The McDonald’s In All of Us

Find it before it kills you

A new McDonald’s opens every 14 and a half hours. The company estimates it serves 86 million people per day, and about 75 hamburgers per minute. The ingredients test the boundaries of what we accept as food. To some, it’s delicious. To others, a Big Mac is a ticking time bomb and the explosives are guilt, regret, and stomach aches. I think McDonald’s is delicious, but I’m violating a social rule when I say that.

It’s great for those first 5 bites…

It’s easy to shit on McDonald’s. Everyone has read the articles about how terrible the food is for you. We judge people who go a lot. And yet, everyone eats it. This is the McDonald’s phenomenon.

What is it?

The cognitive dissonance that occurs when we justify habits, decisions, or actions that won’t add value to our life, yet we do them anyways.

We all have our own McDonald’s. Maybe, yours is stalking people on instagram. Maybe it’s gossiping about with friends in group chats. Maybe its reading People magazine, or watching The Bachelor, or pretending Naked juice smoothies are good for you. Mine is endlessly scrolling through comments in political tweets, and every time I do feels like this.

1. I know I should do better, but I lie to myself and do it anyway.
2. I do it anyway because it feels good.
3. I disappoint myself.

McDonald’s isn’t inherently bad. It fills a vital need in society, but it can be dangerous when you eat too much. What I am saying is to actively search out and identify the McDonald’s in your life. The Golden Arches aren’t inherently bad. The true danger is normalization. We have to always see McDonald’s for what it really is:

• convenient
• cheap
• fast food
• bad if you have it too much
• not the end of the world if eaten every once in a while

Why does it matter?

The key is to be aware of every instance of McD’s in your life and treat them as such. Understand what they are and the consequences that come with them. It’s fine to like McDonald’s, but the second we start making excuses for them, we ignore what they really are, and that’s what kills us.