Thursday, March 15, 2007

Watched Supersize me last night


you know how CRAZY I am about fast food to begin with...my stomach turns at the smell of McD's and I can EAT Wendy's and the occasional Burger King, but seriously, if I eat fast food 6 times a year, it's a big year. We have Portillo's when the girls come in and when they leave...and even at the mall, I'll wait to go home and eat 99% of the time...
Since beginning to learn about nutrition and fat and sodium intake, and then adding on the Body by God knowledge like "natural and artificial flavors added" is actually a drop of really dense flavoring that if you have ALONE, you will still think you are eating a burger, I just don't do fast food.
It all started, though, when my sister worked at Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips in high school and came home smelling like rancid oil and fish. Seriously, after a year of that smell late at night, would YOU be a fast food fan??? Oh gag me with the Long John Silver's. Blech. Pause while I wait for my stomach to settle down. tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.

Some facts from the movie:
Each day, 1 in 4 Americans visits a fast food restaurant
In 1972, we spent 3 billion a year on fast food - today we spend more than 110 billion
McDonald's feeds more than 46 million people a day - more than the entire population of Spain
French fries are the most eaten vegetable in America
You would have to walk for seven hours straight to burn off a Super Sized Coke, fry and Big Mac In the U.S., we eat more than 1,000,000 animals an hour
60 % of all Americans are either overweight or obese
One in every three children born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetime
Left unabated, obesity will surpass smoking as the leading cause of preventable death in America
Obesity has been linked to: Hypertension, Coronary Heart Disease, Adult Onset Diabetes, Stroke, Gall Bladder Disease, Osteoarthritis, Sleep Apnea, Respiratory Problems, Endometrial, Breast, Prostate and Colon Cancers, Dyslipidemia, steatohepatitis, insulin resistance, breathlessness, Asthma, Hyperuricaemia, reproductive hormone abnormalities, polycystic ovarian syndrome, impaired fertility and lower back pain
The average child sees 10,000 TV advertisements per year
Only seven items on McDonald's entire menu contain no sugar
Willard Scott was the first Ronald McDonald - he was fired for being too fat
McDonald's distributes more toys per year than Toys-R-Us
Diabetes will cut 17-27 years off your life
McDonald's: "Any processing our foods undergo make them more dangerous than unprocessed foods"
The World Health Organization has declared obesity a global epidemic
Eating fast food may be dangerous to your health
McDonald's calls people who eat a lot of their food "Heavy Users"
McDonald's operates more than 30,000 restaurants in more then 100 countries on 6 continents
Before most children can speak they can recognize McDonald's
Surgeon General David Satcher: "Fast food is a major contributor to the obesity epidemic"
Most nutritionists recommend not eating fast food more than once a month
40% of American meals are eaten outside the home
McDonald's represents 43% of total U.S. fast food market

Between that and seeing the guy barf after his first double quarter pounder with cheese value meal, which took him like 40 minutes to eat, I'm MORE anti-fast food than ever.

Before launching this experiment, Spurlock, age 33, was healthy and slim, with a body weight of 185.5 Pound Body Mass Index raised from 23.2 (within the 'healthy' range of 19-25) to 27 ('overweight'). He also experienced mood swings, sexual dysfunction and nearly catastrophic liver damage. It took Spurlock fourteen months to lose the weight he gained.
After five days Spurlock has gained almost 10 pounds. It is not long before he finds himself with a feeling of depression, and not much longer until he finds his bouts of depression, lethargy, and headache are relieved by a McDonald's meal. One doctor describes him as "addicted." He has soon gained another 10 pounds, putting his weight at 203 lb. By the end of the month he weighs about 210 lb, an increase of almost 25 lb. Because he could only eat McDonald's food for a month, Spurlock refused to take any medication at all.
Spurlock had lost much of his energy and sex drive during his experiment. Around day 20, Spurlock experiences heart palpitations. Consultation with his concerned general practitioner, reveals that Spurlock's liver is pâté," and the doctor advises him to stop what he is doing immediately to avoid any serious heart problems.
Spurlock makes it to day 30 and achieves his goal. In thirty days, he "Supersized" his meals nine times along the way (five of which were in Texas, the state with the highest number of "fat cities" in the U.S.) All three doctors are surprised at the degree of deterioration in Spurlock's health.


I know what you're going to say...well, I don't eat it 3x/day for a month. But the evidence, imho, is pretty clear that processed, high fat/high carb food is not good for us. And in the film, 95/100 nutritionists said we should NEVER fast food....just something to think about today.

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