Fast food has become a national phenomenon, with about 37% of adults choosing to eat it everyday, according to the national center for health statistics 2018. This has led many to wonder why Americans cannot get enough. The answer can be summarized in three main reasons: cost, convenience, and its commonness.
The biggest advantage to fast food is how cheap it is. Arguably the most popular food chain, McDonalds, sells their classic american big mac meal for just $5.99, and includes a burger, fries, and a drink. This level of inexpensiveness has become the standard for fast food meals.
“When people know that they can get a full meal for well under $10, they are going to often take that option,” says Spencer Smead, in America’s Fast Food Obsession for Colby College.
Secondly, Americans choose fast food due to how convenient it is. The average lifestyle of an American is extremely busy and fast paced, and there’s simply no time for making a nice home cooked meal. So, the trade off is going to a fast food restaurant or even driveway to get a meal and continue on with their day in a matter of minutes.
“It’s called fast food for a reason! We want access to food quickly [as families] often do not have a lot of time, so they turn to alternatives, [and] a lot of that is fast food,” explains Ms. Hassassian, the culinary and gourmet foods teacher at Briar Woods.
Thirdly, fast food has become popular due to it being everywhere. According to Fast Food Nation, a book by Eric Schlosser, children often recognize the McDonald’s logo before they recognize their own name. This kind of familiarity in Americans towards fast food led to it becoming not only a necessity, but a fan-favorite. When those same children get older, they then choose to hangout at fast food restaurants, and simply eat there for pleasure and not needs, inhaling calories far too quickly, far too often.
This backs up the statistics showing that 47% of Gen Z loves fast food simply for the taste, according to segmanta.com. Further, a study done for College Student’s Perception of Risk Factors Related to Fast Food Consumption and Their Eating Habits by Sam Abrham shows how 23% of college students eat fast food daily and 50% of students reported eating at least 3 fast food meals per week.
However, all these factors are leading to a growing negative impact on health. Preservatives overtake fast food, and obesity in America has doubled, according to Harvard public health.
“People don’t realize how easy it is to consume a very large amount of calories in just a few minutes” says Hassassian, “It takes about 20 minutes for the brain to signal to the body that it is full and people are eating their meal in sometimes 5 minutes, leading to [the consumption] of thousands of calories.
To make healthier choices when going to a fast food restaurant, ensure that you steer away from excess fats and grease. For example, McDonald’s sells a grilled chicken salad, and Chick-Fil-a offers a grilled sandwich over a fried one.
“When you’re looking at the menu you should definitely make sure you are looking at the calories. You definitely want to choose things like grilled items over fried items,” explains Hassassian, “If they have an alternative for a salad, definitely choose that.”
Paula Tello, a professional chef, agrees that salads are the best healthy option at fast food places, saying “It may not be the cheapest option, but it is the healthiest, and sometimes we have to think about that for ourselves.”
With the ever growing health concerns in this country, it is time for people to realize that health needs to come first. By constantly and consistently buying cheap, greasy, and preservative-infested foods, consumers are telling fast food companies that they want this, all while killing off their health in one fell swoop.
Unless customers make an active choice for their bodies, America’s downhill plummet in food quality will only get worse.
