By: Jesus Galan
Nov. 8 ,2020
The Fast food industry is bigger than ever before in New York City, you see a Mcdonald’s or a Burger King every block in some areas more than others. You can ask most kids or teens from the Bronx and most will tell you their favorite meal from each fast food restaurant. This is an issue that has been going on for many years and continues to affect New York till this day. Fast food industries target certain people of race and income. Big fast food industries such as KFC, Mcdonald’s, Burger King have been a part of this current day issue and continue to use certain people of certain demographics and use them to benefit themselves financially. This is an issue that people need to be more aware of because it is affecting New Yorkers health.
The fast food industry has one goal in mind which is to make money just like any other industry but what is wrong about it is that it negatively affects our health. Before getting into what people the fast food target we should analyze why it is so wrong and what harm it does to people. The website Medical News today in an article written in April 1,2019 titled “what happens when you eat fast food?” written by Timothy Huzar focuses on both the short and long term effects of Fast food consumption. The Medical news article talks about how eating fast food can make you hungrier after you finish eating it.
The long term effect of eating too much fast food and eating fast food on a “person’s health. Such risks include obesity, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and various cardiovascular conditions” Medical News state which is no joke. This is what many Americans including myself are at risk of consuming these fast foods. Another long term effect of fast food is possible heart attacks caused by high blood pressure which is caused by the high amount of salt in the foods being consumed .
The Medical News also states “typical fast food contains a very high number of calories…, they will put on weight, which may lead to obesity.” Males and females amount of calories they can take per day is between 2,000-2,500 meaning any higher can be unhealthy. If you do the math and take a Mcdonalds big mac, a medium soda and medium fries you get 1,100 calories based on google. This is an example and it shows it is already half of your daily calories for females. People need to keep in mind that fast food makes you hungrier which is an added factor.
Many people are consuming these fast foods because they are addicting and very easy to eat which was also said in the Medical News article. The effects are endless because after your body gains too much weight you get obese than diabetes and the list continues. These issues aren’t uncommon. The national diabetes statistics report state “34.2 million Americans have diabetes.” There may have been other causes of diabetes but one thing we do know is that fast food restaurants play a part in this.
A website called Barbeque labs.com also brings in more important statistical data which includes gender. The gender that consumes more fast food in 2019 is male at 38% and females which are at 35.4. We can also see how much Americans spend a year on fast food. Barbecue lab.com states “The average American individually spends $1,200 a year on fast food alone, while the average American household spends around 10% of their income.” This is telling us Fast food is very common and popular. Many Americans eat this food because of its price and how easy it is to consume. Barbeque labs also found statistical data on what income level eats more fast food. It found that the upper class consumed 42% of fast food more than the lower and middle class. The upper class people tend to consume more because they work more. In a website called Vox.com an article titled “the more money you make, the more fast food you eat” brings the idea that the reason the upper class eats more fast food is because they work more hours.According to Vox.com “Zagorsky and Smith found that the more hours a person worked, the more likely they were to eat fast food.” This implies that just because a certain class of people eat more of something it doesn’t mean they are mostly targeted.
Lastly Barbeque labs showed probably one of the most important data which is race and fast food. This data is very important because it tells us which race consumes fast food the most and can possibly tell us the race Fast Food companies try to get to consume their food. The bar graph shows that black people are the highest with 42.4% of fast food consumption. The second race was White with a 37.6% and then Hispanics at 35.5% of Fast Food consumption. The question is now why is it that black people consume more fast food than all the other races? Is it because they like the food or is there a specific source in which they are being influenced by. This is a big concern in the Fast food industry because this can expose their plan to attract certain audiences using certain methods.
As we talked about race we can see black people are the highest consumers in Fast food restaurants. In another research article by Brian Elbel ,Kosuke Tamura and multiple contributors titled “Disparities in food access around homes and schools for New York City children”, illustrates various demographics and how they are related to Fast foods one example used was on neighborhoods of certain dominant races and how much Fast food restaurants were in those areas. Brian Elbel and other contributors in the article used a 2016 study by D’angelo et al, and found out 50% in 40 states of mostly hispanic populated schools and low income students had more access to Fast Food restaurants at close distances in comparison to which white dominated schools had 21%. Although there may be lots of data left to spare we can definitely see a huge correlation with students of color and Fast food restaurants around their areas.
In addition to the information on demographics the article also talks on the black race and how they relate to fast foods. According to “Disparities in food access around homes and schools for New York City children” “Black neighborhoods had a higher density of Fast-food outlets compared to primarily White neighborhoods.” This data relates to Barbequelabs.com because they illustrate the idea that the black race and fast food have a correlation.. Now that we know this information we can make the claim that Fast food companies are purposely putting their restaurants in Black dominated neighborhoods and using certain other methods in order to satisfy their needs. They continued doing their research and found that the income level for black neighborhoods whether high or low didn’t really matter and had about the same amount of Fast food restaurants as each other. This means that income level isn’t really a big deal for Fast food restaurants instead is race/ethnicity. This relates to barbeque labs.com because the income level that had the highest ate the most fast food which is reasonable. The issue is that mainly black neighborhoods are being targeted in New York City.
Regarding the medicalnews.com we know the long term and short term effects of Fast food some which are obesity and high blood pressure because the food is high on salts. We can see in the introduction paragraph of “Disparities in food access around homes and schools for New York City children” talk on how both hispanic and black youth had a higher amount of obesity rates compared to other races. This is a health risk that is being caused by the available outlets that young black and hispanic students have nearby. Although the article does mention that it includes multiple factors such as environmental and individual factors which are very important to keep an eye on. Even if obesity had many other factors behind it we can definitely be sure that these fast food restaurants play a huge role involving obesity rates.
While researching another article titled “The disturbing ways that fast food chains disproportionately target black kids” by Roberto A. Ferdman went deeper into how fast food companies use certain methods to target and attract black people. They talked about how Fast food companies use advertising on tv towards certain channels that the audience mainly black people watched. The article states “Dr. Harris has found that individual fast food restaurants, including Popeye’s and Papa John’s, “definitely target that audience [African-Americans].”…for instance, by purchasing ads on channels popular with black audiences like BET.” The information is saying the Fast food restaurants do use ads on specific mainly black channels because they know that is their main people they want to target. Another method used by the Fast food restaurants that is mentioned in the article is toys. They mention that they use “Kid’s meal toys” in the black neighborhoods more than white neighborhoods. The reason they are using kids toys in mainly black neighborhoods is because they know what kids like and want. This is why this research was originally done to inform parents to be aware of the fast food restaurants because they can use you and negatively affect your child’s health. The article also talks on how 60% fats food restaurants advertised more in Black neighborhoods then in White neighborhoods.
Almost every single kid knows who Ronald Mcdonald is, some can’t even read yet, the point is that these children are being exposed to much of these fast food restaurants commercials at such a young age and it’s not even their fault. The commercials and advertisements may show happy children and family which creates lots of emotion towards the audience. It can make a parent feel bad if they don’t buy their child a happy meal, or it can do the opposite and make the child feel they are missing out on happiness. They also pay certain famous celebrities to promote their product. In a website titled recipe.com there is an article on celebrities who have been involved in fast food advertising some include Peyton Manning, Lebron James, Ronda Rousey, Justin Timberlake , Micheal Jordan and Beyonce. All of these people are all various actors who have participated in the advertisements involving unhealthy food. They are not wrong for participating. What’s wrong is the fast food restaurants using them as a weapon to attract certain people and kids who have been inspired or looked up to by these people mentioned.
Now that we got all the information an experiment was done by the same author of “Disparities in food access around homes and schools for New York City children” Brian Elbel along with Gyfami, J., & Kersh, R did an experiment on calorie labeling in New York and how the parents reacted to it. The experiment is titled “Child and adolescent fast-food choice and the influence of calorie labeling: A natural experiment.” This experiment was based on various fast food companies in New York in 2011 which include Mcdonalds,Burger king , Wendy’s and more. The goal was to examine how parents and children looked at calorie labeling. This experiment was done because of the obesity rates in adults and adolescents. This experiment is very important because although it may be old data statistically the data has stayed mostly the same we can see this because as we know the Fast food companies target Blacks and what was found in the experiment that was conducted was that 66% of the people were black people.
The experiment stated “A total of 9% indicated that the labels influenced their meal choice;9% also claimed that they purchased fewer calories as a result.” The 9% is based on kids so a total of 16% looked at the calorie labeling and it affected their food choice. That is a small percentage of kids which is why parents need to be more aware of what their kids are eating. The small percentage is the reason why many kids suffer from obesity and why many end up having health issues that affect their future. This research showed that even if calorie labeling was a law or wasn;’t a law then there wouldn’t be much difference because of all the factors that Fast food restaurants use in terms of toys, or famous celebrities who attract children to just want and never really understanding what is really going on when they consume the Fast foods.
Another article that is based on calorie labeling is titled “Consumer awareness of Fast-Food Calorie information in New York City after implementation of a menu labeling regulation” by Dumanovsky, T., Huang, C. Y., Basset, M. T., & Silver, L. D published in 2010. In the article it explains some back story in which it says that New York was the first jurisdiction to have to put calorie labeling in the restaurants menus. The article also says how from the year 1970 to 2000 the Fast Food industry made 6 and increased to 110 billion. This meant more people consumed which created the whole obesity issue we face in 2020 today. The experiment conducted in this article was this time mainly based on adults on the 15 Fast food chains found that 27% actually looked at the calorie labeling sign and were influenced by it. The other 72% of people were not influenced by the calorie labeling. This is illustrating that many adults are not even caring about what they consume which is affecting the children of tomorrow. The children are important to every community because they provide a future.
The purpose of these experiments being done is to bring awareness to people who don’t look at the calorie labels . The health risk is uncountable and is what needs to be addressed before the obesity rates keep increasing. We need to be more aware especially New Yorkers because just like the tobacco or cigarette industry they simply do not care about people’s health now and days all they care about is the profit they will be making out of it.
Ultimately all the sources that were used such as Medicalnews.com, Barbequelabs.com and more they all made one point we should be aware of what we consume. This goes to all the parents who have young children most importantly those of color that live nearby Fast food restaurants. The Fast food industry targets black audiences and uses forms of television commercials or toys in specific areas to influence the parents and the children. The Fast food that is being consumed is unhealthy and shouldn’t be something a person should eat every day.
References /citations
Dumanovsky, T., Huang, C. Y., Basset, M. T., & Silver, L. D. (n.d.). Consumers Awareness of Fast-Food Calorie Information in New York City After Implementation of a labeling Regulation. Retrieved November 08, 2020, from
https://web-a-ebscohost-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=5
Elbel, B., Gyfami, J., & Kersh, R. (2011, April 01). Child and adolescent fast-food choice and the influence of calorie labeling: A natural experiment. Retrieved November 08, 2020, from https://web-a-ebscohost-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=8
Elbel, B., Tamura, K., Mcdermott, Z. T., Duncan, D. T., Athens, J. K., Wu, E., . . . Schwartz, A. E. (2019, June 12). Disparities in food access around homes and schools for New York City children. Retrieved November 08, 2020, from https://web-a-ebscohost-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vi
Ferdman, R. (2019, April 26). The disturbing ways that fast food chains disproportionately target black kids. Retrieved November 08, 2020, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/11/12/the-disturbing-ways-that-fast-food-chains-disproportionately-target-black-kids/
Huzar, T. (2019, April 01). How fast food affects the body. Retrieved November 08, 2020, from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324847
Fast Food Statistics: Updated March 2020. (2020, April 10). Retrieved November 08, 2020, from
https://www.thebarbecuelab.com/fast-food/
Sugar, R. (2018, October 24). The more money you make, the more fast food you eat. Retrieved November 12, 2020, fromhttps://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/10/24/18018544/fast-food-cdc-class-rich-people
Martin, J. (2018, November 30). Mega-Stars And Candy Bars: 20 Celebs Who Endorsed Unhealthy Foods. Retrieved November 15, 2020, from https://www.therecipe.com/celebs-endorsed-unhealthy-foods/
