Trick or Treat? BK comes to town...

I don't know if I can adequately describe what happens when Burger King opens it's first location in a foreign country.  Specifically, Barbados.  Subway opened a location here a couple of years ago and the lines were out the door for a couple of weeks.  I knew that "The King" would cause chaos.

So far, BK has made the newspaper and the nightly news, lines have been running upwards of an hour on the weekends and I have heard numerous discussions about french fry quality (Barbados v. Miami Airport) and several comments regarding the interior design!  Apparently, the new BK has "that new AMERICA smell".  Awesome.

As a personal trainer, I fear The King.  It's a daily battle to promote good food choices as it is and now I just KNOW people are talking about BK when I walk into the gym and a hush falls over the crowd.  I've seen more Burger King bags in the halls at work than I can even count.  It's depressing.  This is a country that suffers desperately with obesity and the one of the highest diabetes rates in the world.  The very last thing on this earth that's needed here is Burger King. McDonalds FAILED in Barbados a number of years ago so I assumed it would remain American-Fast-Food-Free. And we all know what "assuming" does!

The sentiment that I've heard the most is also the most troubling:

"C'mon...I should be able to "treat" myself every once in awhile."
"I'm not going every day... just for a "treat"!
"I'm just taking the kids for a "treat" to Burger King."

How does processed, fat-infused, factory farmed, salted-to-death, sugary, cheesy "crap food" become our greatest "treat"?  Our health problems and our healthcare crisis will grow and grow and grow until our "treats" become...

"The most perfect apple I ever saw!"
"A tomato so fresh, I couldn't help but just bite into it!"
"Supercentre just got new red peppers!  Get down there!"
"I brought the best banana for after lunch today!"
"I "treated" myself to a pint of blueberries."

I couldn't resist...

Maybe I sound crazy but we've got one life, one body and only one chance.  Don't blow it in a drive-thru (which is opening soon at BK - along with a second location in Bridgetown).

"The food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison.” Dr. Ann Wigmore

"The doctor of the future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather will cure and prevent disease with nutrition."  Thomas Edison

"And we have made of ourselves living cesspools, and driven doctors to invent names for our diseases."  Plato

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”  Hippocrates