My Supersized Passion, My Supersized Dilemma

Hopefully, you've seen the movie. Supersize Me had a huge impact on the way my family eats. Andrew is just like any other kid on the planet...he LOVES McD's. He'd set up camp in the Playland, given the opportunity. But he does me proud, when he says, "We can go to McD's, and we won't eat any chicken nuggets. We'll just drink milk and play, okay mommy?" It's sad, though, that McD's has such an enormous pull on our children. Recently one of Andrew's classmates had a birthday party at McD's. It was very disturbing, the goodie bags had some little toys, games, and stickers, and every one of those trinkets had that stupid clown on it. Even the birthday cake sported his creepy white visage. It reminded me of being in DisneyWorld when I was 18...Mickey was everywhere - it was amusing to find him even on the manhole covers. But, while Mickey stands for family fun, Ronald just stands for negligible nutrition and irresponsible marketing towards our children. And by "marketing", I mean "preying".

I've had some dark nights of the soul, being part of the "problem". We own a pizza franchise. It's aggressively marketed on TV, we have goodies to hand out to the kids, we try to get involved in the community. I've even done birthday parties at the store! Much like McD's...too much like McD's. There are differences, though. I can personally vouch that our food is biodegradable, unlike McD's fries. Most of our products are no different than what you'd buy at the grocery store. We don't have special preservatives, bioengenered vegetables, or an overabundance of partially hydrogenated fats in our foods. But we are part of the obesity epidemic. Our food can be cheap, is easily accessible (heck, we bring it to your door!), and darn it, it tastes good! Portion control is the problem. People always overeat on pizza, it's pretty easy to do when there's so much in the box, "I'll have one more slice". People don't realize that a serving is one slice, maybe two if you're a guy.

So yeah, we're part of the greater evil that is fast food. There's no justifying that in my mind. And, thankfully, Morgan Spurlock hasn't started seriously campaigning against us. Knowledge may be power, but sometimes ignorance is bliss. There are some things I'd rather not know. Our exact impact on the obesity epidemic? Mr. Spurlock, please keep that information to yourself.