got a big helping of the white congealed stuff, and plopped it down so they could cook their non processed fried chicken, potatoes, vegetables, and some kind of cake every single meal. Both of them were very overweight despite planting and harvesting vegetables out of gardens, hanging tubs of wet laundry on lines, scrubbing floors, and generally living a hard and labor intensive life. As soon as they had the opportunity to get away from that and, yes, eat at McDs, they happily did.

Do not romanticize the past. I'd rather eat at McDs. Unlike when I was a child, nobody is forcing me to eat there or eat anything in particular. McDs did not make me fat. The wonderful non processed food, eaten while I spent the day running around outside, all day every day, and my grandmothers' determination to make me eat the non processed food, was what made me fat.

kirili3

Brett, we're never going to agree.

I'm with the people campaigning for healthier food options. You can go around being angry at people for eating cheap food and feeling smug about yo bad self. We'll live separate lives.

I'm not angry at anyone for eating whatever they want. You're the one demanding businesses and government change because people aren't smart enough to know what they're eating. Your view is elitist and counter-productive. And your debate style is insulting and patronizing.

We are different. I used this site to lose 90lbs and took personal responsibility for the way I had been eating. I learned that I could still eat McDonalds, I just had to use moderation. I changed my life and inspired others to do the same, not by blaming faceless corporations, but by taking personal responsibility for my own choices.

What have you done again?

Brett, you've been directing personal comments at me. You lost 90 pounds, good for you. It doesn't actually make your word law. I said it before and I'll say it again: we're never going to agree.

Also, I've repeatedly said that we should take personal responsibility and take consumer action, as people have been doing. You seem to want to have a black and white debate and this issue is far more complicated than that.

bcattoes

I think you are wrong here. Actually, before joining MFP I might have agreed a little more, but it is shocking how many people know so little about nutrition.

And a "healthy diet" is easy to define. It's a diet that promotes good health. A diet of "healthy foods" that leads to obesity is not a heatlhy diet because obesity =/= good health. And it's very hard not to overeat on cheap crappy food, because cheap crappy food is not filling and leaves your body lacking in nutrition. So you hunger for more food.

Sure everyone knows if they eat too much they'll get fat. But not everyone know WHEN they are eating too much. How can they be hungry if they've eaten too much?

Of course McD is not to blame for the obesity epidemic, but to say that cheap, nutrient deficient, easily accessible food has played no role is oversimplifying the matter. Just as saying personal resposibiltiy is solely to blame is over simplifying the matter. There are so many factors at play.

Let's say you begin eating out more often and you put on 10 pounds over a few months. Your pants no longer fit or they're uncomfortable. What can you conclude from this? It doesn't matter if you've been hungry or not, the evidence is slapping you right in the face that you're eating too much, and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. Some people will decide to cut weight at this point while others will buy new pants, but you can't tell me that people simply don't understand they're eating too much when they gain weight. They may not want to admit it, but I'm pretty sure everyone that's overweight or has been overweight knows deep down that they overconsumed and/or had some bad habits that got them there.

As for "cheap, nutrient deficient (arguable), easily accessible food" playing no role - I never said that. It DEFINITELY plays a huge role, as does our society's fixation with huge portion size. What I'm saying is that the responsibility for your health ultimately rests on your shoulders. A culture of big portions and cheap food definitely provides a lot of temptation for people to overeat, but that doesn't mean the food vendor is responsible for your weight and your health.

*sigh* I didn't say vendor were responsbile.for anyone's weight or health.