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As a viewer, I found the documentary Supersize Me and contents to be particularly disturbing.  For this blog post, I would like to take the opportunity to reflect on the film and obesity in America.  

In America, fast food consumers are extremely ill-informed of the ingredients of the foods they consume on a regular basis.  Such ingredients can range from lab-produced chemicals to words many consumers cannot even pronounce.  While this may be grounds to argue that the fast food industry is misleading its consumers, it is however, not grounds for a law suit.  In Supersize Me, I, personally, was appalled by suit filed by the parents of two morbidly obese teenage girls.  While consumers may not be able to identify the extent to which consuming such food harms one’s body, it should be common knowledge to all Americans that consuming fast foods is, by no means, healthy.  Further, a number of fast food restaurants display nutritional information on their websites.  Don’t have internet?  Pamphlets with nutritional information are available at each restaurant upon request.  

I have little to no sympathy for overweight Americans who try to point the finger at the fast food industry, among many other causes, as the source of their weight issue.  While I can tolerate the “genetics” (give or take 20 or so pounds), attributing 100+ pounds of extra body weight to “genetics” seems a little ridiculous.  To these Americans, I pose these questions: Were your great grandparents in the early 1900s morbidly obese? (Probably not).  Do you see a correlation between the rise of obesity and the rise of fast food consumption? (The answer should be yes).  In short, I feel the only person responsible for being overweight is oneself.  An individual has control over the food they consume and the amount of exercise he or she receives.   

In sum, Americans need to stop blaming the fast food industry and genetics as the source of their obesity.  Americans need to “get informed.”