fastfoodnation: Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions

From Fast Food Nation:

1. Schlosser discusses the eagerness of fast food companies to avoid hiring skilled workers and to rely instead upon highly unskilled workers. Since these companies are providing a steady paycheck, is it really the obligation of fast food chains to take an interest in their workers and to teach them job skills? Also, since many of the workers are recently arrived immigrants, doesn’t employment at fast food restaurants off er them a toehold in the American economy and an opportunity to move onto a better job?

2. If one accepts the author’s assertions that the beef processors and fast food corporations are engaging in patterns of unethical conduct, what can the consumer do to modify their behavior? Can the conduct of an individual have an impact on a company’s practices? Why is a company most likely to change its conduct? To generate public goodwill? To respond to its employees’ concerns? To address diminishing profits?

3. Since few people would confuse fast food with health food, who bears the greater responsibility for the alarming rate of obesity in children in the United States; the fast food chains that market “supersize” meals to children, or parents who are not educating their children about the benefi ts of a balanced diet? Can well-intentioned parents maintain control over the eating habits of their children in an era when school districts are contracting to bring fast food into the school cafeteria?

From Chew on This:

1. Chapter 2 -“The Youngster Business”: Representatives from Coca-Cola have said that the two main things the company tries to convey in its advertisements are “youth and energy”. Describe some of the fast-food advertisements you’ve seen. Drawing on what you’ve learned from this chapter, name some of the techniques that fastfood companies use in these advertisements to attract children to restaurants. Do you think these techniques are fair?

2. Chapter 6 -“Meat”: Drawing on what you learned from reading this chapter, c can you describe how cows, chickens, and pigs are raised for the fastfood industry today? In what ways are they raised differently from the way they were raised fifty years ago? What are some of the environmental consequences of the way that we raise the animals for our food today? What do you think of these changes? How much or little do you feel the fastfood industry is responsible for them? If you were in charge of one the biggest meatpacking companies, what would you do differently?

3. Chapter 5: “Stop the Pop”: Does your school have soda machines inside? After reading this chapter, would you be willing to stand up for the removal of your school’s soda machines, as Kristina did? Why and why not? Does your school serve junk food or fast food in the cafeteria or the school store? Do you buy food a la carte or from the National School Lunch Program? Do you think that the National School Lunch Program is still able to fulfi ll its 1946 mission to “safeguard the health and well-being of the nation’s children”? Why or why not?

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Discussion Questions

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