Little Restaurants - Research Paper Example

Fast Food Introduction Fast food is an evil of the modern world. Fast food consumption has increased manifold in the US over past few decades. The menus in fast food outlets tend to have high fat, sugar and salt in their servings and low nutrients and fibre content. People need to know how often they eat in fast food outlets and how to reduce eating in fast food restaurants to secure their health. In order to get more insight ourselves, we asked four questions to 30 respondents selected randomly. The first and foremost question was how often do you eat in fast food restaurants? The response received has been produced in Exhibit I. Exhibit I The response received indicates that 60% ate weekly in fast food outlets and 17% informed that they have a habit of eating daily. This certainly is an indication that very high percentages of people have been eating in the fast food restaurants (Exhibit I). Fast Food Saves Time and Also Economical Why do you eat fast food? That was the second question that we asked. The 43% respondents said they do not have time to cook; while 35 percent gave the reason of the same being cheap and 22 percent gave the reason of fast services (Exhibit II). Exhibit II The lack of time is given a biggest reason for the consumption of fast food. The people prefer to eat fast food because it saves time and served quickly. Fast food does not cost much in comparison to regular foods. Eating fast food has several adverse effects on peoples life. Eating fast food frequently can cause several health issues which could be very expensive and cause a lot of inconvenience in persons life. Zhong and DeVoe argue that changing lifestyle has caused great changes in the ways people eat. People prefer fast food because it saves their time and efforts both. Fast Foods and Obesity On asking about obesity–our third question, 60 percent of the respondent agreed with the statement that fast food causes obesity while 10 percent did not agree with it. Remaining respondents were not sure about that (Exhibit III). Exhibit III Child obesity is now a matter of great concern in the minds of policy makers. Research findings state that there is no nutritional value in such foods and that is also a cause of obesity among children. It has adversely affected the dietary and behavioural pattern of the children. The study done by Janet Currie et al. (2009) regarding the effect of fast food restaurants on obesity reveals “We find that among 9th grade children, a fast food restaurant within a tenth of a mile of a school is associated with at least a 5.2 percent increase in obesity rates” (p.1). Obesity, in the long run, becomes a cause of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension and many other diseases and this finding has several policy implications. The first and foremost is that of limiting fast food outlets near schools could have considerable impact on the obesity of school children. The key aspect is that the people are not conscious of their calorie intake nor they are aware about their daily energy requirements. By consuming fast food they easily surpass their daily calorie needs. School children are most vulnerable class of people to fall in trap of fast foods. Health Issues Type 2 Diabetes A study done at National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) reveals that eating fast food two times a week is likely to increase the weight and may cause insulin resistance. Such persons have much higher risk factors for type 2 diabetes. The director the Institute NHLBI stated that the cases of obesity and diabetes both are rising in US and stressed how important it is to cultivate healthy eating habits (National Institute of Health). Artery-Clogging and Other Heart Diseases Coghlan argues that fast food is full of trans fats that causes artery-clogging. In a study done by researchers it was found that daily consumption of ‘trans fats’ over 5 grams can increase the heart risk by 25 percent. The study stated that 43 fast food meals that included 19 from KFC and 24 from McDonald contained ‘trans fats’ exceeding 5 gram limits. ‘Trans fat’ causes increase in bad cholesterol in the blood that chokes arteries. ‘Trans fats’ also causes an irregular heartbeat and increase the risk of arterial inflammation. Such foods drastically increase the risk of a heart attack. Fast Food and Environmental Hazards Fast food restaurants create enormous amount of waste in the form of plastic, paper, foam. Many of the fast food chains do not use recyclable kind of waste material that poses a great environmental threat. PepsiCo does declare that its policy is aimed at conservation of natural resources and believes in recycling these materials so as to reduce load on landfills but does not speak about specific actions taken by them. So is the case with McDonalds. Barring a few companies, the fast food industry as a whole is generating huge amount of waste that creates environment issues (West, Larry) Ways to Cope up Labelling Indicating Calories Given the complexity of the issue, it is required that people are informed about calorie intake by labelling on each packets and menu cards while they try to consume fast foods. Currently, consumers cannot estimate even if they wish to measure their intake of calorie. Though US health care reform bill of 2010 has made it necessary for all restaurants having more than 20 outlets nationally to display the same on menu boards and cards, its real effect will be seen only in next few years (Tangari). Banning Advertising Targeting Children Our last question– whether advertisement has a role in attracting people to fast food restaurants? The half of our respondents agreed that it does have influence while 10 % the respondents did not agree with the statement (Exhibit IV). Exhibit IV Social psychologists also emphasize that advertising create a harmful effect on childrens consumption habits and accordingly Dhar and Baylis carried out a study to find the effect of banning advertising on the consumption outcome of fast foods (6). The finding of Dhar and Baylis implies that "the ban significantly decreased propensity to consume fast food by 13 percent for the effected households"(26). Conclusion Our survey on the various aspects of the fast food, its causes and effects and the replies that we received from the responders clearly reveal that issue has now achieved enormous proportion and that needs to be addressed at all levels as it is affecting whites, blacks, children, and adults across all sections of the society. Work-Cited Coghlan, Andy. New scientist . “Fast food awash with worst kind of fat”. Web. 8 May 2012. ‹http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8989-fast-food-awash-with-worst-kind-of-fat.html›. Currie, Janet; Vigna, Stefano, Moretti, Enrico, Pathania, Vikram, Columbia University and NBER. The Effect of Fast Food Restaurants on Obesity, Web. 8 May 2012. ‹http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~sdellavi/wp/fastfoodJan09.pdf› Dhar, Tirtha, Baylis, Kathy. Journal of Marketing Research. “Fast Food Consumption and the Ban on Advertising Targeting Children: The Québec Experience”. Web. 8 May 2012. ‹http://www.marketingpower.com/aboutama/documents/jmr_forthcoming/fast_food_consumption.pdf›. National Institute of Health, NIH News. Web. 8 May 2012. ‹http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/dec2004/nhlbi-30.htm›. West, Larry. About.com. Progress is Slow on Reducing, Reusing and Recycling Fast Food Waste. Web. 8 May 2012. ‹http://environment.about.com/od/recycling/a/fast_food_waste.htm ›. Tangari, Andrea, Burton, Scot, Howlett1, Elizabeth, Cho,Yoon-Na, Thyroff, Anastasia. "Weighing in on Fast Food Consumption: The Effects of Meal and Calorie Disclosures on Consumer Fast Food Evaluations". ‹http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-6606.2010.01177.x/full›. Zhong, Chen-Bo, DeVoe, Sanford E. "You Are How You Eat: Fast Food and Impatience". Web. 8 May 2012. ‹http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/newthinking/fastfood.pdf›. Read More