Monday, 21 February 2011
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Fast Food: Too Good to Give Up... Even After a Heart Attack
For some, a heart attack is a wake-up call that screams "Eat healthier!"; for others, it's no biggie. A recent study shows that many heart attack patients will continue eating fast food on a weekly basis in spite of their poor health.
The study was published in the American Journal of Cardiology and was conducted by Dr. John Spertus, of the University of Missouri Kansas City, and his colleagues. Of the nearly 2,500 patients studied, 884 were frequently eating fast food the month before their heart attacks. Six months later, 503 continued to eat fast food at least once a week.
What's the solution? The researchers claim that better dietary education after discharge will help. A major health care law that passed last year will soon require all American fast food restaurants to post nutritional information on their menus, though it's unclear what kind of an impact this will have on customers and their health.
What do you think about the study's findings? Are they hard to believe or not?
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- From: ginakuzmick@xanga
- About Me: I am a junior at Ohio University studying online journalism and Spanish. While my life is busy most of the time, I love discovering new recipes (and eating them even more). The love of my life is Frank's Red Hot. I'm also partial to Funfetti cake, anything Thai and pizza.
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Comments (22)
Fast food. It's so good, yet so bad. I feel as though most people will continue to eat fast food, even after a heart attack, unless they really and truly want to get healthy. That and a great support system!
I have not eaten fast food in a long while, and I feel great. Admittedly, it was hard at first. The temptation was so hard to fight but believe it or not, after a week or two of none of that MSG, the cravings disappeared! Shocking, right? OK, OK, every once in a while I drive past a Burger King and really want some french fries and a cheeseburger, but I just keep on driving!I cannot stand fast food. I cannot stand to even walk into a fast food restaurant (although my daughter likes the chocolate shakes, so I allow her to get one every once in a while from the take out window). I have, of course, tried fast food in my lifetime. I cringe at the memory. So I do not understand America's love of fast food. I will take a freshly prepared meal made of fresh meat/fish/vegetables/grains any day over something prepared at a fast food place. (eggghh the smell of entering any one of those places is etched into my brain).
To each his own.
It's all bullshit. Fast food doesn't lead to heart attacks. Fast food is just food. Choose healthier menu items. Boom! Problem solved. No one has to STOP eating it to be healthy. Watch the documentary 'Fat Head'. It's true. And highly entertaining.
No, they're not hard to believe. I think that because of modern health care, a heart attack doesn't seem so deadly anymore, and fast food is full of addictive chemicals, fat, salt and sugar.
@DeadXTendencies@xanga - I'm gonna have to check that out. Hopefully it is on Netflix!
this website is very good, you can go and see it
http://www.shoes4world.com/
@aliconklin - Haha, it is infact. That's where I watched it =P
Lately, I've been eating a lot of junk/fast food and I'm afraid I'll have a heart attack in my sleep soon, but I like how fast food tastes.
It's really not that bad to eat fast food even once a week if you eat healthy the rest of the week.
Like DeadXTendencies said, watch the doc Fat Head.
A little fat in your diet is good for you. I've been attempting to get myself to Wendy's lately, but my calorie stigma is really holding me back. I started using full-fat milk instead, just to give a boost to my extremely low-fat diet, because my hair and nails need it. I hate milk, but it doesn't taste too bad mixed with Carnation breakfast or cereal.
It doesn't surprise me namely due to the fact that my parents do it. They're both heart patients and diabetics but continue to eat bad foods.
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It doesn't surprise me. People don't really care about their health anymore, because they can just go out and take tablets to "fix" it.
I love my fast food, but i try to eat it as a treat when I can.
You just have to imagine the food broken down into little piles of fat and grease. Look up how much fat is in a McDonalds chicken sandwich, then imagine those grams of fat in a squishy pile in the palm of your hand. Then imagine putting that small glob of pure fat into your mouth and eating it. Imagine the glob of fat in your hand from four or five trips to McDonalds and imagine eating that. Or imagine all the grease and oil in the food, but imagine it separate - in a cup. And imagine drinking it.
No longer as appetizing.
It doesn't really surprise me. I belive that fast food can be rather addicting and, once you're in the habit, it can be hard to break.
i kinda cut back on the fast food. i may crave a mcdonald's mcnuggets here or there but thats probably about it. nothing more. plus i found that hamburgers make me a bit queezy
People who are "addicted" to fast food are just weak. If people want to eat that shit and die, be my guest.
@ncxcorexkid@xanga - Maybe they are "weak" on some level, but perhaps fast food is almost like drugs in a way. (Drug addicts are weak then, too.) Humans might be wired to seek out salty, fatty things because they are both necessary and relatively rare in what are considered natural surroundings.
Also:
theonion.com/articles/fatty-foods-trigger-addiction-response,17199
(I'll link to the Onion almost whenever given the chance, hehe.)
@Clandestine_Psychosis@xanga - See, that doesn't put me off, because grease and fat in moderation is not bad for you. Having McDonald's once or twice a month is not going to kill you or damage you if you eat healthily the rest of the time.
@niceBrice@xanga - I'm not fully convinced the flavors of 'junk' food aren't enhanced to make them more addicting. And humans are set up to fail in this environment because our ancestors never had this amount of food so easily available. They ate everything to survive, so we eat everything thinking we're not going to have enough food available later. But at some point, people have to be like OKAY. WE HAVE FOOD. LET'S PACE OURSELVES. Oh, hey! Vegetables and other various food items that are good for us! Lets eat those instead!
Drug addicts, alcoholics, pedophiles, rapists, obese people due to over eating and not some health problem.. all are weak. One thing we all are *capable* of is self control.
Fast Food is all calories and little to no nutrients, no bueno.
Fast food with nutrition facts...doesn't do a bit of good if the people that eat there don't care about the wrapper and what's inside. I've seen it. McDonald's puts the "facts" on the double cheeseburger wrapper, but not the McDouble. The one that costs a dollar. The one that the poor college kid can afford. Its not going to help any, not going to do a bit of difference. It could say it contains the entire day's worth of calories, sodium and fat, people will still eat it.