Solutions to the Fast Food Industry

Sophya D. Limantara 


Prof. Tom Fink

Should I continue to buy and consume those delicious looking burgers and French fries? That is the most important decision. The fast food industry will continue to prosper along with its defective practices if we don’t strive for a change. In order to prevent child exploitation, corrupted labor, and a deadly fast food epidemic, organized campaigns are needed to pressure this corrupted industry. These organizations would have the power to enforce solutions such as: banning children-directed advertisements on unhealthful meals, giving fast food workers more rights and better working conditions, and improving food safety laws.

Advertisements on fast food that targets kids should not be allowed, for it promotes poor eating habits. Most children watch TV a majority of their day, therefore they give their ultimate attention to what ever plays on the screen, including detrimental ads. Schlosser wrote:
                  Congress should immediately ban all advertisements aimed at children that promotes foods   high in fat and sugar…A ban on advertising unhealthy foods to children would discourage eating habits that are not only hard to break, but potentially life-threatening. Moreover, such a ban would encourage fast food chains to alter the recipes for their children’s meals. (262)

Banning these advertisements is definitely a good first step in making a difference in children’s lives. Putting an end to this dangerous exposure will not only help prevent children from becoming regular fast food customers throughout their lifetime, but actually encourage them to eat more healthfully and grow up stronger.

This will have a good impact on the fast food restaurants, because they would want to make their food more desirable to meet customer’s demands. Not wanting to risk losing their precious customers, they would most likely change their menu to be more healthful. The first place that should improve their meals are school cafeterias, who serves mainly children:
                 As for the food now served at school cafeterias, it should be safer to eat than what is sold at fast food restaurants, not less safe. The USDA should insist upon the highest possible food safety standards from every company that supplies ground beef to the school lunch program – or it should stop purchasing ground beef. American taxpayers shouldn’t be paying for food that might endanger their children. (Schlosser 263)

School meals should definitely be safer than fast food restaurants because most children will eat in school when they are hungry, and school food should be the most reliable and the more healthful food. It is cheaper than most fast food restaurants, and many children get free school meals.

For this reason, New York City public schools are taking action in changing their school meals. They are concerned about the rising epidemic in childhood obesity, in which fast food is a major factor, and hope to stop it, thus creating the “Nutritional Quality of School Food Meals” policy that requires public schools to:

Restrict the fat content of meals as follows:

             - Total fat will be limited to 30 percent of the total calories over the course of the week.
             - Saturated fat will be limited to 10 percent of the total calories over the course of the week.
             - Partially hydrogenated oils will be limited in accordance with current dietary guidelines.
             Provide limited amounts of sodium and cholesterol.
             Provide restricted amounts of high fructose corn syrup, with a goal of eliminating high fructose    corn syrup from all products.
             Offer and promote the consumption of fresh fruit and a variety of vegetables daily.
            Offer and promote the inclusion of plant-based entrees.
            Offer three varieties of reduced-fat milk:
            - Low-fat (1%),
            - Fat-free, and
            - Fat-free chocolate milk.
            Exception: Some special populations (i.e. special education) may receive whole milk. (The New York City Department of Education Wellness Policies on Physical Activity and Nutrition)

This will promote children eating more healthfully in school by providing a variety of choices. They did not offer these many vegetables and fruits before, nor were they serious enough about creating efficient nutrition guidelines. It is now safer to eat school food than before, and definitely more healthful than fast food restaurants. As a result of enforcing this policy, children will have better eating habits throughout their lives:
                    Our broad-based approach to wellness includes commonsense strategies, such as making healthful foods available in our schools while increasing opportunities for students to be physically active. Through these efforts, we aim to help students to make healthier choices today and to develop healthful habits that will last a lifetime. We encourage all school community members to review these policies and begin a serious consideration of how wellness can be integrated into daily teaching and learning, as well as extending to students’ lives outside school. (The New York City Department of Education Wellness Policies on Physical Activity and Nutrition)

Furthermore, it takes people in the community to help promote healthful eating habits. Teach your children about the importance of consuming safe meals, instead of dangerous ones that you see on television. Spread this information so our future generation can live their life happily and be healthy.
Moreover, Michelle Obama recently launched a campaign called “Let’s Move”, with the goal to end childhood obesity in one generation. The first lady realized that the childhood obesity epidemic is rising, and becoming a major health issue, and plans to stop it: “’We all know the numbers, I mean one in three kids are overweight and obese, and we’re spending $150 billion a year treating obesity-related illnesses. So we know this is a problem, and there’s a lot at stake” (Qtd in Ferran). Obama is focusing on providing children nutritious school meals, where they are getting a majority of their calories, “President Obama also plans to reauthorize the Child Nutrition Act, the first lady said, and is proposing a $10 billion budget increase-- $1 billion a year for ten years—to help provide nutritious school lunches to those who qualify” (Ferran). Better yet, the First Lady wants to make it easier for the people to read nutrition labels on food products including fast food so that we can choose healthful food much easier, “to help parents, the first lady said she’s working with the Food and Drug Administration and major food manufacturers and retailers to make it easier for parents to identify healthier foods by placing nutrition labeling on the front of the package” (Ferran). The First Lady is taking major action toward good changes; hopefully this will happen within one generation.

Another crucial area for improvement is protecting and improving working conditions for fast food workers. Employees of the fast food industry should be appreciated and treated better, as potential employees that will help improve and grow with the company, not as self-operated machines that are expected to do their job without proper training:
                   Job training schemes subsidized by the federal government should insist that companies employ workers for at least a year – and actually provide some training. Strict enforcement of minimum wage, overtime, and child labor laws would improve lives of fast food workers, as would OSHA regulations on workplace violence at restaurants. Passing new laws to facilitate union organizing might not lead to picket lines in front of every McDonald’s, but it would encourage the fast food industry to treat workers better and listen to their complaints… And if the nation is genuinely interested in their future, it will adequately fund their education, instead of inviting advertisers into the schools. (Schlosser 262)

It is actually a good idea to give employees the chance to express their opinions. Since they are the ones working there, they know best what areas the fast food restaurant is lacking in terms of giving customers and employees the best satisfaction and how they should improve their service. Listening to their comments and/or complaints would help the fast food restaurant better their service and be more prosperous.

Not only is the working condition important for fast food employees, but for the workers at the meatpacking firms also. These meatpacking employees should be protected by the food safety laws. The meatpacking industry is a corrupted industry that does not want to be responsible for protecting its workers, violating labor laws. They know their workers get injured continually, yet they do not plan to take any precautionary actions to prevent future injuries:
                     Almost any workplace injury, viewed in isolation, can be described as an “accident”. Workers are routinely made to feel responsible for their own injuries, and many do indeed make mistakes. But when at least one-third of the meatpacking workers are injured every year, when the causes of those injuries are well known, when the means to prevent those injuries are readily available and yet not applied, there is nothing accidental about the lacerations, amputations, cumulative traumas, and deaths in the meat packing industry. These injuries do not stem from individual mistakes. They are systematic, and they are caused by greed. (Schlosser 265)

The owners who run these meatpacking plants are not the least bit concerned about their worker’s injuries that they claimed as accidents. All they care about is making as much profit in the shortest time possible, which is the reason why workers are getting hurt. They take advantage of the fact that their workers can’t protect themselves, since many of them are illegal immigrants that have little power to protect their legal rights. This industry should be stopped from employing any more illegal immigrants and taking advantage of vulnerable people:
                   But the absence of unions can permit corporations to behave like continuing criminal enterprises, to violate labor laws with impunity. If the meat packing industry is allowed to continue its recruitment of poor, illiterate, often illegal immigrants, many other industries will soon follow its example. (Schlosser 265)

Hence, preventing the meatpacking industry from hiring disadvantaged people of society will stop other industries from attempting to do the same thing.
Furthermore, another important matter is to create a food safety agency that is more reliable and efficient in protecting the public health:
                   Congress should create a single food safety agency that has sufficient authority to protect the public health. The two main tasks currently assigned to the USDA—to promote American Agriculture and police it—are incompatible. The nation’s other leading food safety agency, the FDA, spends too much of its budget regulating prescription drugs. An American food processor can expect a visit from an FDA inspector, on average, once every ten years. (Schlosser 264)

Since the USDA and FDA are both not that reliable and precise in protecting the public health, the government should create another food safety agency that specializes in tracking the production of food, like where it came from and it is safely produced. They should also inspect meat packing industries more often and at random so the food industries will be more cautious and sanitary in packing their meat, “The new food safety agency should be given the power to track commodities throughout the production cycle, from their origins on ranches and farms, to their sale at restaurants and supermarkets” (Schlosser 264). This way the public health will be improved greatly, and we would not have to worry about fast food illnesses from becoming another future epidemic.

Schlosser’s ideas on the solutions to the fast food industry issue will be very effective and useful, but it is not something that can be changed quickly. Banning fast food advertisements directed at children seems like a good place to start, but I doubt it can be stopped completely. Fast food restaurants such as McDonalds have the money from investors and profits and the connections with people in the government who will help protect them. The realistic thing is that these advertisements can be reduced. The difficult solution to accomplish is improving the working conditions of the fast food workers and meat packers. Until today, disadvantaged people of society are still working in fast food restaurants and meat packing firms, because they need the job and the restaurants and firms want cheap labor. Since the “new food agency” that Schlosser mentioned does not exist yet, fast food restaurants and meat packing firms are still “free” to do what they want, continuing to violate labor laws. Schlosser’s plan would succeed if it was put into action completely, but since it isn’t, it would require time especially in this recession where many people need jobs in the United States. When his plan is effective: fast food restaurants will lose many customers which will force them to make their food more healthful, working condition of fast food employees and meatpackers will moderately improve, there will be less food contamination, and violation of the labor laws will be reduced.