Chapter 10

- Why did the author visit Plauen, Germany?

The author wanted to visit Plauen because he found it fascinating, and it has a lot of history behind it. Events there have forshadowed the rise and fall of great social movements. It has a beautiful, lush and green countryside. Old buildings with a lot of charm, and the people are friendly. Plauen was the first city outside of bavaria to organize its own chapter of the Nazi party. In May of 1923, the Hitler Youth movement was launched in Plauen, and the following year, the little city became the Nazi headquarters for Saxony. For most of World War II, Plauen remained strangely quiet and peaceful. Thousands of German refugees stayed there safely, fleeing bombed cities. On April 10, 1945, hundreds of British Lancaster bombers appeared over the city of Plauen. During a single raid, the Royal Air Force dropped 2.000 tons of high explosives on the city. Overall, the city of Plauen has had massive amounts of improtant history, including devostation and many great improvements in their society.

- In what ways might there be a connection between the obesity rate in America and the fast food industry?

The United States has the highest obesity rate of any industialized nation in the world. More than half of the adults and about one-quarter of children in America are now obese or overweight. The amount of adults has gone up two times as much since 1960, and the amount of children have also doubled since 1970. Today about 44 million American adults are obese. An additional 6 million are "super-obese"; they weigh about one hundred pounds more than they should. As people eat more meals outside of home, they consume more calories, less fiber, and more fat. Over the last fourty years in the U.S, per capita consumption of carbonated soft drinks has more than quadrupled. In the late 1950's the typical soft drink order at a fast food restaurant contained about eight ounces of soda. Today a "child" order of Coke at McDonalds is twelve ounces, and a "large" is thirty-two ounces- and about 310 calories. An order of Super-sized fries at McDonalds is a serving size about three times larger than what their servings of fries were a generation ago. Super Size fries have 610 calories, and 29 grams of fat. These are only a small percentage of the dangers of fast food, and it is obvious by just these few examples how fast food is directly linked to a great majority of obesity in the U.S.