I just finished reading: Is Junk Food Really Cheaper? and have some thoughts on the matter. The article basically validates what I have been telling my girlfriend for the past two years (and my other friends and my family before her), that eating dinner at home is cheaper than eating out at a Fast Food restaurant. 
I’ve long been disgusted by the threat that Fast Food poses to the Nation’s Health. It’s because I know people who eat far too much Fast Food and have no… fucking… clue… because they’ve been doing it all their life. They’ll tell you that they only do it “once a week”; as if they are the poster-child for dietary moderation. They’re not. Do you have any idea how toxic and addicting that shit is? It should be eaten a few times a year, at max. I’m sorry if I come across as a bit heated- it’s because I am. I’m frustrated with people’s own weakness and inability to care for themselves. In my opinion, regular consumption of Fast Food is an indication of poor self-respect. If you love yourself and feel that you are a worthy, loveable human being, you wouldn’t want to poison your body. But some people feel that one of the only comforts they will ever have in this world is a weekly pork-out-fest at the Golden Arches, and so they eat themselves deeper into their depression.
We can’t blame the Fast Food companies either. The most successful companies in the world make their money by exploiting people’s emotional vulnerabilities. The cigarette companies have given us our fair warning. Every kid born after 1975 has been bombarded with messages about how smoking is bad, and how it will make you ugly and crusty like the old man on t.v. who breaths from his neck like one of the tunnel dwelling Morlocks from the Uncanny X-Men. The public was given their fair warning, and the people who still choose to smoke do it full well knowing that they are hurting themselves. Most people who smoke have parents who smoke. They’ve watched their parents try to kick the habit and fail. Yet, the kids will pick up their first cigarette for the first time for precisely the same reason that the Truth.com people tell them not to: it’s bad for them. Teenagers question and doubt themselves, and they’re looking to rebel against a society that tries to contain their budding quest for mature freedom. They want to smoke precisely because their parents tell them not to. “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!” And the poor people who can’t afford a PS3 and an X5 will give you the same message. “Fuck you, I won’t eat what you tell me! No one gives a shit about me, so I’m going to destroy my body because it gives me immediate satisfaction. My life is so stressed out and shitty and I’m so emotionally drained, that I don’t have the energy to do what you say is healthy. I deserve something quick, easy and self-indulgent because I’ve endured the hell that my daily life is.” Cigarette companies and Fast Food companies have found a way to profit on the misery and desperation of the majority of Americans. They just put out a product- they have no control over what the public chooses to do with it.
On a less sarcastic note (Capitalism has no morality, and thus we can’t expect corporations to behave morally), maybe the heads of those companies are as frustrated as I am watching those people eat themselves to death. I grow weary of watching people I care for struggle with their weight and health problems, only to have them explain my incredibly lucky life-long streak of good health as “good genes”. “You got lucky, you’ll always be skinny.” Which is not true, because when I stop exercising and eating healthy food, I gain weight just as fast as the next Bub-chub. I get angry at those people for not caring enough about themselves to put in the extra effort of making healthy choices. My anger makes me want to start a Fast Food company myself, so I can profit by feeding people their own depression too. I want to encourage them to stay unhealthy, so that they all have a heaps of little fatties running (walking?) around the school yard in 8 years. These are the same kids that are going to be competing with my kids, trying out for the same little league or gymnastics team, competing for a girlfriend or boyfriend, or taking the same standardized test in school (yes, research does show that a poor diet will make your kids dumber). This anger at them makes me want them to suffer.
And then I realize that the anger I feel for these people is probably the same anger that they feel for themselves. They are probably disgusted too. The hopelessness that I feel for their situation is probably less intense than the hopelessness they feel for themselves. They probably feel they deserve to be punished for their worthlessness. And what better punishment is there for the body than one that tastes soooo good going down? What better way to destroy oneself out of spite than a Whooper with fries? Couple that with a cigarette to kill a few alveoli in the lungs while you’re at it, and you have happy suicide.
Maybe the answer to poor health in America is to stop punishing the people who are subconsciously punishing themselves. Lawmakers and the Truth.com people are out shaming smokers every chance they can get. Addiction is a nasty physiological, neuro-chemical trap that is doubly reinforced by shame. Maybe the way to get people who are addicted to Fast Food to love themselves is for the rest of us to love them first. Or maybe I’m just a stupid hippie who needs a swift kick in the ass. What do I know.
