Young Peoples Attitude to Health - Essay Example

? Young people’s Attitude to Health Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Chapter Research Background 4 Chapter 2: Research Question and Research objectives 5 Chapter 3: Literature Review 6 Health Issues regarding Fast Food Consumption of Young People and Intervention of Hedonic Pleasures 6 Chapter 4: Research Methodology 8 Chapter 5: Result 9 Chapter 7: Conclusion 13 14 Chapter 8: Time Scale for the Research 14 Appendices 16 Appendix 1: Questionnaire 16 Hypothesis: Young people who eat McDonald's more than once a week do not care about their health Abstract In this paper, the researcher has conducted research on health issues regarding fast food consumption among young people who eat McDonald's more than once a week. The researcher has used two separate hypothesis regarding health awareness and hedonic value drivers of eating in fast food restaurants in order to develop research problems. As research methodology, the researcher has used triangulation approach in order to address the research problem in robust manner. Close ended questionnaire and open ended interview were used in order to collect the data. On the basis of data analysis, influence of hedonic value drivers on fast food consumption of young people has been identified but the study has failed to find any significance of the primary hypothesis: “Young people who eat McDonald's more than once a week do not care about their health”. It is not the fact that the research paper has only the academic value of fulfilling gap in the literature but the research findings will also have commercial value such as, findings of the research can be used by fast-food marketers to decide their marketing strategy. Chapter 1: Research Background In the last couple of years, fast food industry has witnessed phenomenal growth in terms of both value and volume across different countries. Ali, Kapoor and Moorthy (2010) found that demand for fast food among customers have increased due to three reasons, 1- convenience for customers to consume fast food in quick succession in contrast to waiting in long queue to dine out in traditional restaurants, 2- fast foods are low cost food offerings which can satisfy the hunger of consumer without costing them huge chunk of money in contrast to dining in posh restaurants and 3- while consuming fast food, consumers often pass through health-indulgence antinomy which helps them to establish trade-off between immediate gratification and prophylactic reward. According to Ali, Kapoor and Moorthy (2010), children, adolescents, young people and working professional are the prime target market for fast-food marketers like McDonald, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), Pizza Huts, Domino’s, US Pizza etc. Anand (2011) and Ali, Kapoor and Moorthy (2010) identified reasons why fast-food marketers target young people and the identified reasons can be summarized as, 1- income of young people is low as compared to adults, therefore they show the preference for low cost fast-food items in contrast to high end food items, 2- young people prefer to eat out in fast food joints with friends due to convenience, 3- health consciousness among young people regarding the ill effects of fast foods is less as compared to young people and 4- young people prefer to indulge themselves in fast-food experience in order to satisfy hedonic value. Now the question is whether eating fast-food offered fast-food marketers like McDonald, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), Pizza Huts, Domino’s, US Pizza has only benefits or there is presence of dark side of the story? The answer is yes and health related issues regarding fast-food consumption among people are central theme of the research paper. Consideration of the research works of Ritzer (2001) and Williams (2006) reveals the fact that periodic and frequent consumption fast food can lead to multiple health problems such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and even cancers. Ali, Kapoor and Moorthy (2010) found a direct link between growing obesity among young people and rise in fast food consumption. According to Anand (2011), risk of abdominal obesity and rise of body mass index (BMI) over 30 is almost 80% among young people who eat fast-food more than once a week. Consideration of research report of Euromonitor International (2005) shows that within 2015, more than 1.5 billion people will be overweight (30% of them will be clinically obese) and 30% of young people will suffer from diseases like type 2 diabetes, physical disability, diet-related chronic diseases and cancer which can even cause death of them. Ali, Kapoor and Moorthy (2010) found that young people might have the knowledge about the above mentioned health threats associated with fast-food consumption but certain portion of them who eat fast food frequently (more than once a week) do care very less about such health concerns. What can be the reason of such ignorance for young consumers (who eat fast food more than once a week towards the health concerns)? Well, this research paper will try to find this answer. Apart from the research work of Ali, Kapoor and Moorthy (2010), very few previous research scholars tried to understand whether hedonic value of fast-food consumption among young people is outweighing the health concern or not? Therefore, literature is pretty scarce on the topic and due to scarcity of research works on the topic; a gap has been created in the literature. Such gap in the literature has forced the researcher to conduct research on perception of young people towards health issues regarding fast food consumption which can fulfil certain gap in the literature regarding the topic. To address key research issues in proper manner, the researcher has selected McDonald as the sample fast food marketers and consumption habit of customers of McDonald’s fast food will be used as representative overall fast food consumption of young people across the globe. In such context, research objectives for this research paper can be drawn in the following manner. Chapter 2: Research Question and Research objectives Apart of research work of Ali, Kapoor and Moorthy (2010), very few previous researchers confirmed the fact through their research that “young people who eat McDonald's more than once a week does not care about their health.” Therefore, it will be subjective to use the statement as confirmed fact rather the researcher will use the statement as tentative hypothesis which needs to be validated through systematic research process. On the other hand, understanding the interaction between urge for satisfying the desire of young people to fulfil hedonic values associated with fast food consumption as against the knowledge of young people for health threats regarding consumption of fast foods will be another pertinent research objective of the paper. In such context, following research questions have been identified. Question 1: What is the nature of perception of young people who eat McDonald's more than once a week towards health issues regarding consumption of fast food? Question 2: What are key hedonic value determinant for consumption of fast food of young people who eat McDonald's more than once a week? Question 3: How hedonic value determinants are affecting health concern regarding consumption of fast food of young people who eat McDonald's more than once a week? Chapter 3: Literature Review Health Issues regarding Fast Food Consumption of Young People and Intervention of Hedonic Pleasures According to Lowell (2004), there is significant amount of evidences available which are showing the strong correlation between fast food consumption and rise in health threats like diabetes, obesity, clinical obesity, increase in BMI, respiratory problems, cardiovascular diseases, back pain and cancer. Schroder and McEachern (2005) conducted on fast food consumption of young people in McDonald’s and KFC and found that, health awareness and concern for ill effects of fast food consumption among young people is pretty much dispersed and asymmetric among young people. Schroder and McEachern (2005) stated that awareness of young people towards health issues regarding frequent fast food consumption is being affected by demographic and psychological variables like age, level of education, knowledge about diseases caused by excessive eating of fast food, exposure to marketing communication by fast food companies etc. Shepherd et al. (2006) and Pollan (2006) also found that not every young people but certain section of young people only exposed to frequent fast food consumptions. Now, question may arise that whether it is true that young people who eat McDonald's more than once a week does not care about their health or it is a mere assumption? Answering the question will be incomplete if researchers fail to incorporate four cognitive dilemmas regarding food consumption such as health versus indulgence, care versus convenience, extravagance versus economy and novelty versus tradition (Larsen, Jensen and Pedersen, 2010). Health versus indulgence dilemma- according to Larsen, Jensen and Pedersen (2010), frequent (more than once a week consumption can be noted as symbol of frequent fast food consumption) fast food consumers face dilemma between immediate gratification and prophylactic reward. Fast food promotional advertisement creates the immediate gratification need among customers while parents and teacher make young people aware of the as inherently unhealthy aspect of excessive fast food consumption (Hernandez, 2010). Care versus convenience dilemma- young people feels the lethargy of preparing healthy foods which need sufficient amount of time of preparation and tedious process of preparation as against unhealthy alternatives such as fast foods which can be consumed by visiting local quick service restaurants and fast food outlets (Larsen, Jensen and Pedersen, 2010). Novelty versus tradition dilemma- many of the young people go to fast food outlets with friends for multiple times in week and their fast food consumption is being affected by preference of peer group. By consuming fast food in regular occasion in order to behave like peer group, they become addicted to fast food consumption. In the whole process, young people sacrifice the parental health advice and traditional healthy food eating habit in order to become accepted member of the peer group (Ali, Kapoor and Moorthy, 2010). Extravagance versus economy dilemma- most of the young people do not have sufficient access to wealth because most of them not even completed the college level degree, therefore, most of the young people in college are either unemployed and doing part time job (Larsen, Jensen and Pedersen, 2010). Due to limited economic means of young people, they go for inexpensive fast food items although they have the dilemma regarding eating out in high end restaurant (Larsen, Jensen and Pedersen, 2010; Pollan, 2006). It is evident from the above discussion that certain level of biasness, dilemma and arguments complement young people decision regarding consumption of fast food in fast food chains (McDonald in this case). In such context, following hypothesis has been developed which will be tested in the final research paper through suitable research method. Hypothesis 1: Young people who eat McDonald's more than once a week do not care about their health According to Johns and Pine (2002) and Kj?rnes, Harvey and Warde (2007), fast food consumption of young people is directed by quest for satisfying hedonic values regarding enjoying tasty food despite being aware of the health hazard of the food, recreational fun in the fast food outlet, entertainment, absorbing, spending time with friends etc. From hedonic perspectives, eating fast food in McDonald can provide values like convenience of eating, enjoying social interaction with friends, enjoying entertainment options in the fast food outlet and mood transformation. In such context, it can be assumed that involvement of the mentioned hedonic values might dilute the health concern among young people who eat McDonald's more than once a week. Therefore, following sub hypothesis can be drawn on the basis of above mentioned argument. Hypothesis 1a: Involvement of hedonic value determinants can affect health concern regarding consumption of fast food of young people who eat McDonald's more than once a week. Chapter 4: Research Methodology Saunders, Lewis and Thornhil (2007 and 2009) stated that three types of research methods can be used while conducting research such as qualitative research, quantitative research and mixed methods. In case of qualitative research, research work is being done through historical content analysis, ethnographic interview of respondents and extensive literature review (Sekaran and Bougie, 2009). In case of quantitative research, close ended survey being used to collect primary data or historical data being analyzed through appropriate statistical and mathematical operators (Robson, 2011). However, in this research paper, the researcher will use mixed research model consisting of both qualitative and quantitative research. Secondary data will collected from academic peer reviewed journals, books, online articles regarding health effect McDonald’s fast food, company websites, magazines while primary data will be collected through close ended questionnaire survey (consisting of demographic questions, likert scale questions, multiple choice questions) and open ended interview. Method of direct observation of young people’s behaviour while eating out in McDonald fast food joint will be used for collecting primary data without interacting with any customers. A local McDonald restaurant will be selected as study setting while convenience sampling as part of non-probabilistic sampling will be used to select the sample size of young people who eat McDonald's more than once a week. Questionnaire will be divided into two parts such as qualitative interview of selected respondent through open ended questions and quantitative close ended survey questions. Personal administration will be used for primary data collection through questionnaire. Direct observation of respondent’s age, health, facial expression, skin and body language will be done by standing outside McDonald’s restaurant. Chapter 5: Result Total sample size for the study was 20. All the 20 members were in the age group of 18 years to 25 years. Table 1: Respondent Profile Question 3: How often do you eat McDonald’s? Question 4: Do you think McDonald's food taste? Question 5: Do you think McDonald's food healthy? Question 6: What do you think of McDonald's most attractive to you? Question 7: What foods do you like McDonald's? Question 8: When you eat McDonald's, what happens to your body or are not accustomed to? Chapter 6: Discussion It is evident from the data result that 40% of respondents visit McDonald once in a week while only 10% of respondents visit McDonald more than once a week. Therefore, it can be concluded that very small segment of young population visit McDonald more than once a week. Almost 70% of respondents have agreed with the fact they like the deliciousness of McDonald’s food offering. Therefore, enjoying the taste of the food can be considered as hedonic value that drives customers to visit McDonald. Most of the respondents believe that McDonald's food has sufficient health quotient while 40 % of respondents were not sure about nutrition quotient of the food. Such ambiguity among customers regarding nutritional and health benefits McDonalds food offering strengthen the claim that most of the young people are unaware of the food value of fast food. All total 80% of respondents stated that buy fast food items from McDonalds due to two reasons, 1- convenience of buying fast-food in contrast to time taking process of cooking healthy food items and 2- low price of McDonald’s food item in contrast to food items in high end restaurants. Therefore, the study has found significance for two dilemmas mentioned in literature review such as care versus convenience dilemma and extravagance versus economy dilemma. Expectedly, most of the respondents (65%) identified Hamburger as the most preferred item among McDonald’s food offerings. 80% of respondents are not sure the effect of over eating fast food of McDonald's more than once a week and they have no knowledge calorific side effects of eating high calorie fast food products. As response to open ended question, most of the respondents stated that they do care of ill effect of eating fast food from McDonald’s on their health but they are forced to keep on this eating habit due to three reasons, 1- enjoying food that can fulfil their appetite by paying low prices, 2- enjoying time with friends in restaurants and 3- convenience of eating fast food from nearby fast food outlets as against cooking healthy food items which requires time and effort. As response to open ended interview, most of the respondents stated that they would not buy healthy food items like salads from McDonald if that means waiting in long queue or being pressed for spending more time to enjoy the food. Therefore, it can be said that McDonald has the option to add nutritional food items in its product portfolio but for adding new product portfolio, service responsiveness should not be compromised. Chapter 7: Conclusion It is evident from the above discussion that Young people who eat McDonald's more than once a week do care about their health and therefore the researcher has failed to accept the following hypothesis; Hypothesis 1: Young people who eat McDonald's more than once a week do not care about their health However, the study has found particular hedonic values like convenience of eating, enjoying social interaction with friends, enjoying entertainment options in the fast food outlet and mood transformation etc can affect health concern regarding consumption of fast food of young people who eat McDonald's more than once a week. In order to enjoy the mentioned values, young customers are ready to visit McDonalds more than once a week despite knowing the health hazards of eating fast foods. Therefore, the researcher has accepted the following hypothesis; Hypothesis 1a: Involvement of hedonic value determinants can affect health concern regarding consumption of fast food of young people who eat McDonald's more than once a week. Chapter 8: Time Scale for the Research Reference List Ali, J., Kapoor, S. and Moorthy, J., 2010. Buying behaviour of consumers for food products in an emerging economy. British Food Journal, 112(2), pp. 109-124. Anand, R., 2011. A study of determinants impacting consumers food choice with reference to the fast food consumption in India. Society and Business Review, 6(2), pp. 176-187. Euromonitor International., 2005. The changing face of eating habits. London: Euromonitor International. Johns, N. and Pine, R., 2002. Consumer behavior in the food service industry: A review. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 21 (2), pp. 119–134. Kj?rnes, U., Harvey, M. and Warde, A., 2007. Trust in food. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Larsen, T. B., Jensen, B. B and Pedersen, S., 2010. An exploration of adolescent snacking conventions and dilemmas. Young Consumers, 11(4), pp. 253-263. Lowell, J., 2004. The food industry and its impact upon increasing global obesity: A case study. British Food Journal, 106(2/3), pp. 238-48. Pollan, M., 2006. The omnivore’s dilemma: A natural history of four meals. London: Penguin Press. Ritzer, G., 2001. Explorations in the Sociology of Consumption: Fast Food, Credit Cards and Casino. London: Sage. Robson, C., 2011. Real world research. 3rd ed. Chichester: John Wiely and Sons Ltd, Publication. Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhil, A., 2007. Research methods for business students. 3rd ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education. Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhil, A., 2009. Research methods for business students. 4th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education. Schroder, M. J. A. and McEachern, M. G., 2005. Fast foods and ethical consumers value: A focus on McDonald’s and KFC. British Food Journal, 107(4/5), pp. 212-24. Sekaran, U. and Bougie, R., 2009. Research methods for business. 5th ed. Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley& Sons. Shepherd, J., Harden, A., Rees, R., Brunton, G., Garcia, J., Oliver, S. and Oakley, A., 2006. Young people and healthy eating: A systematic review of research on barriers and moderators. Health Education Research, 21(2), pp. 239-57. Williams, F., 2006. Problems of obesity hit poor countries. Asia ed. London: Financial Times. Appendices Appendix 1: Questionnaire 1. Gender Male__ Female__ 2. Age __ 3. How often do you eat McDonald’s? Once a week. More than once a week. Once two weeks. Once a month. Once more than a month. 4. Do you think McDonald's food taste? Very tasty Delicious General Not tasty 5. Do you think McDonald's food healthy? Yes Not Not sure 6. What do you think of McDonald's most attractive to you? Cheap ?Good service attitude ?Delicious food ? Convenient ? Others 7. What foods do you like McDonald's? Hamburger ? Chips ? Chicken ? Dessert ? Drinks 8. When you eat McDonald's, what happens to your body or are not accustomed to? ? Fat ? Uncomfortable part of the body ? Not sure ? Others 9. If you think that McDonald’s food is not healthy, why you still choose to eat? 10. Do you think that McDonald’s need to add more health food? Such as salad. Read More