Introduction Alice is currently eighteen years old and she resides in Tyneside in the United Kingdom. In October 2009, The Guardian published a touching story on her plight: she has been obese since she was a toddler and her father died of a heart disease before she was born. She has been bullied by girls of her age and she reports that she is not sure whether she eats more because of bullying or the bullying is the cause of her over eating. The real pain she feels is compounded when she goes shopping. Her mother is not fat and so she comfortably shops at Karen Millen, but this store has nothing that can fit her. On one occasion, she went to Topshop to purchase a necklace, but everybody was staring at her and she was mortified when even the necklace itself could not fit. Whereas her mother is strict about her diet at times, she is not always around and she tells Alice that it is about willpower. Alice has just about given up hope for a normal life. Karen Beach is 36 years of age, she resides in Hertfordshire, and four years ago, she weighed 17 stone. Out of desperation, she had a gastric surgery to dispose of the excess fat, which reduced her to a size 12. However, she was surprised to learn that this surgery was not a quick fix as the desire to indulge in unhealthy meals was still uninhibited. All she could think about was the fast food restaurants closest to her apartment and the candy at the post office or the sweets at petrol stations. She also concurs that she was so lazy that instead of walking to shops that were ten minutes away from her flat she would drive there. Stories like these are becoming common and a trend is beginning to form around obesity. It is unnerving that the cycle is beginning earlier in life as time progresses with toddlers being obese. The rest of the life of such a child is upsetting as the child is ridiculed in and out of school, through his/her adolescence, and even in college. S/he never learns to interact healthily with his/her peers, as s/he always needs to be defensive. Even when they mean well, s/he does not know how to tell their sincerity because his/her own insecurities are overwhelming. As s/he grows up, s/he eventually becomes desperate and goes for a gastric surgery. If s/he is lucky to come out alive (this surgery is full of risks), s/he runs a high risk of getting fatter because s/he is yet to discipline his/her appetites. Fast foods are proving to be a nightmare for people like Alice and Karen. However, these are extreme cases and may be difficult to imagine, but they are glaring evidence of what has become of fast foods. Whereas these foods provide a cheap, tasty, and convenient supplement for healthier meals, the price to be paid may be one’s life. It is especially disturbing when parents cannot take care of their children’s health and start them off on a path that leads to obesity. Thesis : fast foods provide the contemporary American citizen with a cheap, tasty, and convenient meal. They are the number one cause of all sorts of contemporary ailments including obesity, cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis, and various cancers. Parents and educators should apply themselves to cultivating a culture of preparing healthy and balanced meals traditionally so that the next generation may not be ensnared by the allure of fast and cheap foods at the cost of their lives and health. Problem # 1: These foods contain above-average levels of sodium, (where the maximum daily intake ought to be 2200mgs), trans-fats, and other saturated fats that are responsible for increasing the cholesterol level and risking the health of consumers to conditions such as stroke, cancer, and osteoporosis (Genser, 2012, p. 444). These foods are cheap for their ingredients are also inexpensive, as they comprise of high fat meat, refined grains, and added sugars instead of the healthier lean meat, fruits, whole grains, and vegetables. Kylie Kavanagh conducted an illustrative study of the exact risk involved with the consumption of fast foods on 51 monkeys at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in the US (Gosline, 2006). The experiment ran for six years, during which she fed one group 8% of Trans-fats and 27% of other fats. The other group’s diet was similar with the exception of Trans-fats, which she supplemented with mono-unsaturated fats. The first group’s diet was primarily a depiction of the diet of fried foods such as pizza and snacks (Kimbrough, 2009). Six years later, the Trans-fat monkeys had gained 7.2% of their body weight, which was primarily stored in the abd