Fast Food: Corporate Resonsibility, Personal Responsibility, or Both?

by Doug Jackson, M.Ed.,CSCS

Last week I stopped by a Wendy’s to grab a quick bite to eat after a long meeting. Yes, yes, I know, I shouldn’t be eating fast food. I do it every couple months and make fairly decent food choices.

However, as I was eating, an advertisement on the place mat of my tray irritated me. Wendy’s was targeting parents and suggesting that Frosties, their ice cream shakes, were good for kids because it contained 30% of their daily calcium.

That’s friggin’ ridiculous!!

I have thought about doing a newsletter on corporate responsibility for a long time, and this pushed me over the edge.
I’m all for a free-market society, but corporations should be ashamed of themselves for their lack of social responsibility.

In general, I like business. In my business, I profit from helping people improve their lives. But I have a major problem with businesses that profit from providing products that harm human health. And the fast food industry, although they’ll deny it with every excuse in the book, does exactly that.

So, if I were president of the United States, here are some of the tax changes we would make:

1) All services and products designed at health promotion, disease prevention, and fitness would have no sales tax and would also be tax-deductible. This would include costs of gym memberships, personal training, massage therapy, chiropractic, nutritional supplements, nutritional consulting services, etc.

2) All products known to harm people’s health would have a measurable sin tax included in their purchase. Junk food and fast food would have a considerable sin tax just like cigarettes.

3) Corporations couldn’t target kids while advertising unhealthy foods.

4) Further, we would take the money gathered from those taxes and fund public health initiatives including mandatory physical education in schools (full school year programs from kindergarten through high school).

People do have a responsibility for their health. But corporations do as well. Corporations spend millions of dollars marketing crap that hurts our health and shortens our lives.
In a free market they have the right to do this, but I believe the corporations and the people who buy their products should be heavily taxed.

These taxes will help compensate the American public for the massive economic drain caused by health care problems which their products have contributed to.

It just makes sense. It’s the appropriate thing to do.

It’s not right that corporations are getting rich offering products that deteriorate human health, as well as contributing to the long-term economic problems caused by poor health in our society.

By the way, I looked up the nutrition content of a small Frosty, the type promoted in the Wendy’s store as a good source of calcium. It had five grams of artery-clogging saturated fat and 42 grams of blood-sugar spiking sugar. Yes, that’s just what kids need for good health. Promoting Frosty’s as a good source of calcium? Wendy’s ought to be ashamed.

We must take a stand, get tough, and fight for what is right. Let me know what you think. You can email me at doug@personalfitnessadvantage.com