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Jacob Boger

Robert Arnold

ENGL 1102-063

03 May 2011

Dear Mr. Lawson:

America has been called the fattest and most obese nation, with more than 12 thousand

McDonald¶s in the United States and more than 200 in New York City alone. Researchers say

³400,000 deaths per year are due to obesity´ and ³one in four Americans hunger for fast food

restaurants´ (Super Size Me, 2004) which is an alarming rate, and that doesn¶t lead to improving

our image or more importantly our health. I understand that you say that it is not the fast food

chains fault for making someone obese and that it is up to the consumer to make healthy

decisions about their eating habits but when a company markets their slogan to ³I¶m lovin¶ it´

and then repeatedly bombards you with advertisements on the radio and TV it is hard to judge

them as a company that is trying to sell you something that is unhealthy. There has also been

much research and tests done that prove eating at these fast food restaurants are indeed bad for

you and t you should eat at them as little as possible.

Let me start off with a little history about what the McDonald¶s restaurants were created

for. In 1948 Dick and Mac McDonald open McDonald¶s in San Bernardino, California where

they sell hamburgers for 15 cents. One year later they replace the potato chips on the menu with

their now world famous French fries. The whole idea behind McDonald¶s wasn¶t to become the

largest fast food chain restaurant in the world all while serving greasy fatty foods, but as a place
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to grab a quick snack to eat which proof of this can be found on McDonalds own website. Now it

seems that with all the advertising they pump out that they want you to eat there for breakfast,

lunch, and dinner every day. Not to mention how bad for your body the food is from there, a

BigMac with a small fry and small coke has 920 calories and this is without adding ketchup for

the fries and refills for the drinks; that is almost half the amount of the daily recommended

value. Sure they might be trying to help but putting all that information on the box of the

hamburgers, but they decided to put it on the bottom of the box, which would be the last place

someone would look when trying to find out about food nutrition.

The Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults did a study that showed

³people who ate fast food two or more times a week experienced an average weight gain of 10

pounds more than study participants who ate fast food less than once a week´ and ³extensive

health issues, that goes beyond fast food and obesity.´ (Science Daily, 2005) and they also found

it could increase insulin resistance in your body. This test was performed on over 3,000 adults

over a span of 15 years which led to these findings.

Evidence of just how unhealthy their food can be was illustrated in the 2004 film ¢


¢ by director Morgan Spurlock. He set out to see if eating nothing but McDonald¶s for 30

days for breakfast, lunch, and dinner is bad for ones health. He wanted to do this for the fact that

several lawsuits had been taken out against McDonalds for selling food that they know is

unhealthy, but before he begins his eating adventure he goes to three different doctors to have

general health checked and to have them monitor him over the next 30 days. He also goes and

interviews a law professor and asks him about his views on McDonalds and he states ³it¶s fair to

point the big gun toward McDonalds´ and goes to say that it is the biggest and the only one with

a playground for the kids to play on and the only fast food chain with a cartoon show. Morgan
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starts his first day by eating a BigMac and two days later he says he already feels miserable and

nauseous and actually throws up his food shortly after. About three fourths through the movie he

gets a check up and the doctor cannot believe how much of a jump his tests and demands him to

stop and that he could seriously hurt his body. This documentary goes to show that eating at

McDonalds no matter what the case is bad for your health and that you should not make it a

normal way of eating, but instead eat at family style restaurants or cook at home.

³Eating at a fast food restaurant is their own fault if they become unhealthy from it´ I can

see where you would say it is their fault for eating there if they know it is bad for them but what

happens for example if they have a child and they want to eat there. Most parents will take their

kid to a McDonalds if that¶s what they want to eat, I know my mom did and it was because of the

play place and the chicken nuggets that I loved. As they grow older they will keep returning to

McDonalds to remember what it was like eating their food and how it made them feel. It is

almost like there is a physiological backing to the way they run their business, by marketing to

kids at a young age and to get them to keep coming back for the toys and other reasons and as

they grow up keep reminding them by the amount of ads and sheer size in the number of

locations to eat from. Also another thing to blame them for are the oversized proportions they

serve so once the consumer eats there they begin to think that, that much food is normal when in

reality it can lead to many dangerous health problems. Jenny Murphy states that ³It is estimated

that kids get up to 40 percent of their meals from fast-food chains, convenience stores and

restaurants´ and that in ³1991, one in eight Americans were obese. In 1999, the number had

increased to one in five´ now 12 years later I am sure the number is one in three.

I do agree to an extent with you when people take lawsuits out against these food chains

claiming that the food that they severed to them is unhealthy and made them obese by eating
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there. Some may think that they are crazy and that common sense would play a role in that but

they are actually winning their cases in court. The judges state that if you can prove that the food

that you are eating from these restaurants is indeed bad for you and can show support for it, then

you can have a case against them. Many people in the beginning of all this thought that people

could actually win these cases, but people thought the same thing when they first started suing

the tobacco companies for selling them a product that can lead to cancer and harm them. Sadly as

it is though they have actually pass a bill dubbed the ³cheeseburger bill´ that blocks attempts to

sue a company for the unhealthy food they server when the consumer knows it isn¶t good for

them, and I agree that they should do this to protect themselves.

I hope you can see why I believe that in general McDonald¶s food isn¶t the best place to

turn to when you want a meal for you and your family but should be more for a quick bite on the

run. I also hope that we can come to an agreement that the fast food chains should not be held

responsible for people¶s obesity problems and unhealthy lifestyles.

Thank you for your time,

Jacob Boger
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orks Cited

'Cheeseburger bill' puts bite on lawsuits¶ CNN Politics 20 October 2005

< http://articles.cnn.com/2005-10-20/politics/cheeseburger.bill_1_cheeseburger-bill-fast-

food-chains-food-industry?_s=PM:POLITICS>

4Fast Food Statistics and Obesity in America´ Health Tree 08 February 2011
<http://www.healthtree.com/articles/obesity/causes/fast-food/>
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³McDonald¶s Corporation´ Funding Universe 21 February 2011

< http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/McDonalds-Corporation-

Company-History.html>

Murphy, Jenny. ³The Super-Sizing of America.´ Speakout.com 15 June 2000. 10 February 2011

<http://www.speakout.com/>

³Nutrition´ www.mcdonalds.com 21 February 2011

<http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/food/food_quality/nutrition_choices.html>

Super Size Me. Morgan Spurlock. Morgan Spurlock, 2004