The Cause and Effect of Fast Food Restaurants

Today, fast food restaurants have appeared in large quantities all over the world. Many fast food companies all have business everywhere such as McDonald’s, KFC and Burger King. Variety of people, especially the youths, prefers to eat fast food than cook at home. Absolutely, fast food is convenient for people’s lives, and has become popular in the world. However, fast food is making the world unhealthy and impatient.
The appearance of fast food restaurants represents the fast pace of the world’s lives. As a part of a study of the influences of nourishing ingredients on eating selections launched by Rydell, Harnack, Oakes, Story, Jeffery, and French(2008), participators were required to explain why having meal at fast-food restaurants: ninety-two percent (92%) of the reasons were “fast food is quick” and eighty percent (80%) were “restaurants are easy to get to”.
The Speedee Service System, a new system of food preparation which Wilson (2009) referred to, has made fast food restaurants become an industry chain all over the world. According to Wilson (2009), “the fast food phenomenon evolved from drive-in restaurants” and “generally used the short-order style of food preparation”. The first purpose of the appearance of the fast food restaurants is to service the drivers who want to have meal without leaving cars. Fast food restaurants are able to provide the rapid arrangement and cheaper food to reduce the cost of time and money, which is also the reason why fast food can become a large industry in a few years.
However, fast food is making the world unhealthier. Dr. Stanley Ulijaszek, a British nutritionist, revealed that fast food is the major reason for people became fat, because this kind of food is very high in fat and sugar. A study published in the Lancet Medical Journal found those who often ate fast food gained 10 pounds more than those who did so less often, and were more than twice as likely to develop an insulin disorder linked to diabetes. Not only adults, there are also many children become overweight since these children eat so much fast food like hamburgers, French fries in the daily life. Fast food is making a bad impact on people’s health, but still quite a lot of people do not realize it.
Also, under the influence of fast food, people are becoming more impatient. Gourlay(Gourlay,2010) claimed that fast food can make one desires immediate satisfaction and becomes more impatient. According to Gourlay, Chen-Bo Zhong, assistant professor of organizational behavior at Toronto University in Canada, has made an experiment with his colleagues. Through the experiment, Zhong found that the volunteers’ speed of reading a 320-word text was faster after volunteers were shown the logos quickly including McDonald’s and KFC. In addition, after seeing the logos, the volunteers chose the instant gratification when were asked if prefer to a smaller sum of money instantly or a larger amount in a week. This experiment has strongly shown fast food really make people in a hurry and impatient.
The number of fast food restaurants is still increasing rapidly, people need to learn how to take the advantages and avoid the disadvantages of fast food in order to make the lives better. Meanwhile, fast food restaurants should improve the products and develop the ideas on promotions which can make less bad impact in people’s lives. Because, people have to admit that fast food industry has made a huge effect which could not be ignored in people’s lives.
References
Beth, G. (n.d.). Fast food does supersize you: Study. Toronto Star (Canada), Retrieved from Newspaper Source database.
Chris, G. (2010). Fast food is stirring us all into a hurry. Sunday Times, The, 5. Retrieved from Newspaper Source database.
Rydell, S., Harnack, L., Oakes, J., Story, M., Jeffery, R., & French, S. (2008). Why Eat at Fast-Food Restaurants: Reported Reasons among Frequent Consumers. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 108(12), 2066-2070.
Wilson, T.V. (n.d.). How Fast Food Works. HowStuffWorks.com. Retrieved from
http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/fast-food.htm

References: Beth, G. (n.d.). Fast food does supersize you: Study. Toronto Star (Canada), Retrieved from Newspaper Source database. Chris, G. (2010). Fast food is stirring us all into a hurry. Sunday Times, The, 5. Retrieved from Newspaper Source database. Rydell, S., Harnack, L., Oakes, J., Story, M., Jeffery, R., & French, S. (2008). Why Eat at Fast-Food Restaurants: Reported Reasons among Frequent Consumers. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 108(12), 2066-2070. Wilson, T.V. (n.d.). How Fast Food Works. HowStuffWorks.com. Retrieved from http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/fast-food.htm