Fast-food is quick, but it takes days from your life

By Stephen Parker
The TC News Reporter

What student does not love fast-food? As a child, just opening the door to your favorite fast-food restaurant is like pushing the turnstile at a theme park, complete with characters you know, small rides and playscapes, perhaps there is a party going on, maybe it’s for you! Those soft-fuzzy memories flood one’s consciousness with each new bite of golden, crispy, well-salted fries, washed down by soda that tastes better than it normally does from a can, followed by a mouthful of burger that conjures up images of cattle drives and progress. My goodness, quite an experience for someone trying to eat lunch in a hurry.

Herein lies the problem, it’s all distracting the consumer from what they are actually eating. That is, judging by most corporate models, food produced by buying the most inexpensive ingredients possible, prepared by employees paid the lowest wage allowed by the law, then charging the highest price a consumer will abide.

Can you imagine a corporation’s business model that was the opposite: buying the most expensive ingredients crafted by overpaid chiefs, and sold only to cover costs or at a loss? So, maybe a for-profit food service entity is not who you should put in charge of your health. These companies are not making cheap food because they care about poor Americans. They are not doing you a favor by giving you the opportunity to buy two burgers for $1.

There is overwhelming and irrefutable evidence that fast-food is responsible for obesity, heart disease, strokes, type II diabetes, colon/kidney cancer, and basically hastening mortality. The effects of fast-food on the cardiovascular system are almost instantaneous, with an amalgam of carcinogens and cholesterol rushed to all parts of your body with a speed that any drug company would appreciate. Fast-food can be a dangerous trap because it has been directly linked to depression, and what do some folks do when they are sad? Eat, feeding a vicious cycle.

Individuals should adopt the Hippocratic Oath when it comes to what they eat, and do no harm to themselves. We are students, we have taken steps to ensure a better future for ourselves and the ones we love by attempting to get an education that will hopefully make our lives more fruitful. Not ones to shy away from a challenge, it’s time for students to take action in how they acquire sustenance. Make a plan, follow it, be honest with yourself, you know what is good for you, and what is not. One rule of thumb is: the more someone is trying to sell you something, the less likely it is beneficial for you. Its true, fast-food does add time to your day, the only problem is that it ultimately diminishes the number of days you have left.