Americans’ Perception toward Fast Food Consumption

By: Shafa Kirana Ubayahita

Introduction
Who can resist hunger? Nobody could do this because eating is one of humans’ primary needs. Grabbing something from the refrigerator and cooking it in several minutes may make anyone who cannot bear their hunger be more annoyed and impatient. Americans have their own way to get out from this situation; they visit fast food stand around them and order what they want. In a few minutes, the fast foods save them from their hunger and the problem solved. However, although fast food is considered as hunger savior, at the same time it becomes a threat for its consumers’ health. It is impossible that they do not know about this fact since many studies about this issue have been done. This current essay discusses about Americans’ perceptions toward fast food consumption.

Fast Food: an Americans’ Culture
Fast food or also known as junk food refers to foods that are rich with ‘bad’ things such as fat; sugars; oil; salt; and high-calories and they have less nutrition (Al-Saad, 2016). It was introduced firstly by Charles Mann Welt in 1867, a man from Germany. He sold sausages in New York. Sausages were easy to serve and he succeeded in his business. A lot of people bought his sausages and they become more popular. Regarding the fast-making sausages by Welt, people found other fast foods like burgers, fried potato, pizzas, chicken nugget, and soft drinks.
The industry of fast food is growing rapidly because the stand can be found in every corner. This phenomenon is in line with the consumers; a lot of people buy it every day. There are two types of fast food consumers based on their motives to buy (Min, Jahns, Xue, Kandiah, & Wang, 2022). The first group is called rush people. People consume it due to their busyness. They need more hours for their 24/7. Hence, they do not have enough time to wait for slow-served food, even to cook. In contrast, the second group is called sedentary. This group decides to buy it because they are lazy to do anything. Instead of cooking, they prefer to order fast food.
Although fast food is helps many people from hunger, it does not good at all for health. Based on previous explanation, fast food contains a lot of bad things for humans’ body like fat, sugars, oil, salt, high-calories if they are consumed over quantity needed by body. Therefore, consuming a lot of fast food can lead to disease like obesity.

How Do Americans View Fast Food?
Americans understand that fast food is not good for their body (Burd, 2014). However, it does not affect their preference to buy it. It is reported that 80% of adult in America bought fast food at least once per month. They still consume it regularly although they know that it contains wasteful things for their body. The reason of why they behave like that is they claim that the taste of fast food is unbeatable. Thus, fast food still becomes a strong culture in America.

Conclusion
Consuming fast food is a part of Americans’ culture. Although they know the dangers of fast food for their body, they still consume it regularly. It is true that changing this culture is not easy, but it can be done slowly by reducing the frequency to order fast food.

REFERENCES
Al-Saad, E. (2016). Causes and Effects of Fast Food. International Journal of Scientific & Technology Research , 5 (4), 279-280.
Burd, G. (2014). Fast Food, Families amd Advertising as a Cultural Site. Journal of Mass Communcation & Journalism , 8 (2), 1-8.
Min, J., Jahns, L., Xue, H., Kandiah, J., & Wang, Y. (2022, July 4). Americans' Perceptions about Fast Food and How They Asscosiate with Its Consumption and Obesity Risk. Retrieved October 30, 2022, from Academic OUP: http://academic.oup.com/advances/article/9/5/590/5062131