Weight Loss Restaurant Burton, Scot, Term Paper

Though the issue does not specifically address food sustainability, i.e. better healthy options in the industry it does demonstrate a change that was significant in the industry and made McDonalds and other convenience restaurants more aware of the lack of sustainability in their practices, an excellent step in creating a more sustainable built environment.

Marvin, Simon, and Will Medd. "Fat City." World Watch, September-October 2005, 10.

A fascinating study done by a men's fitness magazine is detailed in this work, demonstrating the previously assumed connection between the built environment and the level of obesity that is present in any given community. The health magazine Men's Fitness set out to measure, city by city, "the relative environmental factors that either support an active, fit lifestyle, or nudge people towards a pudgier sedentary existence." Using existing surveys and data, the magazine's analysis ranked the 50 largest U.S. cities according to per-capita numbers or rates of several factors, including gyms and sporting-goods stores, health club memberships, exercise, fruit and vegetable consumption, alcohol consumption, smoking, television watching, junk food outlets, and recreation facilities. Obesity levels were scored by drawing on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. One result is that, ever since the survey was launched, U.S. cities have been jostling to escape top honors as fattest city." (10) the article clearly demonstrates that institutions and locals, as well as individuals need some impetus, even if it is in the form of shaming, that gives them the desire to change the environment and include healthier lifestyle choices, such as healthy restaurants.

Obesity and the Built Environment." Environmental Health Perspectives 112, no. 15 (2004): 900.

This is a foundational work that attempts to connect the built environment of communities to health. The responsibility of healthier living falling upon the whole of the community, instead of simply the glutinous individual is an important aspect of change in a society that wishes to press for better health. "The built environment encompasses all buildings, spaces, and products that are created or modified by people. It includes homes, schools, workplaces, parks/recreation areas, greenways, business areas, and transportation systems. It extends overhead in the form of electric transmission lines, underground in the form of waste disposal sites and subway trains, and across the country in the form of highways.It includes land-use planning and policies that impact our communities in urban, rural, and suburban areas. Currently, there is insufficient research that delineates the influence of the built environment on nutritional factors and physical activity. One intended outcome of this program is the development of models of health-promoting communities that provide access to a wide variety of healthful foods and physical activity patterns, and how this impacts overweight and obesity. These community-based environmental interventions would serve as models for management and prevention of overweight, obesity, and comorbidities across other communities in need of change."

Pardue, Leslie. "Fighting Fat: Most Fast Food Chains Offer Slim Pickins for Healthy Eaters, but a Square Meal Is Possible." E, April 1995, 50.

Pardue stresses the individual seeking to improve health can eat in convenience situations if he or she is fully aware of the information offered by such institutions on health and contents. This lack understanding about available information has been linked with losing any gains that have been obtained by those institutions which have demanded such information be available to individuals.

Pietrykowski, Bruce. "You Are What You Eat: The Social Economy of the Slow Food Movement." Review of Social Economy 62, no. 3 (2004): 307.

Pietrykokski stresses the development, of what many call the "slow food" movement, which is a movement in the U.S. To reduce the amount of stress consumers are placing on convenience and speed in food availability. Though it would seem difficult to redress convenience as more and more is expected to get done in shorter periods of time the is a clear sense that there are many who are accessing food in completely different ways and with healthier results.

Racquet Club to Serve Up Health on a Plate; Homa Khaleeli Finds One Restaurant Keen to Promote the Idea Good Health Begins with the Food You Eat LOVE YOUR HEART." Liverpool Echo (Liverpool, England), 13 September 2006, 12.

The Liverpool Echo highlights a movement in Europe to promote health through existing healthy environmental offerings, with existing restaurants creating even more of internal emphasis on health as the goal of food preparation and offerings.

To Serve and Protect; Restaurants Are Focusing on Helping Their Patrons Stay Fit and Healthy."….....