Realizing the Common Good in the Context of Global Fast Food (UNCC300)

This essay analyzes the global fast food market through the lens of the common good, arguing that the industry often prioritizes profit over the well-being of consumers. It critiques the lack of shared responsibility in the fast food sector, highlighting the negative impacts on health and economic status, while also discussing how the fast food market does not consider the health and economic status of the consumers. The essay then proposes various solutions rooted in Catholic Social Teachings (CST) principles, such as the Common Good, Human Dignity, and Solidarity. It suggests local and global strategies, including raising awareness among fast food sellers, promoting healthy food options, and launching social media campaigns to emphasize human dignity. The essay emphasizes the importance of advocacy and community engagement, including the concept of ubuntu, to implement these solutions and foster positive change within communities. The essay aims to demonstrate how these strategies can contribute to realizing the common good and addressing the challenges posed by the global fast food industry.

Running head: REALIZING THE COMMON GOOD
REALIZING THE COMMON GOOD
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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The shared responsibility of the common good
The Common Good is achieved when people in the community work together for the
wellbeing and improvement of everyone. The principle of Common Good states that the rights of
the people to have possession of community resources should be balanced with the needs and
desires of the dispossessed and the disadvantaged. In this context, the global fast food market
does not does not realize the common good. Fast food is amongst the fastest growing food type
markets and the fast food companies are amongst the biggest earners. Owners of fast food
companies assume that consumers across the globe have the same taste for food and hence, sell
food products that are the same in every culture (Monteiro et al., 2013). However, the major
concerns are the price and quality of the fast food. The common good here is not realized in the
sense that the fast food companies do not consider the health and economic status of the
consumers. They only care about their own profit irrespective of the way it comes (Moodie et al.,
2013).
As it has been discussed in Assignment 2, fast food consumption leads to several ill
effects and diseases. In the busy world, humans often give up the idea of cooking and eating
healthy foods and resort to eating unhealthy fast food. This further makes the fast food
companies greedy and craves for more. In this way, the global fast food companies do not realize
the shared responsibility of the common good. The companies do not realize that it is their
responsibility as well to care for the people of the world.
Proposed ways to address the issue
The issue could be addressed in numerous ways especially from the perspective of the
Catholic Social Teachings or the CST principles (Guitián, 2015). As a social working

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professional, it becomes essential to address the issue using the CST principles because these
principles provide a broad overview of the issues that the human beings face due to the global
issue of fast food selling. The various CST principles are the Common Good, Human Dignity,
Stewardship and participation, solidarity, preferential option for the poor and care for for the
creation of God including the rights and responsibilities of the human beings (Grace, 2013). With
the help of these CST principles, it would be easier for the social work professional to address
the global issue of fast food marketing, which is harmful for the world population.
The Common Good principle has been describe already. It states that each individual has
the shared responsibility to promote the welfare of the people and the community (Caritas.org.au,
2019). In this regard, it could be proposed that the issue of global fast food marketing could be
addressed locally by encouraging the fast food sellers about the ill effects it has on their own
people. The local fast food sellers selling global fast food products must be provided awareness
sessions on the ill effects of fast food to the entire community (Couch, Fried & Komesaroff,
2017). This is a difficult task considering the fact that people work mostly for financial stability
and to ask them to stop selling fast food would be a wrong idea. The sellers could instead be
encouraged to make use of healthy food products in preparing the fast food so that it does not
affect the health of the people. The common good further states that the each individual deserves
the right to benefit from the community but in this case, the global fast food sellers only benefit.
According to the principle of Human Dignity, the human being has been made in the
image of the God and hence, has the freedom to enjoy fundamental dignity and freedom.
Injustice, poverty, hunger and oppression cause the human dignity to fade (Caritas.org.au, 2019).
As humans, one should recognize this and treat her or his own neighbor as the image of God.
When one does this, the issue of harmful fast food marketing could be addressed as well, on both

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local and global scale. Locally, the social worker could propagate the principle of human dignity,
set an example by preparing healthy food for the fast food sellers, and tell them to bring the same
change in their center as well. Globally, the social workers could start a campaign on the social
media stating the main elements of human dignity principle and the way it is neglected by the
global fast food companies.
The Solidarity CST principle states that every human being belongs to a single family
irrespective of nationality, cast, religion, creed, and ethnicity, economic, political or social
position. Every individual hence, has the responsibility to promote the progress and rights of all
the human beings. When the fast food companies sell those harmful food products to the people
globally, they fail to realize the notion of one family (Caritas.org.au, 2019). In solving this issue,
solidarity could help the social worker to make the global marketers of fast food realize that they
belong to the same family as others do.
All these principles are related to the principle of common good. The main purpose of the
human beings is to promote and preserve the rights and needs of the disadvantaged. The global
fast food marketers must utilize their powerful position to produce healthy yet tasty food that
does not harm the people.
In making the above-mentioned solutions work, advocacy and community engagement
could help largely. Advocacy is about advocating for the greater good of the people. The
advocacy involves strategies that influence the decision-making of the powerful people at the
local, national and global level. Community engagement, on the other hand, refers to the
capabilities of the people to engage members of the community to work together and bring about

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change. The concept of ubuntu (I am because we are) further enhances community engagement
(Chitumba, 2013). This in turn, could help in the realization of the solutions thus proposed.

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References:
Caritas.org.au. (2019). The Common Good - The common good is reached when we work
together to improve the wellbeing of people in our society and the wider world. Retrieved
from https://www.caritas.org.au/learn/cst/the-common-good
Chitumba, W. (2013). University education for personhood through Ubuntu
philosophy. International Journal of Asian Social Science, 3(5), 1268-1276.
Couch, D., Fried, A., & Komesaroff, P. (2017). Public health and obesity prevention campaigns–
a case study and critical discussion. Communication Research and Practice.
Grace, G. (2013). Catholic social teaching should permeate the Catholic secondary school
curriculum: An agenda for reform. International Studies in Catholic Education, 5(1), 99-
109.
Guitián, G. (2015). Service as a bridge between ethical principles and business practice: A
Catholic social teaching perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 128(1), 59-72.
Monteiro, C. A., Moubarac, J. C., Cannon, G., Ng, S. W., & Popkin, B. (2013). Ultra‐processed
products are becoming dominant in the global food system. Obesity reviews, 14, 21-28.
Moodie, R., Stuckler, D., Monteiro, C., Sheron, N., Neal, B., Thamarangsi, T., ... & Lancet NCD
Action Group. (2013). Profits and pandemics: prevention of harmful effects of tobacco,
alcohol, and ultra-processed food and drink industries. The lancet, 381(9867), 670-679.