fast Food Location Linked To Stroke

Seattle – Neighborhood Fast Food Restaurants Causing Obesity Epidemic

Since the end of World War II the overall health of many Americans has deteriorated significantly.

Incidents of obesity related diseases such as heart disease, strokes and diabetes have all increased at an alarming rate, while the number of obese Americans continues to climb each year. A factor that is playing a major role in this increase is poor diet.

According to the University of Michigan if you live in a neighborhood where there are fast food restaurants everywhere there is higher chance that you can have a stroke.

focusing on an area in Texas, researchers found a 13 percent increase in ischemic strokes — strokes that occur as a result of an obstruction within a blood vessel supplying blood to the brain.

For every fast food restaurant in a neighborhood, the risk of stroke increases by 1 percent, according to Dr. Lewis B. Morgenstern who was the lead author of the study.

“The data show a true association” between stroke and fast-food restaurants, said Dr. Morgenstern.

But he added, “What we don’t know is whether fast food actually increased the risk because of its contents or whether fast-food restaurants are a marker of unhealthy neighborhoods.”

There are many who claim that the obesity epidemic is not caused by the fast food restaurants all by themselves. They often claim that no one made these people go into the restaurants, order and then eat the unhealthy food knowing that they are obese.

While this observation is correct, these restaurants do bear a certain degree of responsibility. How many times over the years have we seen the McDonalds or Wendy’s T.V. commercials played for us over and over again until we know the words by heart? When you watch their commercials what do see? Is it a person who weighs 500 pounds eating 5 Big Mac’s? No, instead you see beautiful, young and healthy people eating the very food that can cause an increase in your chances of having a heart attack.

When you go into these restaurants what do you see? Often times there is play land for the kids. What all this shows is that the fast food restaurants know that the food that you eat is unhealthy. Yet to be able to increase their bottom line they will use a wide variety of marketing tactics to entice you to eat there this includes: running the same commercial over and over until you have to go the fast food restaurant to eat. The play land is designed to lure the kids to push their parents, to take them to the fast food restaurant to eat. That way the kids can have a nice time at the playground while you are eating unhealthy food.

Clearly the number of fast food restaurants in your area does increase the chances of you having a heart attack. When you look at the huge marketing effort that these companies put forth to keep you eating at their restaurant is it any wonder that so many Americans are continuing to become obese? While eating at these restaurants is matter of personal choice, the tactics they use to keep you coming in knowing that their food will cause you problems down the road is negligent.