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https://theconversation.com/fast-food-nation-predicted-todays-chronic-illness-epidemic-25-years-ago-275935>
"I was a junior doctor on the front lines when journalist Eric Schlosser
published
Fast Food Nation 25 years ago. Back then, my days (and far too many
nights) were spent picking up the pieces of a healthcare system that already
felt like it was bursting at the seams.
Fast Food Nation pulled back the curtain on the fast-food industry, showing
how a system built for speed, efficiency and profit reshaped what Americans
eat, how food is produced and the conditions under which many people worked.
More broadly, it revealed the harms of the industrial food system as a whole.
The
New York Times called it “a fine piece of muckraking, alarming without
being alarmist”.
We are no longer looking at a warning of what might happen. We are living
through the reality Schlosser predicted: that allowing this hyper-processed,
factory-style fast-food model to creep into our daily lives would drive a
heartbreaking global epidemic of obesity and preventable chronic illness.
Today, we know ultra-processed foods are linked to over 30 serious health
problems, including cardiovascular disease (heart attacks and strokes), type 2
diabetes and mood disorders (anxiety and depression).
In an afterword to the 25th-anniversary edition, Schlosser shares angry
responses to the book from McDonald’s, the National Restaurant Association and
the National Meat Institute. He also describes being heckled at events,
including by a man who put him in a headlock in a carpark and shouted, “Why do
you hate America, why do you hate America so much?”
Today, United States health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr and his MAHA (Make
America Healthy Again) movement echo the messages of Scholsser’s book,
declaring ultra-processed foods “poison” and the main culprit of the nation’s
“chronic disease epidemic”. (At the same time, president Donald Trump worked
the McDonald’s drive-thru counter on the 2024 campaign trail and has even made
a habit of serving McDonald’s to athletes at the White House.)"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
