Fast Food & Poor Nutrition

If you are seeking ways to increase your waist size, clog your arteries and elevate your risk of cardiovascular disease, then make fast foods a staple in your daily diet. If super-sized clothing and an early grave don't sound so appealing, then give pause to your impulses when you turn toward that drive-through. Should you surrender to the demands of your hectic schedule, clamoring children or weaker-willed inner glutton, you can still salvage your ravaged arteries by making wiser choices while "driving through" your restaurant.

Super-Size Me

The 2004 documentary "Super-Size Me," directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock, took aim at the fast-food culture that has hijacked the palate of the American public. Spurlock filmed his preparation for and completion of a one-month diet constituted exclusively by fast food. Over the course of filming, Spulock's physician monitored his health and with ever-increasing urgency, pleaded with the filmmaker to close down production and return to a sane diet. For the sake of posterity, Spurlock felt obliged to assail his health, loosen his belt and feed his growing addiction to fat by consuming nothing but fast-food burgers. By film's end his cholesterol and other vitals had reached cardiac-arrest-inducing levels, but Spurlock had made his sobering point. Fast food is not just fatty and addictive, it's dangerous.

The Facts

A collaborative research project conducted by the Agricultural Research Service and Harvard University found that U.S. children consumed greater calories and less nutrition on days when they had fast food. Fast food diners consumed more calories per gram of food, more calories, more total fat, more saturated fat, more carbohydrates, more sugary beverage and more added sugars than their non-fast food dining counterparts. At the same time, they consumed fewer non-starchy---that is not French fries---vegetables, and less fruit, fiber and milk.

The food most often consumed at fast food restaurants, hamburgers, tacos, fried chicken and French-fries, is loaded with sodium, saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol and calories. Often, a single meal can provide a substantial portion of recommended daily calories, with scant vitamins and minerals included.

The Trend

The Agricultural Research Service notes that consumption of fast foods quintupled from 2 to 10 percent during the twenty years from the mid-seventies to the mid-nineties. The number of fast food restaurants doubled during that same time period, reaching a quarter of a million nationwide. That's about one fast food restaurant for every 1,100 people.

The Stakes

Americans appear to be engaged in a mad race toward obesity. About two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, reports the National Institutes of Health. Extrapolating current trends, 75 percent of Americans will be overweight or obese by the year 2015. Fast food chains' super-sized portions promote over-eating, and floppy thighs and sagging bellies portend failing health. The high-fat, high-calorie, low-nutrition, vegetable-starved diet offered by the fast-food industry encourages obesity and raises bad cholesterol. Their diet is a prescription for diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Damage Control

Resist the allure of the happy meal, and instead chose the healthy-and-happy meal. Go elsewhere. If your schedule or pocket-book prohibits eating at a restaurant that offers healthier fare, then make smarter choices at the fast food establishment of your choice. Avoid super-sized portions. An average super-sized meal will burden you with well over 1,000 calories. Choose the smaller sized items. Don't add more salt to the already sodium-laden food served. Decline the items that add bacon, cheese and mayo sauce. Ask for nutritional information and review their offerings. Choose baked or grilled chicken over deep-fried chicken, and consider their bunny food---that's salads, and not actual rabbits in most parts of the country. If you do get a salad, minimize the cheese, croutons, ham, bacon and salad dressing, as you can still end up topping 800 calories once you figure in all their add-ons. You can reduce calories and fat by using non- or low-fat dressings. Drink water or diet sodas---one 32 oz soda has more than 400 calories.