The largest chain restaurants we know depend on deep fried and greasy products which can quickly raise blood pressure, hurt the respiratory system, and in general, diminish the body??™s health. These restaurants are the fast food joints all around the world. McDonalds, Wendy??™s, Burger Kings and many more continue daily to rupture the health of Americans. They play a dominating role in why the United States has the largest obesity rate out of any country. Fast food leads to obesity if not managed correctly. From Burger King, a double whopper with cheese has 1060 calories. This does not even include the fries which throw in an additional 360 calories (Kuhl). All together that is 1420 calories from one meal, which is almost three quarters of the recommended calorie intake per day. Every person has these facts, so why do they keep running back to the ???heart attack in a sack??? Fast food restaurants are so popular because it is easily accessible, it is economically satisfying, it is advertised through all forms of media, and kids love them.
The fourteen year old in the back seat will not stop complaining about his hunger on the way back from his soccer game forty minutes from home. Everyone is tired and wants to go back to the warm, cozy place they call home. They will not stop at a quality restaurant; they will pull into the drive through at a McDonald??™s or another fast food joint. Fast food is the most accessible food while driving on the road, or even when you are sitting at home. Why would one wait for an hour and a half while the lasagna bakes in the oven when they can just drive five minutes and have a full meal in less than ten At this point, the person is not thinking about how bad the food is that they are about to eat, they are just hungry. They say that they will just work out and get rid of the massive amounts of calories their body just took in. What they don??™t know is how much work needs to be done to burn off the meal. In order to burn off a Big Mac meal from McDonald??™s a person would have to walk nine and a half miles (Netscape). Fast food is a much better option for those looking for a quick meal. Normally, a person can walk into a fast food joint and walk out with the food in five or less minutes. If students at a local high school have open-campus lunch, they will go to a place which takes little time to eat because lunch periods are usually quite short. There are normally three or four different choices of fast food in each city, sometimes there are up to eight in one area. There is no problem finding a place to eat because of this. The accessibility of fast food restaurants is only a small factor of why they are so popular.
Fast food restaurants are cheap, enough said. People will flock to the restaurants because of this fact. A double cheeseburger can be obtained from almost any fast food restaurant for a dollar, and for a dollar more, French fries. A cheap meal which will only take minutes to get Perfect. In today??™s falling economy a person will look for any way to save money. Going to a fast food restaurants instead of the Olive Garden, or a steakhouse seems much more desirable because it will save tens of dollars. A half pound burger from a higher end restaurant such as Chili??™s can cost up to eight dollars while one at Wendy??™s takes a mere two or three dollars out of the wallet. College teens want to get out and eat outside of the dorms once in a while. While paying for tuition and other school related expenses, a student has little money for eating-out. So they go to fast food restaurants because they satisfy the hunger and are easy on the money. Fast food restaurants are incredibly popular because they dish out the All-American meal, for little money. The All-American meal is a hamburger, fries, and a coke or maybe a shake (Schlosser). Fast food processes their meats and add flavor to it so that it satisfies the taste buds in a mouth. One will not be able to find a meal which tastes so good for such a low price anywhere other than these disastrous fast food restaurants. People would not populate the fast food joints so much if it were not for the unrelenting advertisements around every street corner.
The third reason fast food restaurants are so popular is that there is advertising everywhere. Driving down the highway, billboards gracefully pass with McDonalds and Burger King popping out. Commercials show with the King from Burger King awakening a sleeping person with a platter of food in the morning. While listening to the radio an ad comes on telling of how new items have been added to the dollar menu. Anywhere one goes they cannot escape the advertisements of fast food. Fast food companies spent a total of 294 billion dollars on promotions targeting children in 2006 (Marr). This is compared to 67 million dollars spent by the Milk Processing Education Program and their ???Got Milk??? ads (Marr). There seems to be a relation between how much is spent on advertising and how much is returned to the companies by consumers. The average person spends more money on fast food than healthy products like milk and vegetables, and the fast food companies spend the most on advertising. The relation here is that the more a company spends on advertising, the more they will get back. Companies which produce healthy products should try spending a little more on advertising and maybe people would turn to them before fast food. Kids spend a lot of time watching television which is where much of the advertising comes through. This may be a factor to why kids like fast food so much.
Fast food restaurants appeal to kids of all ages and especially to those from three years to eight. Many different fast food joints offer a play place. The largest known play place is at McDonalds. Restaurants continue to expand their buildings to add in a play place for children. This brings relief to parents as they do not have to watch them while they play in a park because they are confined to an area within a room. The play place has slides, tunnels, nets to climb through and even a ball pit. This is a dream place for children who love to play. Children can meet other kids and play with them and when they become hungry, they are already at a place to eat. They just walk to their parents who sit at a table and eat the food they are given. Fast food restaurants are perfect places for parents to hold their children??™s birthday parties. The play place gives the children a place to have fun and the food can be cooked up quickly. The play place is isolated from the rest of the restaurant by glass windows so there is a degree of privacy for the children. Parents may choose to take their children to these restaurants because after their children eat they can jump into the play area and burn off some of the calories they just took in. Other than the play place there is another reason why the fast food restaurants are so popular. Happy meals and other kinds of kids??™ meals draw attention by the bundles. Almost every fast food joint offers a type of meal which includes a small toy. Kids can get a cheeseburger, fries, a drink, and a toy for just under four dollars. These toys often represent their favorite characters from the restaurant such as Ronald McDonald or the Hamburglar from McDonalds, or the King from Burger King. Kids from all over the world compete with friends to see who can get the most toys, or who can collect them all.
Fast food has been one of the leading causes for health problems in the United States. Yet people continue to spend hundreds of dollars on the harmful food. Fast food restaurants are incredibly popular because of the easy accessibility, the cheapness, how much advertising is put into it, and because of the kids??™ love for them. People believe that eating fast food only twice a week is not harmful and this could be true if it is handled properly, but if not, their body??™s health could take a turn for the worse. Fast food has become part of our culture in the United States. People from third world countries say that they wish they could have the American meal. It is known by people all over the world that we have the greatest amount of fast food out of any country out there. If people do not control how much fast food they intake, soon the United States will be overflowing with overweight people. Fast food could be the end to a physically demanding world if its popularity is not diminished very quickly.
