At the Lowermost Level

Thesis
This advertisement made by Burger King claims that their cheeseburger is so intensely satisfying and pleasurable that it should be considered illegal. While the assertions made about the irresistible taste of Burger King’s cheeseburger might be convincing for some, this advertisement fails to reveal facts about deceitful marketing techniques, unethical labor conditions and the harmful effects this meal can have on the consumer.
Body Paragraph
This advertisement fails to reveal the harmful effects that this cheeseburger meal can have on the consumer. The continuous intake of fast food has been leading to obesity all over America. Fast food essentially contains more fat content and calories than the body really needs and is mainly composed of artificial flavoring and additives that keep the consumer coming back for more. An exhausted mother comes home from work to a house full of grumpy, unfed children. She is in dire need of a quick solution so she drives down to the nearest Burger King to order an inexpensive cheeseburger meal, with fries and a coke, which is prepared in minutes. She is relieved by the smiles on her children’s faces but little does she know that these routine visits to Burger King and any other fast food restaurant will lead to hazardous consequences over the life span of her children’s lives. These constant visits to Burger King have also lead to constant visits to the doctor due to obesity, diabetes, ulcers and other various dysfunctions within the body. Along with that obesity has had a negative impact upon the child’s psychological and social well-being. Low self-esteem and low self-confidence can destroy a child’s beautiful personality and consequently have a bad impact on his/her future, as Schlosser puts it, “The real price never appears on the menu” (Schlosser 9). Author of “Chop, Fry, Boil: Eating for One, or 6 Billion”, Mark Bittman discusses the advantages of home cooked meals. Bittman’s statistics show that “normal weight Americans spent just 6.8 minutes per day, on average, shopping for groceries and preparing meals than overweight Americans.” Store bought fresh ingredients are logically much healthier than greasy cheeseburgers packed with high sodium and artificial extracts. I strongly believe that many Americans would discontinue consuming ground beef if they knew that a burger could make them deathly ill. Alex Donley, a six year old boy, had been infected with E. coli O157:H7 in its worst form. Initially he suffered from abdominal cramps, then nonstop bloody diarrhea and later dementia and hallucinations right before his death. Alex was not even capable of identifying his parents because the “Shiga toxins” that had been released into his body had liquefied his brain (Schlosser 200). This terrifying account of Alex Donley was a wakeup call for me and surely for the rest of America.