When I surf the Internet, and especially opposingviews.com, I see numerous articles about how unhealthy McDonald's is and how it causes American obesity. Here is why that is wrong:
Fat and calorie consumption should vary from person to person. McDonald's is not responsible for monitoring this for each consumer. Let me explain. I have a very fast metabolism. I eat over 5000 calories a day and burn them all off without having to exercise. If I get less than this amount of fats and calories a day, I become less energetic. This is because fats and calories are the main sources for energy for the human body.
So for me to eat a 1,000 calorie sandwich from McDonald's for lunch is actually a proportional amount of calories for my daily intake. Hence, for me to eat McDonald's which I do often, is a healthy choice because it doesn't cause obesity and gives me more energy. However, if someone with a slow metabolism were to eat like this, which they often do, it would be unhealthy and cause them to be obese. As we can see, it all depends on the person. I eat food like McDonald's and take in 5000 calories every day and I am still told to be very healthy with a strong heart at every physical.This shows us that McDonald's food that is not inherently unhealthy.
We must put the responsibility on the consumer. The consumer who has a slow metabolism needs to choose not to eat McDonald's; McDonald's should not monitor everyone in the world's metabolism and refuse to serve food to those who have slow ones. Nor should McDonald's change their entire menu that serves some properly with Big Mac's and others with caesar salads. The real problem is some choose the Big Mac when they should be choosing the caesar salad. McDonald's provides all the choices; the consumer is the one who makes the wrong choice.
There is a simple analogy to explain this. If someone sells a gun to a person with no criminal record and that person proceeds to use the gun to kill 10 people, those 10 deaths are not the fault of the gun dealer, who rightfully put the responsibility of safe use on the buyer. The gun dealer will not go to jail, while the killer will. It's the same concept with McDonald's. McDonald's is not inherently unhealthy. In fact it's a healthy choice for those who need the energy and can burn it off.
America needs to start putting the responsibility on the right people.
I don't completely agree that McDonald's food is just horrible, though I certainly wouldn't recommend eating it very often.
I completely disagree with the idea that it might be bad for one person and good for another. Just because you are not gaining weight eating it doesn't mean that it is good food.
It seems that the presumption is that McDonald's food is bad for you because it makes you fat - so if you don't get fat, it must not be bad. This totally gets it wrong.
It is also not true that having a fast metabolism means you won't gain weight. That has more to do with what your body naturally does with excess calories and little to do with how many calories you burn in a day.
The author offers no support or evidence that McDonald’s causes or doesn’t cause obesity. He just tells a single story about himself. In fact, he makes a story up about himself which is false when he says, “. I eat food like McDonald's and take in 5000 calories every day and I am still told to be very healthy with a strong heart at every physical. This shows us that McDonald's food that is not inherently unhealthy.”
He claims,” I eat over 5000 calories a day and burn them all off without having to exercise.” and he also states, “for me to eat McDonald's which I do often, is a healthy choice because it doesn't cause obesity and gives me more energy .”
So here is what Camjdavis has said about himself: His caloric need is 5,000 calories per day and he meets it on a daily basis. He is not obese, He apparently lives a fairly sedentary life, since he doesn’t say otherwise, and doesn’t exercise. According to him and his doctor, he is healthy.
I assert that there is virtually no healthy human being who is sedentary, and doesn’t exercise that can ingest 5,000 calories daily and not gain weight. The author’s own opinion about his metabolism notwithstanding. There are two very well accepted formulas for estimating a person’s daily caloric needs called the Harris-Benedict equations, one for men and one for women. These formulas can easily be found on the Internet or in a medical textbook like Harrison’s Internal Medicine. For the sake of this argument, let see what the author might need as far as calories on a daily basis if he were an 18 year old male, weighed 320 pounds and was 6 feet, 8 inches tall. I admit that this is an extreme case but I want to give the author every opportunity to prove the veracity of his story. In the case just described, the Harris Benedict equation yields a daily caloric need of less than 3260 calories, far below the reported 5,000 per day. ( It would be even less if the author was female or if he was older. ) Now under a great physiological stress such as during a very severe, life-threatening infection or after an equally severe trauma or burn, the body can raise its metabolism by another 30%, but lets use 35% just to play fair. These are the maximum metabolic states any body can attain, ever, without intense exercise. ( Of course the author says he doesn’t exercise. ) These would raise the author’s daily caloric need to less than 4,400 still well under the author’s self-reported fast metabolic rate of 5,000 calories per day. Of course according to the author and his doctor he is healthy and not obese so we really can’t use these extreme states anyway in his case.
Unless the author is willing to state in this forum that he is considerably taller than 6 feet and 8 inches and weighs proportionally much more than 320 pounds or that in fact he does exercise a lot, we have to conclude that the author’s story about himself, to say nothing about his nutritional assessment of “McDonalds,” is a total fabrication. It was just a fairy tale he made up because he had no data and no evidence to support his original contention. He must have realized that if he made up some kind of pseudo-scientific evidence or study, it probably could have been check and found to be false, so he made up a story about himself that he thought would be plausible and couldn’t be checked, ---but it wasn’t plausible by any means and he got checked.
By the way, even if his story was true, it wouldn’t, as he contends, show “us that McDonald's food that is not inherently unhealthy.”
First of all, caloric need is irrelevant. Need is not what I am talking about. I am saying that if I can burn all of the calories that I eat, more calories means more energy , regardless of how many calories I "need".
Second of all, it's incredibly unscientific of you to "assume that I am completely sedentary just because I didn't mention how much I exercise each day". You can really make that I assumption?
On a related note, I am 5'10" 140 lbs. Do your math; it's completely possible for me to take in 5000 calories per day, even being sedentary.
If my story was true, how would it not show that mcdonalds is not inherently unhealthy? I eat mcdonalds often. I am not fat. Therefore, it is not true that mcdonalds causes everyone to be fat. It is not inherent; it varies for every person.
You're wrong and I find it offensive that you insult my writing by calling it "a fairy tell." You're refutations are unwarranted. I've disproven every one in both of your posts. You're the one who's telling the "fairytales."
"If my story was true.." - just listen to the admission here!
I eat at ol' "Mikky Dee's" often, and I do mean often.
Perhaps far more often than I should and yet, despite my molasses like metabolism, I'm not "The Blob" because of a two VERY simple reasons.
Reason one: I DO NOT sit around all day. I bike, I walk, I geocache.. In short, I'm active.
Reason TWO: Now for the more important yet, from my own observations, LESS simple reason that many people do not seem to understand as well as I seem to: If I'm still eating at McDonald's and I'm overweight THEN I'D STOP EATING AT MCDONALD'S!!!!
If you are eating food that has enough calories to let you walk to the SOUTH POLE without starving to death AND you are overweight, then you need to stop eating that food.
Simple is it not?
No one forces people to eat at McDonald's. The fact that they do represents a fact about the trade offs people are willing to make between the benefits of eating fast food and the health risks. If McDonald's disappeared tomorrow, people would still be willing to make the same trade offs, and would probably find another, similar outlet to maximize their welfare (in the economic sense of course).
One area where I think the above argument falls down is when it comes to kids. Basically, kids are impressionable, and not fully responsible for their own actions. For this reason, I think there may be room for intervention in the name of preventing bad habits, but I'm not sure what that would or should look like.
In the last two paragraphs, the analogy Camjdavis tries to draw in order to justify himself and McDonald's is unclear and inane. Apparently the common characteristic of both guns and fast food from McDonald's that the author wants us to see in his argument is that both are unhealthy and deadly. In the conclusion of his analogy he absolves any guilt from the gun dealer who unknowingly sells a gun to a mass murderer and therefore he concludes that “ McDonald's is not inherently unhealthy. In fact it's a healthy choice for those who need the energy and can burn it off.” Huh, where is there any logic whatsoever in that conclusion. Perhaps what he really is trying to say is that even though the food from McDonald's is unhealthy and deadly its not the corporation’s fault that consumers buy it. But Camjdavis is not saying anything at all like that is he. --------What is he saying ???
By the way--- its not a healthy choice for anyone: full of sodium, lots a fat, unsaturated fat at that, minuscule amounts of fresh vegetables compared to the total calories. The author even admits it in the fourth paragraph from the end: “the consumer is the one who makes the wrong choice.” For some reason Camjdavis sees himself as different from everyone else. Even though he says can burn it off , it doesn’t make it a healthy choice by any means, even for him. What he doesn’t understand is that good nutrition is not just about caloric intake vs. caloric expenditure and weight gain or loss. The author’s view of nutrition is unsophisticated and elementary. He makes no mention of vitamins, and minerals like calcium, iron potassium and sodium, the various kinds of fats and carbohydrates, fiber and fresh vegetables and fruits. He has no understanding of the long term effects of a bad diet, even one that provides adequate calories to someone like himself who he thinks has a “fast metabolism.”
Camjdavis’ statement that “This is because fats and calories are the main sources for energy for the human body,” further illustrates his complete misunderstanding about nutrition and even simple physics or biology. Carbohydrates, fats, and protein are the only sources of energy for the body. Calories are a measure of energy either used by the body or available to it in the foods we eat. Calories are not a source of energy. Its like saying gallons are a source of water or gasoline. Gallons are not the source of either one, they are a measure of volume or capacity.
the analogy makes perfect sense. everyone else understands it. the gun owner would not be selling to a mass murderer; he would be selling to someone with a perfect criminal record.
There are other nutrients in burgers. Lettuce has vitamins. Cheese has calcium, meat has iron, and there is a lot of sodium and carbs. Tomatoes and lettuce are the fruits and vegetables.
I'm sorry. I made a typo. This doesn't discredit all of my article. I meant carbs and fat. If this is the type of refutation you're going to resort to, don't bother commenting.
Please re-read my comment. My contention was that the food you characterize as “McDonalds” “ is not a healthy choice for anyone” There are better choices. I never said that “McDonalds didn’t contain nutrients. I contend that the amount and quality of the nutrients that are in “McDonalds” are lacking compared to the number of calories and the amount of fats one takes in such a meal. In some ways, I agree with you, its up to the individual to make better choices for him or herself.
Frequent meals at McDonalds are not one of those better choices for you or anyone else.
By the way you forgot to comment on the nutritional value of the sesame seeds on the top half of those Big Mac Buns. ---and don’t forget that for a while during the Clinton administration ketchup was actually counted as a serving of vegetable