Still a Fast Food Nation: Eric Schlosser Reflects on 10 Years Later

cardinal years subsequently his seminal record dissipated diet state . Eric Schlosser reflects on how little has changed in the production, safety, and consumption in Americabut why hes unperturbed hopeful. More than a decade has passed since Fast Food Nation was published, and Id love to trace that the book is verboten of date, that the many problems it describes consider been solved, and that the Golden Arches are promptly the sign of a go empire, like the pyramids at Giza. Sadly, that is not the case. all(prenominal) day to the highest degree 65 meg people corrode at a McDonalds restaurant several(prenominal)place in the world, more than ever before. The annual revenues of Americas fast- nutrient industry, adjusted for inflation, establish risen by almost 20 percent since 2001. The enume assess of fast-food ads aimed at American children has greatly change magnitude as well. The emblematic preschooler now sees about threesome fast-food ads on tv set every day. The typical teenager sees about five. The endless assault and battery of ads, toys, contests, and marketing gimmicks has fuel not unless fast-food sales, but alike a widely range of diet-related illnesses. close two thirds of the adults in the United States are obese or overweight. The obesity rate among preschoolers has doubled in the past 30 years. The rate among children hoary 6 to 11 has tripled. And by some odd coincidence, the annual cost of the nations obesity epidemicabout $168 billion, as metrical by researchers at Emory Universityis the same as the amount of capital Americans spent on fast food in 2011. throughout both term of President George W. Bushs administration, every effort to recover the nations food-safety system was bar by the unobjectionable House and by Republicans in Congress. During the summer of 2002, ground charge from the ConAgra slaughterhouse in Greeley, Colo. was linked to an blast of E. coli O157:H7. The outbreak killed whiz person and sickened at least 46. \n