What is our problem?

My grandparents describe the America they grew up in as a place filled with hard work, neighborliness, and family value. People worked honestly, taught their children good virtues, and helped one another when someone was in need. Somewhere along the way, this image of America has faded. It has become a society in which people feel they are in competition with their neighbors, that they must work harder and longer to keep up or ahead of everyone else. Money has taken precedent, and rather than a privilege, people now view it as a necessary component of daily life. Working is so important that other values fall by the wayside in sacrifice, such as time with our children, to relax, and to even eat a decent meal. In this new model, fast food, which was once a luxury, has become a sad and cheap replacement to sitting down at the table with your family and discussing your day.

Middle class Americans have replaced the happy emotions of family and relaxation with comfort food that comes from a drive-thru. Fast food is making people depressed and unhealthy because it lacks nutrition. Health issues arise and bills fuel longer hours of working to pay them off. Longer hours means more fast food, creating an endless cycle.

If people in the middle class are being sucked into this vortex, how are people in poverty ever supposed to avoid it, when fast food is so much cheaper than healthy food? Even if they had the time to prepare healthy meals for their families, how would they ever afford it? Again, this leads to illness and disease, which this time they cannot pay off, squelching any possibility of rising up out of poverty. What has happened to the sense of neighborliness that America once knew? Where is the society that my grandparents grew up in?

If the classes could work together, they could provide a system in which healthy food was more accessible to the masses, and fast food was not the preferred option. In order for this happen, the food industry needs a serious revision to their work ethic. They need to put people, rather than prices, first. The government must stop subsidizing companies that use genetically modified ingredients and start putting money into real, healthy foods so that these can become more affordable. Farmers should be motivated to grow organic vegetables to sell at farmer's markets. What can you do until this happens? Vote. Support your local farmers. Get out there and volunteer to help a neighbor in need. We can slowly bring back the America that my grandparents once knew.