Consequences of eating fast food

Fast food is an important part of the daily life. With the agitated rhythm of actual life, many people need food that can be prepared and served in a small amount of time. Fast food restaurants offer a quick and cheap service. And the food is really tasty, everybody likes it. Imagine a big hamburger, with hot and salty meat and big peppers; accompanied by this salty French fries…Mmm it´s seemsdelicious really? It could be the perfect meal... if it was not the unhealthiest thing you may eat. The ill effect of fast food and the potential danger that it possesses by its regular consumption is shocking. Obesity, increase in cholesterol levels, nutritional deficiencies, cardiac disorders, loss of muscle mass, depression and even sexual dysfunction, can all be caused by eating fast food on aregular basis.
Fast food is loaded with calories from refined sugar and fats (especially, the artery-clogging saturated and hydrogenated fats, which are repeatedly reheated to high temperatures for frying purposes). It is also very high in sodium, coming from common salt and other additives. On top of all this, fast food is deficient in dietary fiber and essential micro-nutrients like vitaminsand minerals. To make matters worse, heaps of fast food are normally guzzled down with gallons of sugar-rich colas which many fast-food restaurants serve free with food as an incentive. To make a long story short, all this results in piling up of unused empty calories in the body, which get stored as body fat till one day you look in the mirror and realize that your great figure has been replacedby this fat creature in the mirror. And obesity is not simply an eyesore but it is a major risk factor for a large number of deadly diseases like hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease, and even many types of cancers.
After this, that hamburger doesn´t looks that appetizing, don´t you think so? Maybe after knowing this you wouldn´t eat it, but what is really amazing is thatmany people will. Why they still consume this food although they know the damage it makes is not a big mystery. Recent scientific studies have shown that high-calorie foods rich in fats, refined sugar and salt could reconfigure the hormones in the body in such a way that they make you crave for such foods and always leave you asking for more. In other words, fast food is kind of addictive; you gethooked on to it and continue consuming it in an uncontrolled way in spite of knowing that it is unhealthy. The more you consume, the more difficult it is for you to opt for healthy foods.
Publicity doesn´t helps in the process of taking people away from fast food. The biggest and most famous restaurant chains in the world are fast food restaurants. I mean, who doesn´t knows Mc Donald´s and BurgerKing? This big companies expend billions of dollars in publicity, and with the process of globalization, the fast food empire keeps growing. McDonald's is located in 126 countries and on 6 continents and operates over 31,000 restaurants worldwide. Burger King has more than 11,100 restaurants in more than 65 countries. KFC is located in 25 countries. Subway is one of the fastest growing franchisesin the world with approximately 39,129 restaurants in 90 countries as of May 2009, the first non-US location opening in December 1984 in Bahrain. Pizza Hut is located in 97 countries, with 100 locations in China. Taco Bell has 278 restaurants located in 14 countries besides the United States. All this companies generate thousands of billions of dollars, and give employ to many people around theworld, so they are many interests and hopes put on them. In the United States alone, consumers spent about US$110 billion on fast food in 2000 (which increased from US$6 billion in 1970). The National Restaurant Association forecasted that fast food restaurants in the U.S. would reach US$142 billion in sales in 2006, a 5% increase over 2005. In comparison, the full-service restaurant segment of...