The Growing American Empire

The growing American Empire.

Americans have spend a lot of time, money and the development of foreign policy to incuse that the rest of the world resembles America as close as possible. We have done this through advertising, creating a need and a demand for American goods and products and making them easily accessible and affordable to the World population. By promoting though our foreign policy the American fast-food franchise. And by exporting American culture though our films and our music.

The American society is technology minded and has applied this to all aspects of everyday and work life. This technology is usually meant to improve the quality of the working environment leaving more time to develop intelligence, creative skills and potential. The US fast-food industry has applied technology assuming that there is no intelligence potential in the work force. The human or individual aspects of the service are seen as weaknesses, causing errors and inconsistency. This means a reduction in profits, so all intelligence is built into the system. Consequently this technology allows for lose of traditional skills and service that made up the previous workforce. As a result, the modern service worker in the United Kingdom is relatively unskilled; 34.6% have absolutely no qualifications compared with 24% a decade ago. (Brighton University, 1994)

De-skilling the production process may be labor saving, but at a cost in terms of job satisfaction, career advancement and staff turnover. (Clavey, 1992) This creates a workforce that gains little or no rewards. These people have little basis for establishing loyalty, allegiance or trust with the company that is works for. These establishments offer little prestige, little heath benefits, little pay and have a high turnover rate. Consequently the companies have no loyalty, allegiance or trust in its workforce. This is just one problem of a larger problem now confronting the world. The rise of a powerful multination that sifts capital across borders with few qualms, that feel no allegiance to any nation, no loyalty to any group of farmers, workers or consumers.

When the demand for fast-food leveled off in the United States the industry concentrated on exporting the fast-food concept to the world. Support for American franchising has become part of American foreign policy. The U.S. State Department now publishes detailed studies of overseas franchise opportunities and runs a Gold Key Program at many of its embassies to help American franchisors find overseas partners. With this support and the almost unlimited money to spend on marketing and advertising campaign, the fast-food industry is in a position to create high demand for its products and services. This advertising is targeted with the nation's children in order to change the national eating habits. McDonalds and similar companies create high demand for their uniform and standardized products which threaten to drain away the diversity and the skills of each nation's culinary heritage.

This new fast-food diet is high in fat and calories and low in fiber. Professor Michael Crawford, consultant to the World Health Organization, stated

"...McDonald's encourage(s) the use of a style of food which is closely

associated with risk of cancer and heart disease..." (Michael Crawford, 1994)

The fast-food industry has promoted the All American diet all over the world. Consequently, by eating like Americans the people from all over the world are beginning to look like Americans at least in the waist line. The United States has the highest rate of obesity with more than 60% of its people being obese. The world wide incidence of obesity has soared from 12% to 18% in the last 7 years. (World Health Organization, 2002) These figures correlate with the consumption of fast food. Between the years 1984-1993 the number of fast-food restaurants in Great Britain had doubled, and so did the obesity rate. Great Britain is now the most obese nation in Western Europe. The British eat more fast food than any other Western European nation. Wherever the American fast food diet seems to go obesity rates start rising.

Japan's traditional diet of rice, fish, vegetables, and soy products has been considered one of the healthiest in the world. The American food companies wish to dispel that notion by portraying the hamburger as something good. Den Fugita, a McDonald's company president in Japan stated that:

"The reason Japanese people are so short and have yellow skins is that they

have eaten nothing but fish and rise for 2000 years...If we eat McDonald's hamburgers and potatoes for a 1000 years, we will become white and our

hair blonde. (McLibel Support Campaign, 1994)

The Japanese may not be any taller but they are more round. An overweight person in Japan was once a rarity, today about 1/3 of all Japanese men in their 30's are overweight. With the decline of the Japanese traditional diet and the rise of the American diet, the Japanese people have doubled their risk of stroke and tripled their risk of heart disease. For the Japanese embracing the all American diet seems unlikely to change there physical attributes it does seem increasing likely to cause a premature death.

The fast-food industry is taking over the diet of China. The Chinese people are moving away from a diet high in grain and rice to one more based in beef and other animal proteins.

"We want the people in China eating United States beef" (President George W. Bush, 2002)

The increase in the need for beef has led China to look outside its boundaries for this food source. With the demand for beef on the rise and the imports of beef on the rise more urban citizens of China have more access to beef than ever before. McDonalds uses beef as its stable food item. While McDonalds announced the closure of 250 stores world-wide, it was announcing plans to open an additional 100 stores in China by 2003. (Report on the fast food industry in China, 2002)

Massive food advertising by the fast-food industry entices people to eat more. According to the agricultural department these industries spend $36 billion a year on advertising designed to entice young people to forgo fresh fruit and sliced vegetables for ring-dings and happy meals. (Elmer-Dewit, 1995) The company running the most ads aimed at young people was McDonalds.

The average Chinese diet has grown from around 2,100 calories per day in the 1970's to almost 2,500 in the late 80's.