The easiest and most enjoyable food for teenagers to get and eat in today’s society is fast food. McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Chick-fil-A are only some of the many fast food restaurant chains that children and teenagers can be found in.
Even though ordering fast food is extremely simple and could make for a very tasty meal, it’s crucial for one’s own health to remain cautious on just how much of this food they are usually consuming.
While the amount of fast food being eaten by every one has decreased overall, the same cannot be said for teenagers. They are getting sucked into all of the fast food restaurants’ desperate schemes to hang on to customers, including introducing all-day breakfast. Just how often are kids and teens eating this junk food? Over a third of U.S. youth eats fast food daily.
This fact brings attention to just how much the young people of today are harming their bodies and overall health, possibly without even being aware of it because of the foods’ addictiveness and design to make a person overeat.
To dine on fast food every day is a big risk for adolescents as it means they are consuming large amounts of processed food that could lead to immensely threatening illnesses.
If you’re part of the 12 percent of teens who eat fast food every day, it’s time to start watching out for the effects such as obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and fatal blood clots.
“”I eat too much fast food, but I don’t care because I only live once so I need to enjoy my life as much as I can even though it can affect my body,” freshman Fares Ayoub said.
Because of their age and how attached they are to the food they are regularly consuming, they will grow to continue this bad habit of eating out. They may even be influencing younger generations to do the same as they do– eating harmful foods non-stop.
Given fast food is available in restaurants around every corner and social media is covered with posts that contain pictures of junk food, it is pretty clear that fast food has taken over teenangers’ lives.
When pictures of fast food appear constantly while scrolling through Instagram and Twitter, pressure into believing that is what is cool to eat makes teenagers go to these diners where the temptation of feeding on unhealthy junk foods are high. Keep this in mind in case you are one of the people who like to switch out water for a milkshake at Chick-fil-A, a drink that could reach up to 850 calories.
A paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that it is very common for fast food restaurants to be located around schools, similar to how close places like Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Little Caesars Pizza are to AHS.
It’is no wonder so many teenagers are eating fast food everyday of their lives.
It is an effortless task for teens to gain access to fast food joints when they are a walking distance from their school.
To save the youth of today from the dangerous risks, the restaurants that are very close to middle schools and high schools need to be removed. There is no need to make gaining diseases due to unsafe food any more tangible for kids than it already is.
Although fast food is easily accessible, teens should try to find alternatives.
“I feel that kids do eat too much fast food,” freshman Zain Ghul said. “Teens can start to eat healthier and schools can provide healthy food. Parents can also cook more.”
When teenagers begin to make themselves used to eating home cooked meals instead of their daily McDonald’s burger, there will be a significant change in their health. The amount of fast food children and teenagers alike are handling daily is ridiculous and alarming.
To think that someday most of America could be obese or have diseases due to the food that is available to them, a real possibility, should make people more concerned in the subject and how to prevent this scary outcome.
Next time you buy a McDonald’s Big Mac remember that you are adding 570 calories and the risk of getting many diseases just from eating that one sandwich.