Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation has opened the eyes of thousands of Americans to the unfortunate realities of fast food in the United States today. Although the fast food industry, led by McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s, seems innocent enough, any prolonged study of it leads to some troubling figures. Schlosser reports in Fast Food Nation that these restaurants, specifically McDonald’s, are growing at an exponential rate. Schlosser states that “in 1968, McDonald’s operated about one thousand restaurants. Today it has about thirty thousand restaurants worldwide and opens almost two thousand new ones each year” (Schlosser 4). Even more astounding than the physical growth of the fast food is how much money Americans spend on it. Schlosser claims that “Americans now spend more money on fast food than on higher education, personal computers, computer software, or new cars…They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music – combined” (Schlosser 3).

There is a very simple explanation for these occurrences. People will continue to eat fast food, and therefore economically support fast food restaurants because the food is good and it is ready immediately. Everybody knows that fast food is absolutely awful for you. In this day and age it has become old news. According to the menu on McDonald’s official website, a Big Mac has five hundred and forty calories. However, to be frank, nobody cares. Schlosser comments on the fact that fast food now has “an air of inevitability, as if it [is] somehow unavoidable” (Schlosser 7). I certainly have had first hand experiences with this phenomenon. It seems that every single time my family goes on an extended road trip of any kind; we will eat at a fast food restaurant. Whenever we get hungry on the trip, we begin to ask each other where we want to eat. We all agree that we are open to eating anywhere, but that we don’t want to go to McDonald’s. It’s not that we don’t like how it tastes; we just know that it’s extremely unhealthy. However more times than not, we will end up eating at McDonald’s because it is incredibly convenient, cheap, and the food tastes good. None of us will be particularly happy about eating there, but we still enjoy the delicious food, and economically support the McDonald’s franchise.

The growth of the fast food industry and its subsequent domination of the food industry as a whole certainly have many negative ramifications. None of these is more alarming than the health of children in the United States. Schlosser mentions in Fast Food Nation that food companies have launched advertisements directed solely at children. They have even put up advertisements on the inside of school buses. As it is, fast food is a staple of many Americans’ diets. If this kind of large scale advertisement continues, the diet of future generations may not only include fast food, but fast food may dominate the diets of future Americans. I’ll admit that fast food companies have done a good job of attempting to offer healthier choices on their menu, but no diet should be centered around fast food, and that is the ultimatum that I believe we are headed towards.

Works Cited

"Big Mac :: McDonalds.com." Home :: McDonalds.com. Web. 15 Jan. 2012. Mac.html>.

Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. Print.