chicken nuggetsCan you imagine how sick you'd be if you ate only fast-food chicken nuggets and nothing but chicken nuggets (apart from the occasional order of fries) for years and years and years? Um, yeah … pretty sick, as it turns out. A British teen named Stacey Irvine apparently learned that the hard way. After eating a diet almost exclusively comprised of fast food nuggets for the last 15 years – yes, since she was only 2 – the 17-year-old factory worker was rushed to the hospital two weeks ago after she collapsed, unable to breathe. Her unhealthy fast food addiction (no fruits, no vegetables; only fried chickenish items and french fries) had caused her to suffer from anemia, extreme deficiencies in vitamins and nutrients, and (get this) inflamed veins on her tongue. (Ick!)

After pumping her full of nutrients, the doctors instructed Irvine to change her diet and start eating healthier foods. But, now that all that fast food has finally caught up with her, does Irvine intend to mend her ways? Well, that's not entirely clear.

Her mom swears she's tried everything she can. I see no reason not to believe her. Still, it's hard not to call what Irvine's doing sort of a slow suicide. I mean, sheesh, has the world learned nothing about the hazards of eating too much fast food after Morgan Spurlock vividly documented his own downward health spiral from eating McDonald's for a month in his alarming 2004 documentary "Super Size Me"? After watching what happened to Spurlock in that eye-opening film, I swore off fast food once and for all.

Irvine's sad saga just underscores not only how bad for us fast food is, but also how important it is for us to eat a varied, healthy diet with lots of fruits and vegetables. Eating too much fast food is just slow suicide, pure and simple. And if eating a lot of it is so very bad, it's hard to want to eat even a little of it. Who needs a little bad when you can have no bad at all? And no, thank you, I don't want fries with that.

What do you think of this British teen's nugget-only diet?


Image via Ross Catrow/Flickr