Fast Food Is Responsible For The Biggest Legacy Of Food Industry

With more fast food shops opening up in the 1940’s so did obesity rates and other health issues that can be linked to poor eating choices. It’s not that hard to see the links of fast food to obesity and cancer crisis.

Many people believe that the first fast food restaurant was a McDonald’s, but contrary to popular belief, the history of fast food did not begin at the same time as the history of McDonald’s. According to Katie Colburn’s article “The History of Fast Food in America,” the name and location of the first fast food restaurant is lost to history. There is some evidence, however that it began in Ancient Rome. The Urban living in Rome included multi-storied apartment buildings that has little to no cooking area. Therefore, such things like “street vendors and walk-up restaurants fed large segments of the populace” (Colburn). In this situation, fast food seems very harmless and convenient, but as I have learned over the semester so

Fast food restaurants have been enjoyed by billions worldwide for more than half of a century. Fundamentally, the Baby Boomer generation, born between 1946 and 1964 (Halls), was raised on these establishments. It was a simultaneous phenomenon; while multinational fast food giants such as McDonald’s saw their rise to prominence in the 1950s, the babies of this generation were just being born, and as they grew up, they were highly exposed to these corporations. Whether it was through watching the commercials marketed to children featuring the iconic Ronald McDonald, or by seeing the road signs of fast food establishments which were large enough to be seen from many blocks away, the ‘Boomers’ were a generation heavily influenced by marketing

Fast food might be easy and cheap but people do not realize how harmful the food is for their bodies. The problem is the food that is served at these types of restaurants, especially McDonalds, are high in fat, salt, processed, and can have harmful ingredients included in the food. While home cooked food takes time to plan and make people know what they are eating, that isn’t the case at McDonalds: “McDonald’s burgers retain its fresh appearance for a very long time. This can easily fool customers who do not have a hint of this alteration in their burgers. The use of excessive preservatives is harmful for your health which McDonalds seems to overlook for gaining more and more

Fast Food Nation examines the history of the fast food industry as the world began to consume the idea of quick and easy cuisine. This piece of investigative journalism really gives it 's readers a look at the fast food industry and its development over time. This book is divided into two sections. The first section delves into the beginnings of the industry and how it developed into the large corporational business it is today. The second section examines the business behind the scenes.

In the non-fiction text, McJobs, by Eric Schlosser, it is explained how fast food chains like McDonald’s have changed the country. They have transformed small towns such as Martinsburg, West Virginia, from spacious orchards into busy cities. Because of this, some may argue that fast food has made a negative impact. However, fast food also provides jobs for millions of young, inexperienced workers. A lot of evidence can be found for both sides of the argument, so it is clear that fast food has made many changes for good and for bad. A lot of things that you wouldn't expect have been affected by fast food: the economy, people’s health, population, and more.

Many assume that fast food workers are teenagers living with their parents trying to earn a few bucks however, “ 70 percent are over the age of 20, and 26 percent are raising a child” (Cuomo 1).With so many adults working on minimum wage means that the minimum wage needs to be increased.  So why should the government pay billions of dollars in public assistance? There is a simple solution to remove people from poverty and that is to raise the minimum

The problem that many politicians seem to forget is that the fast food workforce is not only made up of high school and college kids anymore; the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics published a survey which found that the median age of fast food workers were 29.2 years. Many of the employees that are in their late twenties and early thirties are supporting a family on minimum wage which results in an annual income of $15,000 to $20,000 per year, which is below the poverty level for a family of four. Because of their low income, many families also rely on public assistance. The University of California Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education released a study revealing the amount of fast food workers still in need of government assistance which was an alarming 52 percent (Allegretto). This is where the American taxpayer is, or should be, concerned. According to Allegretto, the cost of public assistance going towards food workers is an alarming seven billion dollars annually. That is seven

The baby boom and fast food industry’s rapid growth effected the fast food industry because teenagers were the ideal candidates for working at fast food restaurants. Teenagers were the ideal candidates for working at fast food restaurants because they were only able to work part-time, still lived at home, were unskilled, and were willing to accept low pay. Teenagers were unskilled workers because they were young and did not have any experience. A job at fast food restaurants became the rite of passage because it was mostly the teenagers first job. In the 1970s, Congress and the White house passed a new bill, called the ‘McDonald’s Bill’. The ‘McDonald’s Bill’ caused employers to pay their teenage employee less than 20% of the minimum wage.

Humans have the need to evolve and grow, with that comes the need for optimization. Society demands quicker service and cheaper prices, in the process, we forget about the fact that we are jeopardizing our mental and physical health by consuming strange and unhealthy products with chemicals that were never meant for human consumption. The working conditions of employees and the cruel slaughtering process of the livestock just make it worse. I personally felt sympathy and immense remorse upon reading Fast Food Nation but at the same time, highly impressed by the fact that these brands are loved dearly by so many people in the USA and all over the world, this can only be down to effective marketing. We’ve seen McDonald’s link up with Disney to dramatically increase the popularity of both brands.

With there being so many restaurants open for these fast food chains, it 's so hard to resist a burger. Many fast food companies give teens a taste of real life by providing a job for them at a restaurant. Because there are so many chains and cheap foods within fast food companies, workers are paid the minimum to work at these occupations. With the increase in business for fast food restaurants, workers are demanding for higher wages. However, if wages were to increase, something else would have to be compensated for this demand.

The cause of popularity of fast food is the affordability and immediate service. After World War I, automobiles were becoming quite popular and affordable. The drive-in restaurants were thus introduced to accommodate the vehicles. In 1912, the first fast food joint called the Automat opened in New York.

General Statement: Today, fast foods become popular among any age of people, such as children, teenager and adult. According to Merriam Webster (2012), the word “fast food” is referring to, or specializing in food that can prepare or cooked quickly. Hence, fast food has become an essential part in human life.

While the idea of eating outside of the home has been around for a considerable length of time, the fast food industry as we probably am aware it didn 't get its begin until the post-WWII American financial blast. Americans started to spend increasingly and purchase more as the economy blasted and a society of consumerism blossomed. As an aftereffect of this new yearning to have everything, combined with the steps made by ladies while the men were away, both individuals from the family unit started to work outside the home. Eating out, which had beforehand been viewed as an extravagance, turned into a typical event and after that a need. Laborers, and working families, required snappy administration and modest nourishment for both lunch and supper. This need is the thing that drove the amazing accomplishment of the early fast food goliaths, which took into account the family on the go. As the fast food industry started booming, they were the main source of part time job for teenagers. In late 1970’s, a staggering one out of eight US citizens were employed by McDonalds. In the mid-1970s as the nourishment business extended it turned out to be more aggressive setting off the "Burger Wars" of the 80s and 90s. Toward the start of the 21st century the business sector experienced another seismic movement as espresso chains and quick causal eateries rose as genuine contenders to bigger fast food chains. Brands like Starbucks, Chipotle, and Panera were introduced into the industry.

“The fast food industry generates about $165 billion in revenue annually, about 184,200 fast food businesses operate in the United States” (Pakistan & Gulf Economist). Fast food is insanely cheap, as it is intended to be. Since it is sold at a low price, the ingredients are not healthy. Most of the time the meat is what is left over from the animal it came from, it is grinded up together to look like a meat patty. The consumers do not seem to mind though; they are aware and came to acceptance with it since it is sold for a reasonable price. Families with low income are the main consumers of fast food. With its convenience and price, it is difficult to pass up after a long, hard day at work. Fast food corporations are aware of this and are trying to exploit is as much as they can. Fast food restaurants can be found on every corner, even more so in low-income cities since it is the most the citizens can afford. It is rare to find a fast food restaurant that serves actual healthy food for a low price, and if there is it is nowhere in sight for these families. Healthy food costs more because of its production, time and care are put into the products to ensure the consumers will get the healthiest food possible. Most of these families do not have the privilege of concerning their health first, causing them and their loved ones to deal with obesity and other serious health complications. “In 2004, Monteiro et al.7 reviewed the transition of households from maternal and child undernutrition to maternal overnutrition but still with undernutrition in the children, and calculated that the transition point for women’s nutrition was an annual income of around $US 2500 per capita per annum – in 2004 currency” (Poskitt). If it costs that much to only provide healthy food for one individual, it is impossible for low income families to support all their loved ones. Families would rather feed everyone with unhealthy food from fast food restaurants for a great price than only being able to purchase one healthy meal and making their entire family share it. People have no choice but resort to fast food to feed themselves or their family because of its price, how convenient it is but suffer from health problems.