The World of Couch Potatoes: the Destruction of our Culture
. ‘Randy’ has his head phones in, ‘Sandy
The most time, if everyone goes spent together as a family, is in the car while going through the drive through and the most talking that happens is mom asking the kids what they want to eat. What is the meaning of family now? Has the picture perfect image of a family changed? Our community is changing. Family used to be game days on Tuesday nights, everyone surrounded around the dinner table, with the T.V turned off. Or those weekends when the kinds had football and softball tournaments, everyone packing into the car, sports bags, coolers filled with Gatorades and Beers, mom’s homemade turkey and Swiss sandwiches all packed into the white Gran Caravan. It is so much different now, parents are lucky if their child has taken up a sport and if they do join, the kid probably finds a ride or is already driving by the age of 15 and the younger kids rather watch the newest episode of SpongeBob and play with their new DSI’s. Parents are too busy out working to spend time with the children because they now have to pay more bills for example… the T.V, the unlimited texting/free nights and weekends and the newest technology their children just must have! Our culture is no longer what it was once before, and we’ve lost the meaning of culture by allowing television and fast food to take over our communities.
Fast food is the TV dinner of the world, from McDonalds, Wendy’s, Rally’s, In and Out, and any other quick fix greasy food. Eric Schlosser, writer of “Fast Food Nation” quotes a man named Jim Hightower who warned of “the McDonaldization of America” (Hightower, Schlosser 310). Hightower thought fast food was a threat to businesses. Everyone had in mind the affects of making this new industry would have, they understood that this could become a destruction to the society, everyone included in making this industry knew what they were getting into: the slaughtering, the employment rates, the deforestation, every aspect was known and taken into account. Schlosser throughout his piece “Fast Food Nation” speaks about what people don’t “know what lies behind the shiny, happy surface of every fast food transaction.” Fast food is slowly but surely taking over the world’s dinner table but most people who do not know what goes into what they are eating. During the World War’s when industries turned into war companies everyone knew why, when war bonds were being sold the citizens knew why. But now, everything is held secretive, even the news now censors a lot of news reports to not panic its viewers, but is people not panicking worth a life lost from diabetes? This loss of communication is also a part of the destruction of our culture- which ultimately leads to more violence and obesity that can lead to other health and cultural problems.
Do we want this for our culture? This newly found industrious culture, the one that holds us all accountable for keeping a job and being consumers. What happened to being patriotic about where we come from? Yet we allow industries come in and change everything we once lived by. McDonalds owns most of the worlds land, World! Schools don’t own most of the land; McDonalds owns and rents most of it all. Another great example of how these industries are helping the destruction of culture is given by writer Barbara Ehrenreich who wrote the piece “Spudding Out,” she gives the example of her husband one of the first to “spud out,” she goes into giving detail about the neighbors, “But we never see the neighbors anymore, nor they us. This saddens me, because Americans used to be a great and restless people, fond of the outdoors in all of its manifestations, from Disney World to miniature golf.” (Ehrenreich ) People are staying in, and feeling complacent with what is on TV and what comes in an aluminum wrap. They are trying to be convenient and save that dollar, but are saving that dollar worth losing your culture?
This problem also questions your morality, as Schlosser says in his piece “Fast Food Nation,” he tells us about the reality of farming and what fast food has to deal with, that people do not “know what really lies behind the shiny, happy surface of every fast food transaction”(Schlosser 309). He tells us about the potato fields and how they are “slaughterhouses of the high planes…” (Schlosser 313) and how these fast food places “encouraged fundamental changes in how cattle are raised, slaughtered, and processed into ground beef” (Schlosser 313). These fast food companies are testing our morals, are we willing to slaughter our cows and chickens for a good meal? The problem is both killing of the cows and chicken and how they are being raised. These animals go from non-normal breeds; given food infiltrated with steroids and pesticides to make them grow faster and faster if they are given any food at all. They are raised in tight confinements, each animal in a cage that hardly fits them; they are beat and not cared for in the least bit. Although many can argue that animals have no souls and were put here to be used, it is still simply disgusting to thing my chicken has steroids in it. Even after you watch your chicken or any other meat the steroids and pesticides are still running through the left over blood and grains of the animal- once again a form of violence.
There obviously has been a drastic change in our culture, in “Fast Food Nation” Schlosser mentions how there is an, “encouraged fundamental changes.” (Schlosser 312) The reality behind that juicy beef patty in your ‘Big Mac’ finally comes to life, the farmers are not feeding that cow well, giving it nurture and care, and slowly killing it and making it painless for the cow. They are slaughtering them, killing them relentlessly in other words. Schlosser also says, “These changes have made meat-packaging—once a highly skilled, highly paid occupation—into the most dangerous job in the United States,” Now Schlosser is really letting us know, these factories that our favorite foods come from are putting our friends in harm, and not giving a damn. These jobs are performed by “Armies of poor, transient immigrants whose injuries often go unrecorded…” Is a hamburger really worth the well-being of a human being? These workers do not even get the chance to get better from the injuries cause while working (Schlosser 313).
Many people of our communities now just plain out do not want or do not care for knowing how this burger or taco come to becoming what it is. Whether it is out of ignorance or simply because they rather keep the bad away and think this food is helping them in some way. Why listen to these radicals who make movies of how bad McDonalds is, such as the well known, “Super Size Me” by Director/writer Morgan Spurlock in 2004. This movie showed how people just eat; they do not research what they are eating, what goes into what they are eating and many are not even paying attention to the calories they are eating anymore. Spurlock actually researches what he is eating and goes on a McDonalds’ diet for a month. He eats breakfast, lunch and dinner at McDonalds, and goes through a series of obstacles such as health risks and sickness by eating so much. He gives solid facts of the effects of eating out does to you, and in the end he goes from 185.5 lbs to 210lbs by the end of the month. In the movie his wife also complains about, his loss of energy, and loss of sex drive. So in the long run, this ignorance people have towards fast food can lead to so many more problems.
What parents would allow their children to gain a life of obesity? Parents are not having dinner and instead of a good balanced family meal parents decide they are too tired to cook and go to the nearest fast food place. To add to that, they aren’t asking or ‘forcing’ their children to at least do some kind of exercise. But parents do not and children decide they shouldn’t because they are not being told to. This also brings you to a fascination with T.V that is ruining our culture. Not only are these TV’s stopping children from going out and playing but they are showing the commercials that persuade kids and adults that McDonalds or any fast food is the most delicious thing ever. They use the bright colors, smiles on workers faces, clean offices, and the really cool toys from the newest movies.
Our culture is no longer what healthier for the family or community. Is our health not worth 5 dollars more to be healthy, the community just rather become complacent and convenient with cheap and fatty? People, parents, and the rest of our community are letting our nation become a lazy nation, what is the purpose of building more parks and schools? Kids are paying more attention to TV than to their homework especially watching those McDonalds commercials. Or when PE can’t even help these kids lose the weight they gain from all the fast food. So we have lost the meaning of what ‘we’ as a community or as a family should be.
Work Cited
Revised Research Question: What has T.V and fast-food done to our culture?
Thesis: Television and fast food has become a disadvantage to our community, increasing violence and obesity.
Ehrenreich, Barbara. "Spudding Out." Reading Life: a Writer's Reader. By Inge Fink and Gabrielle Gautreaux. Boston, MA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005. Print.
The article, "Spudding Out" in "Reading Life: the Writers Reader" is very interesting. It is all about how in the last few decades our world has turned into spuds, as the saying goes a "couch potato" and this is harming us very much. Obesity has grown within the last few years more than it ever has in 10 years total. Parents are not being mindful of their children’s daily intake of T.V and fast food- at the same time. Parents/adults are also part of the statistic; they are actually one of the highest in percentage to falling into a "spud” life. In general is a great book, so very well written and interesting but this specific section was very interesting because it is something that is very common especially in people my age.
Lehigh/University and National Bureau of Economic Research, Shin-Yi Chou, Inas Rashad/Georgia State University, and Michael Grossman/City University of New York Graduate Center and National Bureau. Fast-Food Restaurant Advertising on Television and Its Influence on Childhood Obesity. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases to the National Bureau of Economic Research, Dec. 2006. PDF.
Schlosser, Eric. "Fast Food Nation." Reading Life: a Writer's Reader. By Inge Fink and Gabrielle Gautreaux. Boston, MA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005. 310-14. Print.
Eric Schlosser gives us a very descriptive image of how our nation has become empowered by "FOOD," not militants or enemies but fast food franchises. He tells us how our nation is becoming so involved with fast food, everywhere you turn there is some kind of chain restaurant and when there is a chain fast food joint there is a slaughterhouse, under-paid workers, maybe even slavery, and definitely corruption involved. The book is great, but this specific section was very interesting because it is something that is affecting not only me or my school but the whole universe from Japan back to the USA.
Spurlock/IMDb, Morgan. "Super Size Me (2004) - Synopsis." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). 2004. Web. 1 Mar. 2011. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390521/synopsis>.
The movie, "Super Size Me" is a documentary about a man who takes on the challenge of eating McDonalds every day for a total of 31 days. The main character, Morgan Spurlock is advised by three doctors that getting on the "McDiet" was going to detriment his original healthy lifestyle, as well as other personal things such as- sexual life. So it did, Spurlock was a tall and fit man after the month he was shorter and had much more fat mass. His wife also claimed his sexual potency left when he began his diet, he was always "tired" and hungry. The movie was GREAT, sometimes I actually thought I should really stop eating fast food, the movie gives you the rawest of details, and nothing is left out. The documentary was surprising I began watching this movie with a melancholy attitude and in the end I was very informed.
Tynan/New York, William, and Richard Zoglin/New York. "Video: Is TV Ruining Our Children? - TIME." Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com. 15 Oct. 1990. Web. 1 Mar. 2011. <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,971377,00.html>.
There are children now that even at the age of six are becoming "addicted" to television and video-gaming. This is leading to "combative" behaviors, loss in ability to read(in school) and Insomnia in younger children. by the time a child enters the first grade they've already watched about 5,000 hours worth of T.V not including video games. This was a very good article online, not only because it was on Time.com but because it gave a solution that has been proposed already and tells why it did not follow through.
