CONVENIENCE FOOD STUDENT HANDOUT
Convenience food means fast food, soft drinks, snack foods, TV dinners, and the already-prepared foods
we can buy in the store. It's supposed to be cheap, make our lives easier, and taste good. But there's a
hidden cost: it often ends up hurting our health.
The Obesity Epidemic
There is a world-wide epidemic of obesity and the U.S. is leading the way. In 2008, more than 17% of U.S.
children ages 2-19, some 14 million people, were obese. This number has more than doubled since 1980.
The rates of obesity in children 12 - 19 have tripled, growing from 5% in 1976 - 1980 to 18% in 20072008. Kids who are overweight are more likely to be fat when they get older than kids who are not
overweight.
As of 2008, approximately 67% of the adults in the U.S. (217 million people) were overweight or obese.
This was up from 46% in 1980. Recent studies show that these numbers are rising. Obesity is the seventh
leading cause of preventable death in the U.S. (Hypertension is the first and smoking is the second.)
Overweight and Obesity: Home from the Centers for Disease Control, Childhood Obesity from the
American Obesity Association and Advisory Committee Report: Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005.
(For teenagers the leading causes of preventable death are accidents, murder, and suicide.)
Except for some small islands in the Pacific, America is the fattest country on Earth. Fat Land: How
Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser. P. 4 (hereafter "Critser").
Obesity increases the risk of having about 30 serious illnesses including: diabetes (Type 2); several cancers
such as cancer of the uterus, breast, colon, esophagus, and bladder; cardiovascular disease; osteoarthritis
(degeneration of cartilage and its underlying bone within a joint); dyslipidemia (high total cholesterol);
hypertension; stroke; sleep apnea and respiratory problems; urinary stress incontinence; impaired immune
response; liver disease; gallbladder disease; renal disease; menstrual disturbance; and pancreatitis.
Overweight and Obesity: Health Consequences from the Centers for Disease Control and Fact Sheet on
Health Effects of Obesity from the American Obesity Association. A child who is ten years old and
diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes can expect to lose 17 to 26 years of his or her life.
Being obese does much more than cause early and needless death: it restricts our lifestyle. Fat people don't
get out as much as other people, they don't have as much fun, and they are not seen as attractive. Obesity is
an indicator of low self-esteem, poor social adjustment, and depression. If you're overweight as a child,
you're already most of the way to being obese as an adult.
Why are we getting fatter? As Mr. Spurlock says in Don't Eat This Book at page 16:
* We are eating more food than ever before -- way more.
* We are eating more food that's bad for us -- way more.
* And we are getting less physical exercise -- way less.
Agribusiness in the U.S. became extremely efficient over the last 40 years. It now produces about 3800
calories a day per person. The problem is that each of us should consume only about 1600 to 2800 (2200
for teenage girls and 2800 for teenage boys). What's the best way for agribusiness to sell its surplus
calories? Get people to eat more. (By the way, a calorie is a unit of energy. It is the amount of heat needed
to increase the temperature of one gram of water by one degree centigrade. We use the calories we eat to
power our bodies. Calories we don't use turn to fat.)
It used to be that people didn't snack or snacked much less than they do now. It's hard to snack when you're
in the field or the factory performing strenuous physical labor 12 hours a day. Now we have a whole new
type of food, called snack food: potato chips (plain, barbecue flavored, etc.), corn chips, bagel bites, donut
holes, etc. This is an entire segment of the convenience food industry focused on getting us to eat a lot of
food that's really bad for us and that we don't need.
In addition, we eat out much more often than before. Having a meal at a restaurant (including a fast food
restaurant) used to be a special occasion reserved for once a month. Now, many people eat out or take
restaurant food home four and five times a week for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Americans eat 40% of their
meals in restaurants of one kind or another.
Restaurant meals have gotten much bigger. Here's how that happened. Every business wants people to buy
their high markup items. (Markup is the amount added to the cost of goods sold in a store or restaurant so
that the owner can make a profit. Another way to say it is that markup is the difference between the cost
and the selling price.) High markup items are where the big profits are. The auto companies push SUV
sales even though they know the cars are bad for the environment and increase our dependence on foreign
oil. They push SUV sales even though they know that when gas prices go up, as they inevitably will, their
customers will suffer. This is because the markup on SUVs is much greater than the markup on smaller,
more gas efficient cars.
A few decades ago the movie theater industry did something very creative with its highest markup item,
popcorn. (Think about how many kernels of corn it takes to pop up a box and then think about how much
you pay for it. That's high markup.) To increase sales, theater owners tried two-for-one specials, discounts,
matinee specials, and combining popcorn with other foods. Nothing worked. Then an executive figured that
if he increased the size of the box but charged just a little more, people would believe they were getting a
great deal and they'd buy more boxes of popcorn. The cost of the additional popcorn was trivial. Sales of
boxes of popcorn went up and, in addition, people bought more soda, another high markup item.
After his success in the theater business, this same executive went to work for McDonalds. Instead of two
burgers, McDonalds started to offer a Big Mac for a little more than the price of a regular hamburger.
People thought they were getting a great deal and bought more ... and ate more. From this experiment, the
fast food industry created the Whopper, the Big Gulp and thousands of other extra large-sized products
==BEGIN SIDEBAR. ADD FOLLOWING==
designed to get us to buy more by offering us a better value. Critser, pp. 20 - 22.
McDonalds claims that is has modified its menu in the past decade due to health concerns and pressures by
the media, activist groups, health professionals, and lawsuits that have focused on the issue of obesity caused
by the consumption of unhealthy fast food. Like most fast food restaurants, McDonalds now also discloses
nutritional information on food containers in an attempt to move away from its “junk food” image.
However, Mr. Spurlock claims that when he had an independent laboratory check McDonalds’ statistics, he
found that the company was fudging its numbers, making its food look less unhealthy than it really was.
McDonalds has retired their larger meal items such as the Big’n’Tasty and the Supersize option and now
offers oatmeal, fruit drinks, salads, wraps, smoothies, and grilled meat. While this is certainly a positive sign,
McDonalds is still far from being healthy and pushes lots of unhealthy food. One may still order high fat,
high sodium Big Macs, 580-calorie shakes, and coffee drinks with 72 grams of sugar (the equivalent to almost
two cans of regular Coca-Cola)!
==END SIDEBAR==
Now this is a great deal for the consumer if you only count what you pay for the food. But the hidden cost, the
health effects, is devastating. The poster child for this process is the French fry. The markup on French fries sold by
fast food chains is 20 times the cost of buying the potatoes and making them into fries. (If the restaurant pays a
dollar to buy the potatoes and make the fries, it takes in twenty from the customer!) Chew on This by Schlosser &
Wilson, p. 97 (hereafter "Schlosser & Wilson"). Back in 1960, McDonalds offered regular French fries at 200
calories a serving. As the years went by, you could order French fries in larger and larger servings: 320 calories in
the late 1970s, 450 calories in the early 1990s, and 540 calories in the late 1990s. French fries reached its height in
2000 at 610 calories, more than a threefold increase, but due to recent health concerns and pressures, the French fry
is back down to 380 calories. Critser, p. 28 and "Super Size Me". But 380 calories for a small pack of fries is still a
far cry from being healthy. Not only are people eating empty calories, they're also eating too much salt. (The same
effect can be seen in the size of the sandwiches and the size of the soft drinks. At just about any fast food restaurant
you can buy a 16 fluid ounce ("fl. oz.") size with 150 calories and 40 grams of sugar. For just a little more you can
get a 21 fl. oz. size with 210 calories with 58 grams of sugar. A really good bargain is the 32 fl. oz. size with 310
calories and 86 grams of sugar. But the super-bargain is the 42 fl. oz. size with 410 calories and 113 grams of sugar.
Source: "Super Size Me". But these bargains don't count all the sugar and salt that is in these drinks. They cost our
bodies dearly.)
Then there was the McDonalds PR man who was a prime mover in the launch of Ronald McDonald, a device to fix
brand loyalty when children are young and cannot reason. He decided to buy some McDonalds franchises for
himself but he got caught in an economic recession when fewer people were going to fast food restaurants. He had
the idea that if he could package some of the low markup burgers with the high markup soft drinks and fries, for
what people thought was a lower cost, sales might increase. Well, they do, because people believe they're getting a
good deal. (It's not only McDonalds executives who have pioneered marketing innovations, all the fast food chains
do it, as often as they can.) And so, thanks to marketing executives in the food industry we have "Extra Value
Meals" and the “Dollar Menu" which allow us to eat ourselves into obesity, inexpensively. Critser, pp. 22 - 27.
Psychologists tell us what happens when the dinner plate comes with more food than we need. We eat more -- up to
30% more. Critser pp. 27 & 28. The result is that when we go to restaurants, which we do more and more often,
most of us eat more than we need. When we are at home we eat high-calorie snacks or convenience foods.
Remember, our bodies were set up to survive in the food-scarce world of the hunter-gatherer. We are programmed
to eat a lot in times of plenty to protect against the coming days when there won't be enough food. Except that in the
developed countries, with the advent of modern agriculture, only the extremely poor experience times when they
can't get enough to eat. Result: we eat and eat and get fatter and fatter.
The large sizing and value meal concepts aren't just confined to fast food restaurants. Most restaurant portions are
too large to finish comfortably. The food served by a restaurant is a small part of its expenses, so super sizing costs
the restaurant just a little more. But the customers, responding to the "great deal" light going off in their heads, buy
more units to take advantage of the great deal. While the restaurant makes more money, the customer eats all this
food and gains weight. (Sharing a meal is a great way to beat the system. Just remember to tip the waiter or waitress
as if you'd bought two meals. You don't want to hurt the working people when you're trying to outsmart the
restaurant owners!)
So, what's the big deal about a few hundred extra calories at a meal at a restaurant? Well, if you eat 40% of your
meals out, that's 11 meals (.4 x 21 (3 meals a day 7 days a week) = 8.4 meals.) Do the numbers from your own
experience. How many times did you eat restaurant food last week, either at the restaurant or take out? Well, 300 to
500 extra calories 8 times a week (or even five times a week) over a year is a lot of added weight. The same
marketing logic holds true for the convenience foods we take home from the store. Bigger and cheaper often sells
more. So, we get slammed again when we eat convenience food at home. And then there's snack food. An extra bag
of chips every few days adds up to a lot of calories over the course of a year.
Obesity has a number of definitions, but the most common is that people are obese when 20% of their body weight
is made up of fat. To determine if a person is at a healthy weight, overweight, or obese, scientists use the Body Mass
Index (BMI for short). This compares our weight to our height. To figure out the BMI for a teenager use the
following formula: first figure your weight in pounds and multiply it by the number 703. Then divide that by your
height in inches squared.
BMI = weight X 703
height2
Let's start with flavor. French fries are a good example. Nowadays, most French fries come to the
restaurant frozen. Frozen foods, especially vegetables, usually lose their taste. When food is fried, its taste
is largely determined by the flavor of the fat it is fried in. McDonalds’ fries are reputed to be the best in the
world. Originally, they were fried in 93% beef fat. It was the taste of the beef fat which made them so
popular. The problem is that the fat saturates the fries and instead of eating a plant with little cholesterol,
McDonalds customers were eating beef fat that contained a lot of cholesterol. In the early 1990s, after
heavy criticism for contributing to the deaths of its customers with cholesterol from the fries, McDonalds
started using vegetable oil. However, the fries didn't have that meaty taste that everyone liked so much. So
McDonalds turned to the "flavorologists."
Flavorologists are highly trained chemists who are very sensitive to smell and taste. These people are
experts in mixing up a batch of chemicals that will smell and taste like the real thing. To make drinks taste
like grape they add methyl anthranilate. To make popcorn taste like popcorn, they add methyl-2peridylketone. For marshmallows it's ethyl-3-hydroxybutanoate. Amyl acetate simulates the taste of real
bananas. Flavorologists mix the chemicals like a complicated recipe. Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser,
pp. 119 - 129 (hereafter "Schlosser"). When the flavor is removed from food because it's frozen, canned,
sits on a shelf for years, or the frying oil is changed, the flavorologist finds a chemical replacement for the
taste of the food.
The flavor industry is a multi-billion dollar industry of people walking around in white lab coats making
the taste of our food. The convenience food industry is its biggest client. Flavorologists give the taste not
only to the fries, but the hamburgers, the breads, the milkshakes, the ice cream . . . you name it. If it's
processed food, it's likely to have specially designed flavors in it.
That "nature's bounty" taste usually doesn't come from just one chemical or even two or three. The
flavorologists commonly use a cocktail of chemicals. It gets very complicated. At one point (and it may
still be true today) the flavors in a Burger King strawberry "milkshake" were:
amyl acetate, amyl butyrate, amyl valerate, anethol, anisyl formate, benzyl acetate, benzyl isobutyrate,
butyric acid, cinnamyl isobutyrate, cinnamyl valerate, cognac essential oil, diacetyl, dipropyl ketone, ethyl
acetate, ethyl amyl ketone, ethyl butyrate, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl heptanoate, ethyl heptylate, ethyl lactate,
ethyl methylphenylglycidate, ethyl nitrate, ethyl propionate, ethyl valerate, heliotropin, hydroxyphenyl-2butanone (10 percent solution in alcohol), a-ionone, isobutyl anthranilate, isobutyl butyrate, lemon essential
oil, maltol, 4-methylacetophenone, methyl anthranilate, methyl benzoate, methyl cinnamate, methyl heptine
carbonate, methyl naphthyl ketone, methyl salicylate, mint essential oil, neroli essential oil, nerolin, neryl
isobutyrate, orris butter, phenethyl alcohol, rose, rum ether, g-undecalactone, vanillin, and solvent.
Thus, if a person is 5 feet 9.5 inches tall and he weighed 193 pounds, his BMI would be 193 X 703/69.5 2. This
equals 135,679/4830 = 28.09; seriously overweight but not obese. Calculate your own BMI on a piece of paper and
bring it to the next class. BMI — Body Mass Index: About BMI for Children and Teens from the CDC. This site
will also automatically calculate BMI for you.
Ersatz Food
"Fast food may look like the sort of food people have always eaten, but it's fundamentally different. It's not the kind
of food you can make in your kitchen from scratch. Fast food is something radically new. Indeed, the food we eat
A BMI of 18.5 to 25 indicates a healthy weight. A BMI of 25 to 30 means that a person is overweight. A
BMI of 30 or higher is reserved for the obese.
Healthy
BMI 18.5 - 25
Overweight BMI 25 - 30
Obese
BMI above 30
has changed more during the past thirty years than during the previous thirty thousand years." Schlosser & Wilson p.
11
The word "ersatz" means something fake, something that's not the genuine article. It comes from a German word
that means "replacement." Convenience food often consists of man-made replacements for what is normally in food.
It's "ersatz" food. There is a simple reason for this. It has to be modified to be easy to transport and cook. So it's
almost always frozen, dehydrated, or canned. This pulls most of the flavor, the color, and some important nutrients
out of the food. No one would buy it unless the convenience food companies made it look like it used to look and
taste good.
Where'd the strawberries go? Well, they're not in the "milkshake". List of ingredients from Schlosser p. 125.
Some labels say the flavor is "artificial" and sometimes the flavor is described as "natural" There's very little
difference. All this refers to is the origins of the chemicals used to make the flavor. If they're cooked up in the
laboratory, they are called "artificial." If the chemicals are extracted in the laboratory from some substance growing
in a plant or an animal, the flavor is called "natural." But whatever the source of the chemicals that flavor so much
of our food, they aren't the real thing. They're "ersatz."
Now let's look at color. The color of convenience food is often artificial as well. Canning, freezing, and drying
change the color of foods. Artificial color can give them that fresh-from-the-field look. Many of the same companies
that manufacture flavors also manufacture color additives. Some of these colors come from strange places.
Cochineal, which is used for red or pink color, comes from bugs that live in Peru and the Canary Islands, ground up
and, hopefully, sterilized. You think oranges are really that nice glossy orange that we buy in the store? Think
again. Often they are died to look that way.
Are the nutrients replaced? (Are you kidding?) As for the nutrients that are lost by freezing, drying, canning, and
other processes designed to allow food to be packaged, transported, sit in the warehouse, and then in the store or
restaurant ... they are seldom replaced. Many nutrients in the food survive, but the vitamins and phytochemicals,
those unique substances needed for health, often do not.
So with most convenience foods, the taste is replaced, the color is replaced ... it's "ersatz." Look on the label. If it
says flavors added and color added, that's what you're getting. But there's more to the "ersatz" story, and that's when
the food companies start chemically altering food to make replacements for sugar and fat that are less expensive or
extend shelf life, and then put them in food. We'll get there.
Additives and Contaminants
What about all those artificial flavors, artificial colorings, and the preservatives? Are they safe? We know
that in some people artificial food colors cause allergies, asthma, and hyperactivity. They are also possible
carcinogens. Nitrites and bitrates (found often in processed meats) can develop into potential carcinogens
called nitrosamines. Sulfites (sulfur dioxide, metabisulfites, and others which are used as preservatives)
cause allergic and asthmatic reactions in some people. Artificial sweeteners (Aspartame, Acesulfame K and
Saccharin) can cause hyperactivity, allergies, and they are possible carcinogens in long term use. MSG
(monosodium glutamate) often causes allergic and behavioral reactions, including headaches, dizziness,
chest pains, depression, and mood swings. It is also a possible neurotoxin. Preservatives such as BHA,
BHT, and EDTA cause allergic reactions and hyperactivity. Again, there are concerns that they cause
cancer with long term use. BHT may be toxic to the nervous system and the liver. Artificial flavors can
cause allergic or behavioral reactions. Olestra (an artificial fat) causes diarrhea and digestive disturbances
in some people. Excerpts from Dr. Elson M. Haas, MD Staying Healthy Shopper's Guide: Feed Your
Family Safely.
The government and the food industry tell us that food additives are tested for safety. That is true, but
they're tested one at a time. They are not tested in combination with the many other food additives we eat
along with them or which may be present in our bodies for a day, a week, a month or a year after we eat
them. No one has any idea what food additives do to us when they are combined in a normal diet. Nor do
we know what they do to us in the long run, after decades and decades of exposure. Finally, no one knows
what they do to children and teenagers and their growing bodies and nervous systems.
Then again, we're all still alive and we've been eating this stuff for a long time. (Well, actually, some of us
are still alive. Some, especially adults who've been exposed longer than kids, may have died from cancer
caused by all these additives.) There are warning signs in addition to the rise in the rate of cancer. Here are
three: The first is shown in Mr. Spurlock's movie. If we eat a lot of fast food, we'll get fat, pickle our livers
and clog our arteries. The second is demonstrated by the experience of the school Mr. Spurlock visited in
which problem kids settled down dramatically when they were given a diet of organic food without
preservatives and other artificial ingredients. Here is another: It was reported by researchers at the
University of Liverpool, England, that "when mouse nerve cells were exposed to MSG and brilliant blue or
aspartame and quinoline yellow in laboratory conditions, combined in concentrations that theoretically
reflect the compound that enters the bloodstream after a typical children's snack and drink, the additives
stopped the nerve cells growing and interfered with proper signaling systems." Combining Food Additives
May be Harmful, Say Researchers Guardian Newspaper, Felicity Lawrence, Consumer Affairs
Correspondent, Wednesday December 21, 2005.
The only way to be really safe from additives is to eat a strictly organic diet. This gets easier and easier
every year but it means almost no convenience foods, no soft drinks, no snack food, no fast food, and no
TV dinners. It costs more, too, but some supermarket chains are trying to make organic food more
affordable.
Contaminants are another big problem. The cows, pigs, chickens, and turkeys caught up in the factory
farming system are pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones. Each year we hear about people dying
from e-coli bacteria or salmonella. One year it was in the hamburgers sold by Jack in the Box. Another year
it was on lettuce contaminated by runoff from a pig farm. Most chicken sold in the U.S. is contaminated
with salmonella. If the meat isn't well-cooked it can cause illness, usually just an upset stomach. Very
infrequently the person dies. (The elderly and young children are the most vulnerable.) Meat for
hamburgers is often mixed together. In a single hamburger we can have meat from hundreds of cows. If
one of those cows is sick, then we can get sick, too. That's why all meat and poultry should be well cooked.
Don't eat it pink. Pink is uncooked and can carry disease.
Pesticides and fungicides are often sprayed on crops. They can affect the health of animals (including
humans). Widespread use of the insecticide DDT to control mosquitoes almost destroyed several species of
birds, including the bald eagle. It made the shells of their chicks so thin that the chicks were not protected
and died.
Fat: Fats are the body's way of storing energy. They also aid in the absorption of vitamins A, D, E, and K. Small
amounts of fat are important for proper growth and development, as well as for the maintenance of good health. The
U.S. Department of Food and Agriculture says that our diets should contain between 25 and 35% fat for teenagers
and between 20 and 35% for most adults. Dietary Guidance - Link to Dietary Intake Macro Ingredients
Our love for fat goes far back in time. For our ancestors, starvation was never far away and fats were hard to come
by. Fat is an excellent way to store calories during good times to use in the lean times that were sure to come. Our
bodies therefore developed a taste for fat. In addition, the problems that arise when fat was eaten in high amounts for
years at a time didn't occur. Life was hard and people lived only 35 - 40 years. Thus our bodies didn't develop a
defense against eating too much fat.
We are now in different circumstances. People live longer and starvation for those in the developed nations is not a
problem. Fats enhance most flavors. Restaurants and companies that sell processed foods want us to buy their
products. One of the best ways to make food taste better is to put a lot of fat in it. All of this fat clogs our arteries
and puts stress on our digestive systems. In addition, it helps us to gain weight, which itself causes the many health
problems described in the section on obesity.
Not all fats are equally bad. There are four types of fats: monounsaturated fat, polyunsaturated fat, saturated fat, and
trans fat. The first three appear in nature. Monounsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat, found mostly in plants and
some seafood, don't cause health problems on their own.
Foods to Avoid or Limit
Contaminants and additives are only a small part of the problem. Scientists have demonstrated again and
again that certain foods are really killing us. What tastes good is often what is very harmful. Four of the
most important foods that we have to watch are: (1) fat, (2) sugar and high fructose corn syrup, (3) salt, and
(4) refined carbohydrates.
The risks of eating a high fat, high sugar, high salt and low fiber diet are not confined to fast food. Food we
get from the store, both prepared frozen meals and traditional dishes with high concentrations of salt, fat,
sugar, or refined carbohydrates, contribute to disease.
Saturated fat builds cholesterol deposits in our arteries. In nature, saturated fats come primarily from animal
products such as meat, milk, and cheese. Hunter gatherers didn't encounter these types of food all that often.
Cholesterol is a waxy substance that is used to build cell membranes and nerve cells. (Without nerve cells for our
brains, we'd all be pretty stupid.) It helps the body in a number of other ways such as making certain hormones and
bile acids. But our own livers make all the cholesterol we need. Cholesterol from the food we eat is extra.
There are several types of cholesterol. LDL cholesterol is the kind that builds up in our arteries and restricts the flow
of blood to the heart. Saturated fat raises the level of LDL cholesterol. Unsaturated fat does not. The heart has to
pump enough blood to sustain us every minute we're alive. That's 70 - 80 beats per minute or 100,000-115,000 beats
every day. When our heart doesn't get enough blood to give it the oxygen it needs to do its work, we have coronary
heart disease and eventually a heart attack. When our heart stops . . . Well, we all know what happens then.
Trans fats are the worst type of fat. While saturated fat is the main culprit in raising LDL ("bad") cholesterol, trans
fats also make a significant contribution to the development of coronary heart disease. Unlike saturated fats, which
appear abundantly in animal products, there are very few natural sources of trans fats. Trans fats are created when
unsaturated fats are chemically altered to become saturated fats. This promotes longer shelf life or a better taste.
(Did you hear that? Someone whispered "ersatz.") Trans fats can be found in vegetable shortening, some
margarines, crackers, cookies, snack foods, fried foods, baked goods, and many other convenience foods.
Once we grow a fat cell it never leaves us. If we gain weight and then slim down again the fat cells that we
developed when we gained the weight stay in our bodies; they're just empty and hungry. They have a tendency to fill
up again whenever they can. Mr. Spurlock made a lot of money from his movie and it launched his career, but he'll
pay for it all of his life by having to watch his weight more carefully. Most of us who overeat at fast food restaurants
don't get that kind of benefit in return for growing more fat cells.
Sugar and High Fructose Corn Syrup: Fruit is a good source of. Fruit helps prevent heart disease and some
cancers. When our species developed, the primary source for sugar was fruit. When we ate fruit, we also got the
vitamins, minerals and plant phytochemicals that are in the fruit. Refined sugar has changed all that and the course
of history as well. Sugar from sugar cane was brought to Europe by the Moors who conquered Spain in the 8th
century C.E. Crusaders returning from the Middle East brought it, too. Originally it was an expensive delicacy but it
grew in popularity. Christopher Columbus took sugar cane seedlings with him on his voyages of discovery. The
climate and soil in the New World were so conducive to growing sugar that thousands upon thousands of acres in
the Caribbean and in South America were cleared for growing sugar cane. By the 17th century, Western Europe was
crazy for sugar. The economies of entire countries and entire islands in the Caribbean (for example, Cuba, Haiti,
Jamaica, and the Bahamas) were based on sugar. The need for workers fueled the slave trade from Africa. They
couldn't get whites to do the work and Native Americans usually died when they were enslaved. Africans, removed
from their homeland and enslaved, would do the work and they survived. The need for iron gears for thousands of
sugar cane processing plants helped fuel the Industrial Revolution in Europe. Wikipedia article on the History of
Sugar In addition, sugar, through the dental decay that it causes, helped create an entirely new profession and a new
industry, that of the dentist. In the 19th century it was discovered that beets were also a source for table sugar.
Currently, beets account for 30% of world sugar production.
Sugar contains 50% glucose and 50% sucrose. It provides energy but virtually nothing that people need to grow and
maintain their bodies. It has no vitamins, minerals, protein, or fiber. But, not only does sugar taste good, it makes us
feel good. When we drink a soft drink, the immediate boost in energy and good feeling comes from the sugar, not
the caffeine. That drug kicks in later. There is evidence that sugar increases the production of opiates in our bodies.
Opiates are chemicals that make us feel good. Our bodies produce them naturally when we exercise.
In the second half of the 20th century, the prepared food industry developed a new type of sugar, one that's even
sweeter, and some say worse for us, than regular sugar. It's called high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). It tastes just like
sugar and pound for pound it is sweeter than sugar. It's created by a process that involves a number of chemical
modifications of corn. (Did someone whisper "ersatz" again?) Consumption of high fructose corn syrup has risen
from zero consumption in 1966 to 42.2 lbs per person in 2005. It's now almost half of the total sweetener market in
the U.S. and a multibillion dollar industry. Again, the explanation for the sudden rise of HFCS begins with the
economics of the convenience food industry. Simply put, HFCS is cheaper than sugar but the taste is identical.
Agribusiness has saved hundreds of millions of dollars a year substituting HFCS for sugar. Sweet but Not So
Innocent? -- High-Fructose Corn Syrup May Act More Like Fat Than Sugar in the Body by Sally Squires,
Washington Post, Tuesday, March 11, 2003; Page HE01.
There is a raging debate about whether HFCS itself is worse for us than sugar. But we don't need studies of the
effects of HFCS alone to know that it's bad for us, because at best HFCS is a concentrated form of sugar. HFCS is a
favorite of soda companies. A research study that followed 50,000 U.S. nurses found that those who drank just one
serving of non-diet soda or fruit punch a day gained much more weight than those who drank less than one soda a
month. They also had an 80% increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. This risk was associated with drinks
sweetened with either sugar or HFCS. The increase in weight and diabetes was caused by just one drink a day!
Regular Soda a Day Boosts Weight Gain -- Non-Diet Drinks Also Increase Risk of Diabetes, Study Shows by Rob
Stein, Washington Post, Wednesday, August 25, 2004; Page A01.
In 2003 the World Health Organization (an arm of the United Nations) recommended that no more
than 10% of daily calories be from added sugars. It did this despite threats from the food industry
that if it issued this recommendation food industry lobbyists would ask the U.S. Congress to cut
funding for the agency. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0421-06.htm, “Sugar
Industry Threatens to Scrupper WHO,” CommonDreams.org, April 21, 2003. The WHO didn't
back down and endorsed this strategy in May 2004.
Salt: In the past, salt was as valuable as gold. Some salt, a little bit, is necessary for life. It helps
maintain the right balance of fluids in our bodies. It also helps transmit nerve impulses and it
influences the contraction and relaxation of muscles. Because we need some salt and because for
eons salt was hard to find, our bodies developed a taste for it. Salt is used to enhance the flavor in
any type of cooking. However, when food companies are in competition to provide us with the
tastiest food possible and when the freezing, drying, or canning process takes the natural flavors
out of food, the companies compensate by, among other things, adding a lot of salt. Most
Americans consume much more salt than is recommended by doctors and nutritionists. Three
fourths of that amount is from salt added to processed foods. The recommended intake of salt is
less than 2,300 milligrams (mg) a day. Dietary Guidelines and Sodium: Are you getting too much?
from Mayo Clinic.com. Nutrition and Your Health: Dietary Guidelines for Americans from the
USDA.
Refined Carbohydrates: The problem with refined carbohydrates, like the problem with refined
sugar, is that if we satisfy our appetites with these foods, we don't get the vitamins, minerals and
fiber that our bodies need. We should have 14 grams of dietary fiber per 1000 calories. We can't
do that on refined foods. Ibid.
Diabetes itself causes heart disease, blindness, kidney failure, and amputation of the lower extremities. (That means
your legs!) But don't worry. Usually they only cut off one leg, and besides, you won't be one-legged for more than a
couple of decades because diabetes also reduces your life expectancy by17 to 27 years if you develop it by the age
of 15. Source: "Super Size Me." All this for a few stupid cans of soda. "The message is clear: Anyone who cares
about their health or the health of their family would not consume these beverages." Dr. Walter C. Willett, Harvard
School of Public Health, the man who conducted the study reported in Mr. Stein's Washington Post article.
Sugar and its ersatz twin, HFCS, permeate the modern diet and are found in a majority of foods that are processed,
including fast food, soft drinks, fruit drinks, breads, cereals, mayonnaise, ketchup, salad dressing, spaghetti sauce,
hot dogs, lunch meat, crackers, canned fruits, canned vegetables and many, many more. In the United States, as of
2009, the average person consumed about 131 pounds of sweetener each year. Of these, 50.1 pounds were HFCS
and 63.6 pounds were sugar. The numbers have been rising; in 2003, the average person consumed 100 pounds of
sugar. USDA Sugar and Sweeteners: Data Tables, Tables 50.
Remember what happened to Mr. Spurlock in just 30 days of eating only fast food? He gained 24.5 pounds,
increasing his body fat from a healthy 11% to an alarming 18%. (Remember, at 20% he would be clinically obese.)
He was well on his way to pickling his liver as if he had been an alcoholic who'd been drinking for years. His
cholesterol increased by 65% to an unhealthy level. He also developed chest pressure, depression, sugar addiction,
headaches, labored breathing, hot flashes, and heart palpitations. After he stopped his McDonalds "diet" it took him
six weeks to bring his blood levels back to normal and five months to lose 20 pounds. The fat cells that he grew will
be with him all his life and he'll have a tendency to gain the 24.5 pounds, or part of it, back again.
Certainly, if we eat fast food or convenience food only once a month like most nutritionists recommend, our bodies
will be able to deal with the fat, salt, sugar and additives in the food. But what about all that other convenience food?
And what if, like most Americans, we eat fast food more than once a month?
What we all need to do is get beyond advertising to real education. Learn about the food we eat. Read the labels.
Being an Educated Consumer
Advertisers targeting children have already "educated" us to be terrible consumers. Corporations spend
more than $15 billion every year to influence kids. Four hours of television programming contain about 100
advertisements. The average American child may view as many as 40,000 television commercials every
year. About 20,000 are for convenience foods: soda, candy, breakfast cereals, and fast food. Many of them
are the same ad run over and over again because marketing research shows that this works. (Not
surprisingly, children who watch a lot of television want more toys seen in advertisements and eat more
advertised food than children who do not watch as much television.) By three years of age, if not earlier,
kids can recognize many brands. (Tobacco companies used to promote candy cigarettes for children for
"brand imprinting for later actuation in life.") McDonalds is especially good at luring children into its
restaurants with Ronald McDonald, birthday parties, Happy Meals, Mighty Kids Meals, playgrounds, etc.
In 2010, studies had shown that 96% of Americans kids could recognize and name Ronald McDonald.
Young children can't distinguish between commercials and TV programs. They don't recognize that
commercials are trying to sell something. In 2008, children 12 years and under influenced the household
spending of over $500 billion. We don't have figures for ages 13 and above but most likely it's a higher
number. Sources: National Institute on Media and the Family Fact Sheet; Chew on This by Schlosser and
Wilson, pp. 47 - 57. "Welcome to McDonald's", McDonald's Corporation, 1996, cited at Ibid pg. 47.
Fast food companies are very good at marketing to children and adolescents. (That means you.) Children's
television is saturated with commercials. The companies cross market with movies or popular brands (The
famous Disney/McDonalds partnership is just one example). They provide free toys with meals and provide
playgrounds at the restaurants. Different versions of toys are given away in different weeks and, of course,
parents have to get their kids each version. So, they go back repeatedly and purchase more food.
(McDonalds can be said to be one of the largest toy stores in the world, distributing 1.5 billion toys a year.
Fast food chains are the source of one out of every three toys given to an American child each year.)
Offering the right toy can double or triple sales of children's meals and, for each child, one or two parents
usually purchase a meal as well. Schlosser and Wilson, pp. 58 & 59. Older children are also targeted with
trendy commercials, endorsements by sports stars and celebrities, etc.
Sales of other types of convenience foods are the result of what marketing executives call the "nag factor":
25% of salty snacks, 40% of frozen pizza, 50% of cold cereals, and 60% of canned pasta sales are the result
of this type of pressure. Morgan Spurlock again:
... There was actually a marketing study put out in 1998 called The Nag Factor. Was it published to help
parents learn how to say no to their kids? Tzzzt. Sorry. Nope, it was done to help advertisers and marketers
learn how to target kids better, to get them to nag. I couldn't make this up. The press release that went out to
advertisers to announce the publication of this study was called -- I'm not kidding -- "The Fine Art of
Whining: Why Nagging Is a Kid's Best Friend." Another industry name for this is "pester power."
Spurlock, p. 151.
Understand not only good nutrition, but how years of advertising have affected us. And we should understand one
last thing: our own personal relationship with food. There are all kinds of pressures that can push the amount that we
eat in the wrong direction, either too much or too little. Some mothers express love for their children by trying to get
them to eat a lot. Some of us deal with disappointments in life, tension on the job, or problems at home by
overeating. For others it's the size of what we consume that matters: bigger cars . . . bigger houses, . . . bigger meals .
. . even bigger bellies (!!). "Bigness is addictive because it is about power. .... While few teenage boys can actually
finish a 64-ounce Double Gulp, it's empowering to hold one in your hand." Irma Zall, a teen marketing consultant,
quoted at Critser p. 29. Some people, girls especially, go the other way and develop a disease called anorexia, in
which they think they're too fat no matter how thin they are. Being educated consumers also means knowing
ourselves and our own psychology.
One more thing, as if life wasn't difficult enough. Mr. Spurlock had an independent laboratory check the statistics
listed on the McDonald's web site for the calories, fat, sodium, sugars, and dietary fiber in its food. He found that the
size of the portions were smaller on the web site than what he was served at a Mcdonalds restaurant and that the
content of calories, fat, sodium, and sugars were uniformly higher than reported on the web site. In addition, he
found that there was less fiber than reported. In other words, McDonald's was underestimating the dangers of its
food. Spurlock: Appendix 2.
A Few Practical Tips for Better Eating
So what do we do? If our game isn't working, the sports coach says, go back to basics. For eating, that
means to eat like our ancestors did as much as we can: fresh food, if possible grown locally, including fruit
and vegetables (9 servings a day), whole grains (at least 3 servings a day), nuts, and legumes. People
should consume a variety of foods and control caloric intake. We should consume fats, salt, carbohydrates,
and sugared foods in moderation, which for most of us means that we'll have to reduce our intake. We need
to increase our consumption of dietary fiber. See the U.S. Government's Dietary Guidelines for Americans
2005. (The government recommends 3 cups of non-fat or low-fat milk or the equivalent per day. Some
well-regarded nutritionists dispute the value of milk in the diet and charge that milk was included because
of pressure from the dairy industry. Vegans have healthy diets without any meat or dairy and only a
vitamin supplement that includes B-12.)
Regular and frequent consumption of fruits and vegetables is associated with reduced risks of cancer,
cardiovascular disease, stroke, Alzheimer's disease, and cataracts. It postpones aging for a while. The
combination of the vitamins and other beneficial phytochemicals in fruits and vegetables causes this. Taken
separately they don't have the same effect. So it's important to have a variety of fruits and vegetables every
day. See 5 A Day.Gov! a web site from the Centers for Disease Control promoting a diet which includes at
least 5 fruit and vegetable servings a day.
Here's an example of back to basics. Remember the ad campaign from Subway about the young man, Jared
Fogel, who went from 425 to 192 lbs on a year-long Subway diet? Well, Mr. Spurlock interviewed Mr.
Fogel and it turns out that what Mr. Fogel did was to stop overeating and go on an exercise plan. That's
why he lost the weight. It didn't have much to do with Subway. Spurlock at pp. 141 - 144. (There are a lot
of vegetables and fruit that Mr. Fogel should have been eating that Subway doesn't offer. He only went part
of the way back to basics, and look at the results of even that halfway measure.)
Speaking of Subway, the great advantage (and sometimes the even greater disadvantage) of Subway is that
we can choose what they put in our sandwich. We can have whole wheat bread with just vegetables or lean
chicken and no mayo. But then again, we can order a sandwich containing four strips of bacon, lettuce, and
lots of mayonnaise on white bread. Now that sandwich is probably worse for us than a Quarter Pounder or
a Whopper. Subway claims to stress healthy meals but every Subway store is loaded with chips and has a
great big soft drink dispenser. (Don't tell me they don't want you to buy that stuff.)
With respect to fat, choose oils high in unsaturated fats (like olive oil), buy margarine made with
unsaturated liquid vegetable oils as the first ingredient and limit butter, lard, fatback, solid shortenings, and
full fat mayonnaise. If you're going to eat meat, eat less of it, eat only lean meat, and make sure it is well
cooked. Wild caught fish are said to be a healthy protein source but mercury contamination is now an issue.
Eat according to the Food Pyramid. But remember that this is created by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture which is charged with protecting farmers. Some nutritionists have criticized the pyramid for
promoting consumption of meat and dairy products.
Learn to read the nutritional labels and be a truly educated consumer. Look out for the tricks of the people
trying to market food to you. They often fortify highly sugared products with calcium or vitamins that
people with a good diet don't need. Along with the extra vitamins or calcium comes an unhealthy dose of
sugar, fat, salt or refined carbohydrates.
END OF STUDENT HANDOUT. See the Convenience Food Student Handout in Microsoft Word®. The
citations have been deleted from the handout.
o
As people who aren't yet adults, there's one thing you can control. It's what you eat; what you put
into your body. (Teenagers often feel powerless. What they eat is something that they can control.)
o
Convenience foods are loaded with fat, salt, sugar, refined carbohydrates, and chemical additives.
They often don't contain the nutrients, vitamins, minerals, and fiber that we need for optimal
physical and mental development. Convenience foods are major contributors to the obesity
epidemic which sickens and kills millions of people each year. (This is the health argument made
in the movie and the handout.)
o
The executives from the convenience food companies are not trying to kill us, it's just that our
health often gets in the way of their companies' profits. (The executives who run McDonalds,
Burger King, Chili’s, Starbucks, and all the other companies that sell prepared foods are not bad
people, but they're not our friends and they are not interested in our health. They are trying to
enhance the return on their shareholders' investment by reducing costs and getting us to consume
more. Business schools teach courses in "marketing" and "advertising" showing people how to
convince the public to buy more of their product. On occasion processed food companies are
forced by public opinion or the government to modify their food to make it healthier. But if it
comes to a question of profits vs. health, profits will win. It's unlikely that the overall experience
of eating convenience food, especially eating at a fast food restaurant, will ever be truly good for
us.)
NOTES FOR LECTURE OR POINTS TO STRESS DURING CLASS DISCUSSION
These notes are suggested for a very short lecture after the film. Another approach is to work these
concepts into your comments during the class discussion. See Discussion Questions below.
The first point is to tell the kids that you don't expect most of them to stop eating convenience food. The
flavorologists and advertisers do too good a job for that. Maybe, each year, one or two kids will really take
the lesson to heart and start eating very well. That would be a home run. But you do hope that all of them
will eat more food prepared from natural ingredients, buy less convenience food, and keep their weight
down.
TeachWithMovies has found seven reasons that might convince teenagers to reduce or eliminate their
consumption of fast food and resist the obesity epidemic. Different themes will work with different kids.
Some will reject everything now but the seeds of change will be sown, hopefully to blossom later.
o
The food that's sold is often not really the kind of food that grows in the ground. (In order to
reduce costs, improve color, or to enhance taste, the prepared food industry adds chemicals that
change the nature of what we eat by adding chemical flavoring and color and by changing the
chemical content of food to make fake foods like trans fat and HFCS.)
o
Advertisers can't be trusted to tell the truth and they've already got their hooks deep into all of us.
(Advertisers know that younger children cannot look critically at an advertisement. They get us
early with special meals, free toys, and characters like Ronald McDonald, because they know that
unreasoning brand loyalty built when we are young is a powerful weapon. Many decisions by
adolescents and adults about what to buy are influenced by a desire for brands or foods that recall
happy times when he or she was young.)
o
And then there's compassion, an ethical value endorsed by the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim
religions. (Each year millions of cows, pigs, turkeys, and sheep, and billions of chickens, are
raised in factory farms in conditions of abject misery. Then they are transported to slaughter
houses where they are brutally killed. The only way to reduce the suffering these animals endure is
to reduce consumption of meat and poultry. See Discussion Question #6.)
o
And last but not least, there is vanity. (Healthier people look better and are more desirable. Eating
convenience food is an excellent start on the road to looking unhealthy.)
Teachers and parents should always be up front with children: almost all of us have to battle against fast
food, snack food, sodas, and prepared food. In our society, they're hard to avoid. In addition, we've been
bombarded by advertising about how good this food tastes since we were infants. All of us could improve
our diets and all of us fall prey to the convenience food trap. The purpose of this movie and this lesson plan
is to give kids the information and motivation to eat convenience food less frequently.
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT FOR SUPER SIZE ME
1. List four different types of convenience foods.
2. What is a common definition of obesity? Give your answer in terms of the percentage of a person's
weight that is comprised of fat.
3. List the three most important causes of preventable death for the entire population in the U.S. Then list
the three most important causes of preventable death among U.S. teenagers.
4. In terms of BMI what is a healthy weight, what is overweight, and what is obesity?
5. State in words the formula for BMI and describe what it measures. Be sure to include a reference to
pounds and inches in your statement. Then calculate your own BMI.
6. For the most current year for which we have statistics on how many children were obese, state the year,
the number of children in the U.S. who were obese and their percentage of the population of children.
7. Name ten serious diseases that obese people get more often than people who are not obese.
8. Why are people in the U.S. getting fatter? Mr. Spurlock told us. What did he say?
9. What percentage of meals do Americans eat in restaurants, including fast food outlets?
10. Explain the psychology behind supersizing. Why is it a good marketing technique?
11. If a person is presented at a meal with more food than he or she could possibly eat, how much more
food will the average person consume than he or she needs? Give your answer in terms of a percentage.
12. What is the profit margin for French fries sold in fast food restaurants?
13. Why do restaurateurs like to sell super sized meals?
14. What does "ersatz" mean?
15. Give two examples of specific convenience foods that are ersatz food that we learned about in this unit.
Describe why they are called ersatz.
16. What are the four general types of foods that can hurt our health if we are not careful to consume
moderate or small amounts?
17. What is a flavorologist?
18. What is the difference between natural and artificial flavors put into foods?
19. Food additives are tested for safety, so why are they still a risk to our health? Give two reasons.
20. Fats and salt often make food taste better. Why do we like the tastes of fats and salt?
21. What are trans fats and why are they bad for us?
22. What is the mechanism by which LDL cholesterol causes heart disease?
23. Which types of fats do not contribute to heart disease?
24. What types of foods contain fats that have high amounts of LDL cholesterol?
25. What types of foods contain fats that do not contribute to cholesterol found?
26. Why does advertising affect young children more than it does teenagers and adults?
27. What is the percentage of fat in a teenager’s diet recommended by the government?
28. What is the "nag factor"?
29. What doesn't sugar have that is healthy for us?
30. How did the growth of the sugar industry in the 17th and 18th centuries contribute to the Industrial
Revolution? How did the growth of the sugar industry contribute to the slave trade?
31. Remember Jared Fogel, the young man who lost so much weight eating at Subway? What were the two
most important reasons for the success of his weight loss program? Did they have anything to do with the
fact that he ate at Subway?
32. In the study that followed 50,000 nurses, how many cans of soft drinks a day did it take to lead to
weight gain and an 80% increase in Type 2 Diabetes?
33. In 2009, how many pounds of sweetener did the average American consume? How much of this
amount was sugar and how much was HFCS?
34. When the World Health Organization stated that it was going to release a recommendation that
sweeteners account for only 10% of daily calories, what did the food industry do?
35. The caloric content of the largest serving of McDonald's French fries that you can buy has changed
from 1960 to the present. Describe that change.
36. What is the recommended caloric intake per day for teenagers?
37. People with Type 2 diabetes are at risk for several other illnesses. Name three of them.
38. Can you rely on the nutrition statistics on the websites of the convenience food companies?
39. Did Mr. Spurlock's 30-day fast food diet have any effects on his mind? What were they?
40. Name four things that society as a whole could do to reduce the obesity epidemic. (Don't list things that
an individual can do, but only list what society as a whole can do.)
Discussion Questions:
THE ISSUE OF PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
1. Most people know that convenience food (CF) is loaded with salt, sugar and fat. They have heard that
CF is a substantial factor in causing the obesity epidemic which sickens and kills millions every year. Some
of them know that in the U.S., the obesity epidemic is the seventh leading cause of preventable death. List
the facts that affect the answer to the following question: When a consumer eats fast food from a restaurant
like McDonalds or Burger King or buys convenience food in a store, who is responsible for the
deterioration in the consumer's health caused by eating that food? Is it the consumer or is it the company
that runs the restaurant? Suggested Response: Start by asking the students what they think the facts are.
Write their suggestions on the board using a T chart summarizing the facts. Have students write the details
of the factors in their notebooks.
The list should include at least the following facts. Students might come up with more. Write the
underlined headings on the appropriate side of the T chart. Note that some of the facts may go on both sides
of the T chart.
(1) Consumer Decides -- People are not forced to eat convenience food or to go into a fast food restaurant.
(2) Advertising/Marketing -- Convenience food manufacturers and fast food restaurants try to sell as much
food as they can. They use a number of marketing tactics including advertising aimed at children, pricing
structures aimed at getting people to purchase food they don't need (a good example is super sizing, the
increase in portion sizes for just a small increase in price), and advertising aimed at subconscious urges and
desires (like the desire to be cool and with the "in crowd").
(3) Nondisclosure -- Convenience food manufacturers often do not fully disclose the dangers of the foods
they serve. Frequently they lie and dissemble to hide how unhealthy their food really is.
(4) Ersatz Food -- Convenience food manufacturers manipulate the food to make it taste better, to make it
less expensive, and to add to its shelf life in ways that make the food more dangerous and less healthy.
(5) Cheap -- CF is often cheap and there is a benefit to consumers in having inexpensive food available to
them.
(6) Tasty -- CF often tastes good and consumers like that.
(7) Profits -- The CF companies make a large profit, hundreds of millions of dollars.
If the discussion stalls, the questions set out below might get the discussion going again.
A. If the industry creates the desire for the product through advertising, doesn’t it have some
responsibility for what happens when people try to satisfy that desire?
B. Advertising plays upon people psychologically in ways that are not immediately apparent to adults and
to children, especially young children. Shouldn't the industry which puts out that advertising and tries to
profit from it, pay for some of the collateral damage?
C. The convenience food companies have not been up front in their advertising about the dangers their
products present: the calories, the trans fat, the saturated fat, the sugar, and the salt. For example, it is
known that trans fats clog arteries and cause heart disease. The trans fat in convenience food is all manmade. A chemical process is used to convert unsaturated fat to saturated fat. If a fast food restaurant
advertises heavily, trying to get people to buy its product, claiming that it tastes good, and then puts trans
fats into it to increase shelf life, doesn't that restaurant have a responsibility to warn the consumer that there
are substances in the product that may be harmful? Is this also true of convenience food makers put high
amounts of salt, sugar, or fat in the food?
D. What about the fact that convenience food companies lie about the health effects of their food?
Remember what Mr. Spurlock found when he tested the data posted on the McDonalds web site?
E. The final decision to purchase is made by the consumer. While the company creates the desire, no one
forces the consumer to act on it.
F. What about this class, people who have seen the movie and had this lesson. The class has been warned
and the students in the class are now educated consumers. If one of the class goes into a fast food
restaurant, who's responsible now?
G. No one has time to check out the health benefits of all the food that they eat. How can the consumer be
held responsible?
2. Once the list includes at least the seven factors described above, ask for an answer to the question of who
is responsible, the consumer or the company. Suggested Response: TWM suggests that the strongest
answer is that there is responsibility on both sides. After about five minutes, cut off discussion of this issue
and pose the next question.
3. Tell students to imagine their class is a congressional committee with the responsibility to recommend
what the government should do to fight the obesity epidemic and to regulate the fast food industry. Tell the
class that this will be somewhat like the government's campaign to reduce smoking. The plan should be
based on the extent of responsibility that the consumer or the industry bears for the harm caused by eating
at places like McDonald's and Burger King. It should be practical. It should be effective. Suggested
Response: Here are some ideas about general ways to approach the problem. The class can add to this list
and must determine how best to implement these ideas. Possible solutions might include:
o
a sales tax on fast food to pay for PR campaigns to limit consumption, to defray the increased
medical costs of those who eat fast food, or to subsidize fresh food consumption; the problem with
this approach is that it would be very hard to determine which restaurants served fast food, so the
tax would have to be on all restaurants;
o
limits on restaurant hours;
o
limits on the age of customers;
o
requirements that warning labels be placed on food wrapping and menus;
o
requirements that alternative healthy choices be offered at a discounted price;
o
prohibition on advertising or limits on advertising, such as limits on advertising directed at
children;
o
creation of a really well-designed PR campaign to convince people stop eating convenience food;
o
prohibitions on super sizing;
o
limits on the calorie content, salt content and fat content; and
Summarize each suggestion on the board. When the creativity of the class has been exhausted or the time
allotted for this part of the exercise has been consumed, have the class debate whether the proposed
solution is just, practical to implement, and effective. Then let the class vote on which regulations to adopt.
o limits on the types of foods that can be sold, e.g., all meat must have a low fat content; all meals
must have a salad, a cooked green vegetable, and cheese or milk.
5. The fast food industry spends billions each year in advertising. Should this be prohibited or limited in
some way? Does your answer change for advertising geared toward children? Should Ronald McDonald be
banned? Suggested Response: A good discussion will include the following: Points for regulation or
prohibition of advertising by fast food restaurants: It has been determined that too much fast food (even a
moderate amount of fast food) is bad for your health. It is especially bad for children. The companies use
advertising to create the desire for their food. The techniques used by marketers and advertisers are often
subtle and based on subconscious drives that we are not even aware of. They do not disclose what is in the
food (like trans fats and HFCS) and they don't warn of the dangers of eating their food. For this reason, the
advertising should be regulated to require adequate disclosures and warnings about the dangers of fast food.
The argument for prohibiting advertisements aimed at children is much stronger than for advertising aimed
at adults. Children, especially young children, are very susceptible to advertising because, in their
innocence, they can't critically evaluate what they are hearing and seeing. For this reason we need the
government to come in and regulate advertising fast food and perhaps prohibit advertisements aimed at
children. Points against regulation or prohibition of advertising fast food restaurants: If you distort the
marketplace by too much regulation, the marketplace loses its efficiency. It is up to people to decide what
they put in their bodies. It is not up to the government to tell them what to eat. (Note that the First
Amendment does not stop the government from regulating the advertisement of commercial products. In
other words, if society decides that advertising a product needs to be regulated for an important public
good, the First Amendment does not prohibit that regulation. This is the basis for limits on tobacco
advertising.)
6. Should fast food outlets be invited onto campus to sell food to high school students? Suggested
Response: The general consensus in the country is that this is not a good idea because it promotes the
consumption of fast food by children. However, kids may disagree. This is a great question for debate.
7. What about selling sodas or sugared drinks at school through vending machines? Should that be allowed
or prohibited? Suggested Response: See response to preceding question.
8. By offering kids convenience food in the food line at the cafeteria are we setting them up to make bad
choices or giving them an opportunity to make good choices? Suggested Response: The proof is in the
pudding, so to speak. When offered fast food, kids will usually take it.
9. Should people stop eating meat and poultry? Justify your answer. Suggested Response: People disagree
on this. A good discussion will raise the following points. Points against eating meat: Not eating meat is
better for our health. Meat contains fat and many contaminants. Not eating meat is better for the
environment. Meat production takes a tremendous toll on the environment. A meat-free diet is better for the
animals. They won't be tortured and then killed. Not eating meat helps reduce world hunger. Feeding
animals grain and then eating the meat of the animal wastes a lot of grain. The animal moves around using
up the food energy and a lot of grain goes to create the non-edible parts of the animal. It takes at least seven
pounds of grain to make one pound of meat. World hunger could probably be eliminated if all the grain fed
to animals was made available to people. Points for eating meat: Meat, milk, and cheese taste good. They
are a good source of protein and calcium and some people believe they need it for proper nutrition. If it was
really dangerous, the government wouldn't let it on the market. Rebuttal: Vegans (who eat no animal
products) and vegetarians (who do not eat meat or poultry but will consume dairy products and eggs) live
long and healthy lives. Neither meat nor dairy products are necessary for good nutrition. With respect to the
argument that if it was really dangerous the government would do something, the answer is that the
government is beholden to the agricultural and convenience food interests. The government didn't stop the
tobacco companies for decades even when it knew cigarettes were killing hundreds of thousands each year.
We can't trust the government to take care of us when there are powerful industries lobbying to stop
government action. And so the only reason the proponents of eating meat are left with is the fact that meat,
milk, and cheese taste good. This means that people are hurting their health, contributing to the destruction
Social-Emotional Learning Discussion Questions:
TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF
of the environment, and killing billions of innocent animals simply for pleasure when they eat. [Note that
the author of this Lesson Plan is a vegan and believes that people can get good nutrition without meat and
dairy and should not eat food from animals because it inflicts needless suffering.]
Moral-Ethical Emphasis Discussion Questions (Character Counts)
Discussion Questions Relating to Ethical Issues will facilitate the use of this film to teach ethical
principles and critical viewing. Additional questions are set out below.
RESPONSIBILITY
1. Can you really take care of yourself if you don't pay attention to what you eat? Suggested Response: No. You are
what you eat. The food that you put into your body is all that your body has to replenish and grow its cells.
(Do what you are supposed to do; Persevere: keep on trying!; Always do your best; Use self-control; Be selfdisciplined; Think before you act -- consider the consequences; Be accountable for your choices)
See Discussion Question #1.
1. When an adolescent (ages 11 - 18) makes a decision about how to take care of his or her body, including weight
and nutrition, who are the people who will be affected by this decision? (We call them stakeholders) Note that some
of the stakeholders may not yet be alive. Suggested Response: Stakeholders include the
Bridges to Reading: adolescents themselves (that means you!), spouses, siblings, children, parents, employers, and
friends. All of these people are affected by how well a person takes care of him or herself. These decisions are
especially important for adolescents because they are growing and laying the foundation for their future health.
Don't Eat This Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America by Morton Spurlock, 2005, G.P. Putnam's Sons,
New York. Mr. Spurlock's style is breezy and irreverent and will appeal to young adults. In his book he repeats and
supplements the information provided in the film. A few sections give some of the background behind the
production of the movie. TeachWithMovies.com recommends this book highly.
Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, 2001, Harper Perennial -- This is the pioneering best selling classic. The fast
food industry hasn't changed much since 2001.
Chew On This: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson, 2006,
Houghton, Mifflin, Boston -- Designed for adolescents, this book updates Fast Food Nation.
The Jungle (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) by Sinclair Lewis with a forward by Eric Schlosser. This was the first
exposé of the meat industry. President Theodore Roosevelt read this book and was interested to find out if the
charges made by Mr. Lewis were true. He appointed a commission to investigate and they reported that it was.
Outraged, T.R. pushed legislation through Congress trying to reform the industry. However, many abusive practices
remain.
Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser, 2003, Houghton Mifflin
Company, New York -- This is an excellent and readable book.