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Proposal for Research on Fast Foods

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Proposal for Research on Fast Foods
Proposal: Change in the fast food industry (we can take a specific restaurant like McDonald’s) to fight obesity
Fast food and obesity
The relationship between a nation's fast food consumption and its rate of obesity has been studied. Schlosser said "it seems wherever America's fast food chains go, waistlines inevitably start expanding."
Schlosser argues that the North America has the highest obesity rate of any industrialized nation. More than half of all adults and about one-quarter of all children are now classified as obese or overweight. Those proportions are believed to have increased dramatically during the last few decades, along with the consumption of fast food, with the rate of obesity among North American children twice as high as in the late 1970s.
An obese person is someone with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or higher. Today about 44 million American adults are considered obese, with an additional 6 million so-called super-obese i.e. they weigh about a hundred pounds more than they should. Schlosser comments that "No other nation in history has gotten so fat so fast." In simple terms, Schlosser argues, when people eat more and move less, they get fat. In North America, people have become increasingly sedentary and consume more restaurant meals, including fast food. As people eat more food outside the home, they consume more calories, less fiber, and more fat.
We propose some changes in the fast food industry to reduce rates of obesity and improve overall health of our nation.
Possible changes: * Phase out artificial trans fan in all restaurants; * Require calorie labeling in restaurants; * Make activity more accessible, by, for example, building communities to allow more walking or biking. * Regulate TV food ads aimed at children and mandate equal time for pro-nutrition messages. * Ban fast foods and soft drinks from schools, instead forging school contracts with sports-related companies. * Restructure school lunch

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