Fast Food - Should It Be Banned?

[SOLDIER #819]

If a lung cancer patient would light up a cigarette, everyone would be in total awe. Whereas when a fat person would eat a dozen of fatty hamburgers, people around the table wouldn't dare to comment on it cause you "can't blame them, they have a disease"...

Come again?

But yeah, fast food is something I can really enjoy and I'm glad I have the opportunity to. But the same liberty that brings so many good things in our everyday life brings as much bad things to people who have more trouble controlling themselves.

I guess discipline is the key. But our fast money driven world I so despise doesn't make it easier.

Haha, hmm... I don't think I've ever gotten sympathy for being fat. I've always been told it's a matter of choice, and at some points teased in that light. I don't think most people have gotten it either, even if they truly have a condition that would cause them to be overweight. Culture has managed to assimilate both being overweight AND its reasons/excuses for being as such, so people will think what they want regardless of the situation.

It's the same with quitting smoking now that you mention it... so I also can understand it being difficult despite never having done it. People who have never experienced it can make it seem so easy... and I really wish it was, but that isn't how it is (for me).

But you're right, for most people it really is a matter of discipline. But I think that condensing the process into one word trivializes it and the numerous variables involved with it. I remember explaining calorie counting to a friend who simply went and said, "You don't have to count! Just get some exercise every once in a while and eat less!"

But then you have to wonder what once in a while is and what "less" really means, especially bringing fast food into the equation. Common sense can easily betray you, and when you get serious about being healthy you inevitably branch out into the sciences. And everyone's bodies, habits, and dispositions are different. It's just very hard to strike that balance... which is probably why so many people crash with their diets or why diets fail to yield ideal results much of the time.

Soooo, health-wise the world would be much better off without fast food. But since food can actually be awesome on many different levels (which any of us know if we go out to eat, or drink), there's yet another balance that needs to be considered.