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  • Published: 27 October 2020

Food and Health

Trends in the healthiness of U.S. fast food meals, 2008–2017

  • Eleanore Alexander   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8998-4186 1 ,
  • Lainie Rutkow 1 ,
  • Kimberly A. Gudzune 2 , 3 ,
  • Joanna E. Cohen 4 , 5 &
  • Emma E. McGinty 1  

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume  75 ,  pages 775–781 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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  • Cardiovascular diseases
  • Risk factors

This study aimed to examine trends in the healthiness of U.S. fast food restaurant meals from 2008 to 2017, using the American Heart Association’s Heart-Check meal certification criteria.

Data were obtained from MenuStat, an online database of the leading 100 U.S. restaurant chains menu items, for the years 2008 and 2012 through 2017. All possible meal combinations (entrées + sides) were created at the 20 fast food restaurants that reported entrée and side calories, total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium, protein, and fiber. Chi-square tests compared the percent of meals meeting each American Heart Association (AHA) nutrient criterion; and the number of AHA criteria met for each year, by menu focus type.

Compared with 2008, significantly fewer fast food meals met the AHA calorie criterion in 2015, 2016, and 2017, and significantly fewer met the AHA total fat criterion in 2015 and 2016. Significantly more meals met the AHA trans fat criterion from 2012 to 2017, compared to 2008. There were no significant changes over time in the percent of meals meeting AHA criteria for saturated fat, cholesterol, or sodium.

Conclusions

Efforts to improve the healthiness of fast food meals should focus on reducing calories, total fat, saturated fat, and sodium.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene for the MenuStat data.

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Department of Health Policy & Management, Department of Health & Public Policy, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 624 N Broadway, Baltimore, MD, USA

Eleanore Alexander, Lainie Rutkow & Emma E. McGinty

Division of General Internal Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, 733 N Broadway, Baltimore, MD, 21205, USA

Kimberly A. Gudzune

Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, 2024 E Monument St, Baltimore, MD, 21205, USA

Department of Health, Behavior and Society, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 624 N Broadway, Baltimore, MD, 21205, USA

Joanna E. Cohen

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, 733 N Broadway, Baltimore, MD, 21205, USA

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All authors contributed to the design of the study. EA led secondary data analysis and manuscript writing. EEM, LR, KG, and JEC contributed revisions to the manuscript and approved the final manuscript for submission.

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Alexander, E., Rutkow, L., Gudzune, K.A. et al. Trends in the healthiness of U.S. fast food meals, 2008–2017. Eur J Clin Nutr 75 , 775–781 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-020-00788-z

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Received : 30 December 2019

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Accepted : 13 October 2020

Published : 27 October 2020

Issue Date : May 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-020-00788-z

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  • Published: 15 February 2022

Determining intention, fast food consumption and their related factors among university students by using a behavior change theory

  • Alireza Didarloo 1 ,
  • Surur Khalili 2 ,
  • Ahmad Ali Aghapour 2 ,
  • Fatemeh Moghaddam-Tabrizi 3 &
  • Seyed Mortaza Mousavi 4 , 5  

BMC Public Health volume  22 , Article number:  314 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

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Today, with the advancement of science, technology and industry, people’s lifestyles such as the pattern of people’s food, have changed from traditional foods to fast foods. The aim of this survey was to examine and identify factors influencing intent to use fast foods and behavior of fast food intake among students based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB).

A cross-sectional study was conducted among 229 university students. The study sample was selected and entered to the study using stratified random sampling method. Data were collected using a four-part questionnaire including Participants’ characteristics, knowledge, the TPB variables, and fast food consumption behavior. The study data were analyzed in SPSS software (version 16.0) using descriptive statistics (frequencies, Means, and Standard Deviation) and inferential statistics (t-test, Chi-square, correlation coefficient and multiple regressions).

The monthly frequency of fast food consumption among students was reported 2.7 times. The TPB explained 35, 23% variance of intent to use fast food and behavior of fast food intake, respectively. Among the TPB variables, knowledge ( r  = .340, p  < 0.001) and subjective norm ( r  = .318, p  < 0.001) were known as important predictors of intention to consume fast foods - In addition, based on regression analyses, intention ( r  = .215, p  < 0.05), perceived behavioral control ( r  = .205, p  < 0.05), and knowledge ( r  = .127, p  < 0.05) were related to fast food consumption, and these relationships were statistically significant.

Conclusions

The current study showed that the TPB is a good theory in predicting intent to use fast food and the actual behavior. It is supposed that health educators use from the present study results in designing appropriate interventions to improve nutritional status of students.

Peer Review reports

Over the past few decades, non-communicable diseases such as eczema, asthma, cancer, type 2 diabetes, obesity, etc. have increased in developed countries [ 1 , 2 ]. Also, these diseases are more prevalent with increasing urbanization in developing countries [ 3 , 4 , 5 ]. The occurrence of many non-communicable diseases is related to diet [ 6 ]. Food habits are rooted from cultural, environmental, economic, social and religious factors. An effective factor in the development of chronic diseases is lifestyle, dietary patterns and habits. Inappropriate food habits and unhealthy environments have increased the incidence of non-communicable diseases in the world [ 7 , 8 ].

Many developing countries with a tendency towards Western dietary culture go away from traditional and local diets [ 6 ]. Healthy foods with nutrients have been replaced by new foods called fast foods [ 9 ]. Fast food is the food prepared and consumed outside and often in fast food restaurants [ 10 ]. Fast food is often highly processed and prepared in an industrial fashion, i.e., with standard ingredients and methodical and standardized cooking and production methods [ 10 ]. In fast food, vitamins, minerals, fiber and amino acids are low or absent but energy is high [ 9 ]. Fast food consumption has increased dramatically in the last 30 years in European and American countries [ 11 ].

Previous studies reported patterns of inappropriate and harmful food consumption in Iranian children and adolescents [ 12 , 13 ]. Most fast food customers are adolescents and youth, as these products are quickly and easily produced and relatively inexpensive [ 14 ]. One Iranian study shows that 51% of children eat inappropriate snacks and drinks over a week [ 15 ]. It is also reported that adults today consume fast food more than previous generations [ 16 ]. Faqih and Anousheh reported that 20% of adolescents and 10% of adults consumed sandwiches 3 or more times a week [ 17 ].

According to two studies, children and adolescents who consume fast food have received more energy, saturated fat, sodium, carbohydrates and more sugar than their peers, but they have less fiber, vitamin A and C, and less fruit and vegetables [ 18 , 19 ]. Also, because of the use of oils to fry these foods at high temperatures, these types of foods may contain toxic and inappropriate substances that threaten the health of consumers [ 20 ].

In a study in the United States on young people between 13 and 17 years old, it was found that there is a significant relationship between weight gain and obesity with pre-prepared foods [ 21 ]. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2007–2008), 17% of children aged 2 to 19 years and 34% of those aged 20 years and older were obese [ 22 ]. Many Health problems were caused by human health behavior(e.g. exercising regularly, eating a balanced diet, and obtaining necessary inoculations, etc.) and studying behavior change theories/models provides a good insight into the causes and ways of preventing these problems [ 23 ]. One of these theories is the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), which is a developed form of the Theory of reasoned action (TRA), and describes a healthy behavior that is not fully under the control of a person [ 24 ]. This theory can successfully predict eating habits and behaviors, and recently this theory has received considerable attention from researchers in identifying norms and beliefs related to the use of fast food [ 25 ].

Based on the TPB, intention to conduct a behavior with following three concepts is controlled: 1. Attitudes (positive and negative evaluation of a behavior), 2. Subjective norms (social pressure received from peers, family, health care providers for doing or not doing a given health behavior), 3. Perceived behavior control (This refers to a person’s perception of the ease or difficulty of performing the behavior of interest.) [ 26 , 27 , 28 ].

The TPB has been tested on different behaviors such as healthy food choice [ 24 ], physical activity [ 29 ], and fast food consumption [ 30 ]. For instance, the study conducted by Seo et al. showed that fast food consumption behavior was significantly associated with behavioral intention and perceived behavioral control. In addition, their findings highlighted that behavioral intention was significantly related to subjective norm and perceived behavioral control [ 28 ].

Given that our study population has cultural diversity and nutritional behaviors different from the societies of other countries and According to the mentioned materials, the researchers decided to test the study with the aim of investigating and explaining the intention and behavior of fast food consumption and their related factors based on the TPB among Urmia University of Medical Sciences students. The results of this study will increase the awareness and knowledge about fast food and, in addition, its results can be used in research, hospitals and healthcare settings.

This cross-sectional study was performed on students of Urmia University of Medical Sciences located in northwest Iran in academic year of 2018–2019. The inclusion criteria for the study are females and males who studied at Urmia University of Medical Sciences, and students’ voluntary participation in the study and obtaining written consent from the students and University principals for the students’ participation in the study. The lack of willingness to continue participating in the study and not signing the informed consent form were considered as exclusion criteria.

According to the results of the study of Yar Mohammadi and et al. [ 31 ], with a 95% confidence interval and an error of 0.05, using the formula for estimating the proportion in society, taking into account the 10% drop rate, sample size was estimated 330students. A randomized stratified sampling method was used to select the study samples. The study sample was randomly selected from each of the strata based on the share of the total sample.

Questionnaire

The data gathering tool in this study was a self-reported questionnaire (Additional file  1 ), which was designed according to the existing measures in scientific literature [ 32 , 33 , 34 ]. The study instrument was translated from English to Persian using a standard forward-backward translation technique [ 35 ]. The original instrument was translated by a bilingual specialist. The Persian version was then retranslated into English by two independent bilingual professionals to assess retention of the original meaning in the source language. Subsequently, translators worked separately in the translation process and then prepared the final version of the Persian translation. Content validity of The Persian version of questionnaire was evaluated by a panel of experts such as 3 nutrition specialists, 3 health education specialists, and 2 instrument designers. After receiving their comments, crucial revisions were conducted in the study tool. Finally, validity of the study instrument was confirmed. The present questionnaire including four following sections:

General characteristics

The first part contains personal information such as age, gender, weight, height, field of study, student education, father’s education, mother’s education, father job, mother’s job, ethnicity, marital status, participating in nutrition educational classes, students’ monthly income, family’s monthly income, housing status, information resource for healthy nutrition.

Constructs of the TPB

The second part contains questions about the constructs of the theory of planned behavior (attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control and behavioral intention). In general, attitudes, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control of students were measured using indirect items. The internal reliability of all subscales of the TPB variables was good, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.852.

Attitude toward fast food use

The attitude of the people was evaluated using 28 indirect items (14 items of behavioral beliefs, 14 items of expectations evaluation) based on five-point the Likert scale (from strongly agree to strongly disagree) or (from very important to not at all important), and the score of each item varied from 1 to 5. The minimum and maximum score for the attitude subscale was 14 and 350, respectively. The internal reliability of attitude subscale was good, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.778.

Subjective norm

Subjective norms of students were measured by 10 indirect items (5 items of normative beliefs, 5 items of motivation to comply) based on five-point the Likert scale (from strongly agree to strongly disagree) or (from very important to not at all important), and the score of each item varied from 1 to 5. The minimum and maximum score for the subjective norm subscale was 5 and 125, respectively. The internal reliability of subjective norm subscale was good, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.726.

Perceived behavioral control

Perceived behavioral control were measured by 18 indirect items (9 items of control beliefs, 9 items of perceive power) based on five-point the Likert scale (from strongly agree to strongly disagree) or (from extremely difficult to extremely easy), and the score of each item varied from 1 to 5. The minimum and maximum score for the perceived behavioral control subscale was 9 and 225, respectively. The internal reliability of subscale of perceived behavioral control was good, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.815.

Behavioral intention

Behavioral intention was evaluated by 8 items based on five-point the Likert scale (from strongly agree to strongly disagree), and the score of each item varied from 1 to 5. The minimum and maximum score for the Behavioral intention subscale was 8 and 40, respectively. The internal reliability of behavioral intention subscale was good, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.821.

Knowledge of participants

And the third and fourth parts are items related to food knowledge and fast food behavior. Students’ knowledge of fast food was evaluated by 14 items, and the score of each item varied from 0 to 2. The minimum and maximum score for the knowledge subscale was 0 and 28, respectively. The internal reliability of students’ knowledge was good, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.783.

Fast food use

Students’ fast food consumption was assessed by frequency of use in a past month. The term “Fast food” was defined as hamburgers, doughnuts, hot dog, snack, pizza, fried chicken and fried potatoes. The frequency of fast food use was analyzed for each food category.

Statistical analyses

All statistical analyzes were performed using SPSS 16.0 software. Descriptive statistics methods such as frequencies, means and standard deviations were used along with independent t and χ2 tests. Pearson correlation test was used to investigate the relationship between TPB variables with intent to use fast food and the real use of fast food. Multiple regressions were used for further analysis.

Descriptives

A total of 330 students were selected and recruited to the study, but some subjects (31 samples) were excluded from the study due to incomplete questionnaires (21cases), and no return of questionnaires (10 cases). Statistical analyses were performed on 229 students. Of these, 28.4% of the students were males and 71.6% were females. The results of the study showed that the average age for all the students was 22.10 ± 3.30 (the average age for male and female sexes were 22.66 ± 4.47 and 21.84 ± 2.50, respectively). The two sexes differed in terms of BMI, so that the mean of BMI was higher in boy students than in girls, and this difference was statistically significant. Almost more than 72% of the students had normal weight, and 28% of subjects were in other weights. Approximately 20.51, 54.50, 79.77% of the students reported the professional doctoral degree, Azeri ethnicity and single.

In addition, findings revealed that 64.90% of the participants lived in the dormitory, and 35.10% of them lived in personal or rental housing. The most common level of education for father (37.10%) and mother (44.10%) of students was diploma. Nearly, 46.50% of students gained food information (especially fast food) from health care providers, while 53.50% of them received their food information from other sources. Most students had zero monthly income, but 61.61% of the students reported their family’s monthly income more than 50 million Rials and 38.39% of their family had income lower than the mentioned amount. Table  1 provides detailed information on students’ characteristics.

Main analysis

Table 2 presents the mean score of knowledge and variables of the study-related theoretical framework. As the mean score of subjective norm, perceived behavioral control and behavioral intention in male students compared to female students was high, but those were not significant statistically( p  > 0.05).

Some variables of the TPB were significantly correlated with each other ( P  < 0.01, Table  3 ). In particular, fast food consumption behavior was highly ( r  = 0.382) correlated with behavioral intention. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine the relative importance of the variables of the TPB to behavioral intention and fast food consumption behavior (Tables  4 and 5 ). In these analyzes, when the attitude toward behavior, subjective norms, and perceived control was regressed to behavioral intention, the model was very significant ( P  = 0.000) and explained 0.347 of variance of behavioral intention. While attitude and perceived behavioral control were not significant, the subjective norms and students’ knowledge were significantly related to the intention to eat fast food. It seems that subjective norms and students’ knowledge to be the most important predictors of behavioral intent. Table  4 shows more information about predictors of behavioral intention.

The second model, using fast food consumption as a dependent variable, was also very significant ( P  = 0.000), and explained nearly a quarter of the variance (0.231) of fast food consumption. Both behavioral intention and perceived behavioral control were significantly associated with fast food consumption, of which behavioral intention appeared to be more important. Table  5 presents more information about predictors of fast food consumption.

This investigation was conducted on a sample of university students to assess the status of their fast-food consumption. It also examined the factors affecting behavioral intent and fast food consumption by applying the TPB. The results of the present study showed that students consumed fast food at an average of 2.7 times a month. Fast food in male students was often reported more than female students. A study on fast food consumption among students at Daejeon School reported monthly frequencies of fast food types: 2.7 for burgers, 2.1 for French fries, 1.8 for chicken [ 24 ]. Results of Kim study and other similar researches [ 31 , 36 ] approximately were in line with findings of the present study.

Given that most men do not have the time and skill to make traditional foods, and because of a lot of work, they prefer to turn to fast-foods, and so they are more likely to use fast foods. Meanwhile, the results of some studies indicate that most women are not very happy from high weight and are more likely to reduce their weight [ 37 ]. Therefore women do not have a positive attitude toward obesogenic foods compared to men [ 38 ], which can be a reason for consuming less fast food among women. Instead, the results of a study done by Seo et al. In Korea indicated that fast food consumption among high school students was 4.05 times a month and this consumption was reported among boys more than girls [ 28 ]. The results of the Korean study were contrary to the results of the study, meaning that fast food in Korean samples was more than Iranian. The reason for this difference can be traced to factors such as sample size, cultural, social, and economic characteristics of the samples.

Performing and not performing the behavior by a person is a function of several factors based on the theory of planned behavior. One of these factors is the person’s intention and desire to do the behavior. Behavioral intention itself is also affected by factors such as attitude, students’ knowledge, social pressure, and perceived behavioral control. In the present study, based on linear regression analysis, students’ knowledge and social pressure were both related to their intention and consume fast foods. That is, students who had the necessary information about nutrition, especially fast foods, had a high intent to choose and consume foods.

Several studies have examined the relationship between knowledge of foods and their contents and attitudes toward fast foods and processed foods or relationship between attitudes toward food additives and food choice behavior [ 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 ]. Aoki et al. [ 39 ] found that information about food and its contents positively or negatively affects attitudes and intentions towards food. They pointed out that food information was important for consumers in choosing food. Back and Lee [ 43 ] found that consumers had inadequate and incorrect information about foods, which could affect their attitudes or intent. These studies suggest that providing more information about foods and their compounds can help them to improve their attitude towards foods. Therefore, training on the performance, benefits and safety of foods, including positive and negative sides, should prevent misunderstandings about food supplements and reduce food safety concerns.

The findings of the present investigation showed that subjective norms of students were effective on intent to use fast foods. Friends had the most impact on the plan to eat fast foods, as expected. In addition, the normative beliefs of students were also more positive for friends than family and teachers. This conclusion suggests that most training programs should focus on their friends as a critical group that may affect intent to use fast foods.

Results of some previous studies were similar to findings of the current study. One study conducted by Mirkarimi et al. highlighted that subjective norms had the main role on students’ intent to use fast foods [ 44 ]. In the other words, they found that behavioral intention was affected by subjective norms. In addition, the study of Yarmohammadi and et al. showed that subjective norms predict intention and behavior [ 31 ].

In this study, TPB demonstrated to be a sound conceptual framework for explaining closely35% of the variance in students’ behavioral intention to consume fast-food. Among the TPB variables, subjective norm and knowledge of students were the most important predictors of intention to use fast foods. These findings are consistent with other results that identify that subjective norms have a significant effect on consuming fruits and vegetables [ 45 ]. In study of Lynn Fudge, Path analysis highlighted that TPB explained adolescent fast-food behavioral intention to consume fast food. The model identified subjective norms had the strongest relationship with adolescent behavioral intention to consume fast food [ 46 ].

The results of this study showed that the attitude toward fast food behavior did not predict intent and the behavior. However, some studies have reported contradictory findings with the study. For example, the findings of Stefanie and Chery’s study showed that attitude was a predictor for intent to use healthy nutrition [ 47 ]. Yarmohammadi and colleagues stated in their study that attitude was the most important predictor of behavioral intent [ 31 ]. In the study of determinants of fast food intake, Dunn et al. has identified attitude as a predictor of the intent of fast food consumption [ 32 ]. The results of studies by Seo et al., Ebadi et al., along with the findings of this study, showed that attitude toward fast food consumption is not significantly related to behavioral intention [ 28 , 48 ]. Based on the findings of the current study, fast-food consumption of students was also influenced by some the TPB variables. Multiple linear regression analyses revealed that the constructs of the TPB explained fast food use behaviors with R-squared (R 2 ) of 0.23. In these analyses, intention, perceived behavioral control, and knowledge were known as effective factors on fast-food consumption. Among the TPB constructs, behavioral intention was the most important predictor of fast-food consumption. The intention plays a fundamental role in the theory of planned behavior. The intentions include motivational factors that influence behavior and show how much people want to behave and how hard they try to do the behavior [ 49 ]. In study Ebadi et al., regression analysis showed the intention as a predictor of fast food consumption behavior [ 48 ]. In studies of Stefanie et al. and Seo et al., has reported intention as correlate of the behavior [ 28 , 47 ]. All these studies confirmed and supported this part of our study findings. In addition, the results indicated that perceived behavioral control directly influenced the behavior of fast-food consumption. Some investigations confirmed this portion of our results. For instance, the results of Dunn et al. showed that perceived behavioral control (PBC) and intent predicted the behavior of fast food consumption [ 32 ]. Also, in the study of Seo et al., regression analysis showed that fast food consumption behavior was correlated with perceived behavioral control [ 28 ]. Yarmohammadi et al. found that in predicting behavior, perceived behavioral control along with intention could predict 6% of behavior [ 31 ]. Although this study provides valuable knowledge regarding the relationships between behavioral intent and TPB variables, this study, like other studies, has a number of limitations. First, a cross-sectional study was used to examine the relationship between the variables. Due to the fact that in cross-sectional studies, all data are collected in a period of time, as a result, these studies do not have the necessary ability to examine the cause-and-effect relationships between variables. Second, the results of this type of study can only be generalized to populations with similar characteristics and have no generalizability beyond that. Third, since the data of this study were collected using the self-report questionnaire, the respondents may have errors and bias in completing the questionnaire and this can affect the results of the study.

In sum, this study was conducted to identify factors influencing intention and behavior of fast-food consumption among students by using the theory of planned behavior. The findings revealed that changeability of students’ intention to use fast food and their real behavior is dependent on the TPB variables. As this theoretical framework explained 35, 23% of intent to consume fast-foods and fast-food consumption, respectively. Among the TPB constructs, knowledge and subjective norm were known as the most important predictors of intention to use fast foods. In addition, the results indicated that intention and perceived behavioral control were the most important factors influencing consumption of fast foods among participants. It is imperative that health educators and promoters use these results in designing suitable educational interventions to improve people’s nutritional behavior.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to confidentiality of data and subsequent research, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Theory of Planned Behavior

Theory of Reasoned Action

Statistical Package for Social Sciences

Body Mass Index

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Acknowledgements

The article authors hereby express their gratitude to Vice Chancellors for Research of Urmia University of Medical Sciences and Education Department for supporting this study.

This study is supported by Urmia University of Medical Science, grant number(No: 2017–2323) .

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All authors contribute in conceive, design of this study. A.D, S.K, A.A,FTM and S.M contributed to the design and implementation of the research, to the analysis of the results and to the writing of the manuscript. All authors revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content and read and approved the final manuscript.

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Additional file 1..

The questionnire used in the study to collect the data. The first part of the questionnaire included General characteristics. The second part of the questionnaire consisted of the Constructs of TPB. The third part consisted of knowledge of participants. The fourth part consisted of Fast food use.

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Didarloo, A., Khalili, S., Aghapour, A.A. et al. Determining intention, fast food consumption and their related factors among university students by using a behavior change theory. BMC Public Health 22 , 314 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12696-x

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Fast Food Restaurants Have Expanded More Than Their Menus

Portion sizes, calories, and sodium levels have steadily crept up over the last 30 years

fast food visual

Photo courtesy of Sergey Nazarov/iStock

Sarah Wells (COM’18)

Since they first started popping up across America in the 1950s, fast food restaurants have drastically changed food culture. A meal that was once made slowly has now been pushed to the peak of efficiency and can be eaten on-demand almost 24/7. While this easy access to food certainly has its benefits—cost effectiveness and time saving, to name a few—its popularity has been instrumental in upping our nation’s consumption of low-nutrient and high-calorie meals.

Today, fast food makes up 11 percent of adult energy intake in the United States and has been implicated in rising rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. A new study looking back at fast food’s evolution over the last 30 years could help explain why these health issues have become more common. In a paper published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics , researchers from Boston University and Tufts University report that meals have packed on more calories and salt over the years.

It’s the longest-spanning and most in-depth look at fast food’s caloric energy and nutrient makeup, decade over decade, that has ever been conducted, according to Megan McCrory, research associate professor at BU’s College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences: Sargent College and the lead author on the paper.

The researchers looked at menu items from ten different fast food restaurants, including crowd favorites like McDonald’s, Dairy Queen, and KFC. Using three specific years (1986, 1991, and 2016) as snapshots, they calculated how portion size, energy content, and nutrient profiles have changed over the three decades.

To do so, they first had to collect, categorize, and analyze 1,787 menu items, information they gathered from the restaurants’ websites or from analog copies of The Fast Food Guide .

Once they had standardized their data, which McCrory says had to account for the fact that not all item names or energy descriptions were consistent across restaurants and time periods, they grouped the items into three categories: entrées, sides, and desserts.

Between 1986 and 2016, McCrory says the researchers calculated that the number of items offered on restaurant menus grew a staggering 226 percent, an average of 22.9 items per year. Along with the menu expansions, they found that portion sizes and calories had increased as well.

Desserts grew in size by an average of 62 calories per decade—just under 200 calories over the 30-year span. Meanwhile, entrées gained an average of 30 calories per decade, nearly 100 calories overall. Sides did not increase by much in terms of calories, but like entrées and desserts, became noticeably saltier.

McCrory says that fast food’s sodium content—too much of which can increase blood pressure and risk of heart disease—has consistently grown higher over the years. Based on a 2,000-calorie-per-day diet, fast food has steadily undergone an increase in the percentage of recommended daily values of sodium, creeping up 4.6 percent for entrées, 3.9 percent for sides, and 1.2 percent for desserts on average each decade.

Calcium and iron, which McCrory says can increase bone density and reduce anemia, have also increased in fast food items over time, primarily in desserts. On average per decade, the daily value of calcium increased 3.9 percent in desserts and the daily value of iron increased 1.4 percent. Yet McCrory says that news shouldn’t be viewed as a green light to splurge on more fast food.

“Although these increases seem desirable, people should not be consuming fast food to get more calcium and iron in their diet because of the high calories and sodium that come along with it,” McCrory says.

While this research, funded in part by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, provides a much-needed perspective on the incremental changes that have accumulated in fast food over the past 30 years, McCrory says that new research should focus on the changes that still need to be made. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 36.6 percent of US adults consume fast food on any given day, and McCrory says it’s time they have healthier paths to choose from when eating at those restaurants.

“It doesn’t seem like fast food is going away anytime soon,” says McCrory. “I think we need more research into what kinds of solutions are going to help people make better choices at fast food restaurants” and to find “alternatives to eating fast food in the first place.”

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Consider that the average McDonald’s drive-through order from speaker box to food pickup takes a little less than three minutes, Senatore said. And McDonald’s already cut 15 to 20 seconds off order times in 2019 because of smaller menu reductions and internal productivity incentives, added Peter Saleh, managing director and senior restaurant analyst at BTIG.

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Articles on Fast food

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Neighbourhood amenities may have helped youth mental health and stress early in the pandemic

Alexander Wray , Western University ; Gina Martin , Athabasca University ; Jamie Seabrook , Western University ; Jason Gilliland , Western University ; Kendra Nelson Ferguson , Western University , and Stephanie Coen , University of Nottingham

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Jamie Coates , University of Sheffield and Niamh Calway , University of Oxford

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The world is hooked on junk food: how big companies pull it off

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Profit versus health: 4 ways big global industries make people sick

Teurai Rwafa , University of the Witwatersrand

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Ultraprocessed foods – like cookies, chips, frozen meals and fast food – may contribute to cognitive decline

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Why South Africa should introduce mandatory labelling for fast foods

Siphiwe Dlamini , University of the Witwatersrand

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Kenya’s potato drama: farmers can only meet standards if there are some

Timothy Njagi Njeru , Egerton University and XN Iraki , University of Nairobi

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James Boafo , Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)

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How Cup Noodles became one of the biggest transpacific business success stories of all time

Alisa Freedman , University of Oregon

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Five reasons South Africa isn’t ready for health claims on food labels

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Public acceptance of sin taxes on sugar or fat not dependent on evidence

Nicole Fiorillo , McMaster University and Katherine Boothe , McMaster University

research on fast food

How to put women at the centre of Africa’s food systems

Elizabeth Mkandawire , University of Pretoria and Melody Mentz-Coetzee , University of Pretoria

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Appetite for convenience: how the surge in online food delivery could be harming our health

Stephanie Partridge , University of Sydney ; Alice A Gibson ; Julie Redfern , University of Sydney ; Rajshri Roy , University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau ; Rebecca Raeside , University of Sydney , and Sisi Jia , University of Sydney

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Combo meal deals and price discounts on fast food encourage us to eat more junk. It’s time for policy action

Gary Sacks , Deakin University ; Evelyn Suk Yi Looi , Deakin University , and Lily Grigsby-Duffy , Deakin University

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From haute cuisine to hot dogs: How dining out has evolved over 200 years – and is innovating further in the pandemic

Hannah Cutting-Jones , University of Oregon

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Ghanaians are eating more fast food: the who and the why

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From Abidjan to Jakarta, how the city is reinventing what we eat

Audrey Soula , Université de Montpellier ; Nicolas Bricas , Cirad , and Olivier Lepiller , Cirad

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Vale Sizzler: the cheese toast king couldn’t keep up with dining trends

Katherine Kirkwood , Queensland University of Technology

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Obesity strategy: policies placing responsibility on individuals don’t work – so why does the government keep using them?

Charlotte Godziewski , Aston University

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Fast food is comforting, but in low-income areas it crowds out fresher options

Catherine Keske , University of California, Merced

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ScienceDaily

High availability of fast-food restaurants across all US neighborhood types linked to higher rates of type 2 diabetes

An increasing number of studies suggest a link between a neighborhood's built environment and the likelihood that its residents will develop chronic diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes (T2D) and certain types of cancers. A new nationwide study led by researchers from NYU Grossman School of Medicine published online today in JAMA Network Open suggests that living in neighborhoods with higher availability of fast-food outlets across all regions of the United States is associated with higher subsequent risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Findings also indicated that the availability of more supermarkets could be protective against developing T2D, particularly in suburban and rural neighborhoods.

The study -- notable for its large geographic breadth -- uses data from a cohort of more than 4 million veterans living in 98 percent of U.S. census tracts across the country. It counted fast-food restaurants and supermarkets relative to other food outlets, and is the first, according to the researchers, to examine this relationship in four distinct types of neighborhoods (high-density urban, low-density urban, suburban, and rural) at the hyperlocal level nationwide.

"Most studies that examine the built food environment and its relationship to chronic diseases have been much smaller or conducted in localized areas," said Rania Kanchi, MPH, a researcher in the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone and lead author of the study. "Our study design is national in scope and allowed us to identify the types of communities that people are living in, characterize their food environment, and observe what happens to them over time. The size of our cohort allows for geographic generalizability in a way that other studies do not."

How the Study was Conducted

The research team used data from the U.S. Veterans Health Administration (the largest single-payer healthcare system in the country) that captures more than 9 million veterans seen at more than 1,200 health facilities around the country. Using this data, the researchers then constructed a national cohort of more than 4 million veterans without diabetes from the VA electronic health records (EHR) between 2008 and 2016. Each veteran's health status was followed through 2018 or until the individual either developed diabetes, died, or had no appointments for more than two years.

Within each of four distinct neighborhood types, the proportion of restaurants that were fast food, and the proportion of food outlets that were supermarkets were tabulated within a one-mile walk in high- density urban neighborhoods, a two-mile drive in low-density urban neighborhoods, a six-mile drive in suburban communities, and a 10-mile drive in rural communities.

Veterans were followed for a median of five and a half years. During that time, 13.2 percent of the cohort were newly diagnosed with T2D. Males developed T2D more frequently than females (13.6 versus 8.2 percent). Non-Hispanic Black adults had the highest incidence (16.9 percent), compared to non-Hispanic Whites (12.9 percent), non-White Asian and Hispanics (12.8 percent), Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders (15 percent), and Native American and Alaskan Indians (14.2 percent).

When stratifying by community types, 14.3 percent of veterans living in high density urban communities developed T2D, while the lowest incidence was among those living in suburban and small town communities (12.6 percent).

Overall, the team concluded that the effect of the food environment on T2D incidence varied by how urban the community was, but did not vary further by region of the country.

"The more we learn about the relationship between the food environment and chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes, the more policymakers can act by improving the mix of healthy food options sold in restaurants and food outlets, or by creating better zoning laws that promote optimal food options for residents," said Lorna Thorpe, PhD, MPH, professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone and senior author of the study.

One limitation of the study, according to the authors, is that the study may not be fully generalizable to non-veteran populations, as U.S. veterans tend to be predominantly male and have substantially greater health burdens and financial instability than the civilian population. They are also at greater risk of disability, obesity, and other chronic conditions.

The next phase of the research, say Thorpe and Kanchi, will be to better understand the impacts of the built environment on diabetes risk by subgroups. They plan to examine whether or not the relationships between fast-food restaurants, supermarkets and community types vary by gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.

Funding for the study was provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In addition to Thorpe and Kanchi, other NYU Langone researchers include Priscilla Lopez, MPH; Pasquale E. Rummo, PhD; David C. Lee, MD; Samrachana Adhikari, PhD; Mark D. Schwartz, MD, and Brian Elbel, PhD. Other research support was provided by Sanja Avramovich, PhD, Department of Health Administration and Policy, George Mason University; Karen R. Siegel, PhD; Deborah B. Rolka, MS and Giuseppina Imperatore from the Division of Diabetes Translation at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

  • Chronic Illness
  • Staying Healthy
  • Food and Agriculture
  • Agriculture and Food
  • Extreme Survival
  • Diabetes mellitus type 1
  • Diabetes mellitus type 2
  • Bipolar disorder
  • Food and Drug Administration
  • Diabetic diet

Story Source:

Materials provided by NYU Langone Health / NYU Grossman School of Medicine . Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

  • Rania Kanchi, Priscilla Lopez, Pasquale E. Rummo, David C. Lee, Samrachana Adhikari, Mark D. Schwartz, Sanja Avramovic, Karen R. Siegel, Deborah B. Rolka, Giuseppina Imperatore, Brian Elbel, Lorna E. Thorpe. Longitudinal Analysis of Neighborhood Food Environment and Diabetes Risk in the Veterans Administration Diabetes Risk Cohort . JAMA Network Open , 2021; 4 (10): e2130789 DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.30789

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Is fast food addictive?

Affiliation.

  • 1 Division of Adolescent Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA. [email protected]
  • PMID: 21999689
  • DOI: 10.2174/1874473711104030146

Studies of food addiction have focused on highly palatable foods. While fast food falls squarely into that category, it has several other attributes that may increase its salience. This review examines whether the nutrients present in fast food, the characteristics of fast food consumers or the presentation and packaging of fast food may encourage substance dependence, as defined by the American Psychiatric Association. The majority of fast food meals are accompanied by a soda, which increases the sugar content 10-fold. Sugar addiction, including tolerance and withdrawal, has been demonstrated in rodents but not humans. Caffeine is a "model" substance of dependence; coffee drinks are driving the recent increase in fast food sales. Limited evidence suggests that the high fat and salt content of fast food may increase addictive potential. Fast food restaurants cluster in poorer neighborhoods and obese adults eat more fast food than those who are normal weight. Obesity is characterized by resistance to insulin, leptin and other hormonal signals that would normally control appetite and limit reward. Neuroimaging studies in obese subjects provide evidence of altered reward and tolerance. Once obese, many individuals meet criteria for psychological dependence. Stress and dieting may sensitize an individual to reward. Finally, fast food advertisements, restaurants and menus all provide environmental cues that may trigger addictive overeating. While the concept of fast food addiction remains to be proven, these findings support the role of fast food as a potentially addictive substance that is most likely to create dependence in vulnerable populations.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Behavior, Addictive / diagnosis
  • Behavior, Addictive / etiology*
  • Caffeine / adverse effects
  • Diet, Reducing / adverse effects
  • Dietary Fats / adverse effects
  • Dietary Sucrose / adverse effects
  • Fast Foods / adverse effects*
  • Sodium Chloride, Dietary / adverse effects
  • Stress, Psychological / psychology
  • Substance-Related Disorders / etiology*
  • Dietary Fats
  • Dietary Sucrose
  • Sodium Chloride, Dietary

Grants and funding

  • UL1 RR024131/RR/NCRR NIH HHS/United States
  • Open access
  • Published: 04 June 2020

Satisfaction and revisit intentions at fast food restaurants

  • Amer Rajput 1 &
  • Raja Zohaib Gahfoor 2  

Future Business Journal volume  6 , Article number:  13 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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This study is to identify the positive association of food quality, restaurant service quality, physical environment quality, and customer satisfaction with revisit intention of customers at fast food restaurants. Additionally, word of mouth is investigated as moderator on the relationship of customer satisfaction with revisit intentions of customers at fast food restaurants. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey from 433 customers of fast food restaurants through convenience sampling. Hypotheses of proposed model were tested using structural equation modeling with partial least squares SEM-PLS in SMART PLS 3. The results confirmed the positive association of food quality, restaurant service quality, physical environment quality, and customer satisfaction with revisit intentions of customers at fast food restaurants. However, word of mouth does not positively moderate the relationship of customer satisfaction with revisit intentions of customers at fast food restaurants. This study emphasizes the importance of revisit intention as a vital behavioral reaction in fast food restaurants. This study reveals revisit intention’s positive association with food quality, restaurant service quality, physical environment quality, and customer satisfaction based on stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) theory. Furthermore, it is identified that social conformity theory does not hold its assumption when consumers experience quality and they are satisfied because word of mouth does not moderate the relationship of customer satisfaction with revisit intention of customer.

Introduction

Background of the study.

Hospitality industry is observing diversified changes in highly competitive environment for restaurants [ 1 ]. Consumers are becoming conscious of food quality (FQ), restaurant service quality (RSQ), and physical environment quality (PEQ) of the fast food restaurants. Consumers switch easily in case of just one evasive experience [ 2 , 3 ]. Fast food restaurants must attract new customers and retain the existing customers. There is a growing trend in Pakistani culture to dine out at fast food restaurants with family, friends, and colleagues [ 4 ]. Restaurants focus to provide a dining experience by combining tangible and intangible essentials [ 5 ]. Decisive objective is to achieve customer satisfaction (CS), word of mouth (WOM), and future revisit intention (RVI) at fast food restaurant.

Restaurants differ in offerings, appearance, service models, and cuisines; this classifies restaurants as downscale and upscale [ 6 , 7 ]. Revisit intention is the willingness of a consumer to revisit a place due to satisfactory experience. Customer satisfaction generates a probability to revisit in presence or absence of an affirmative attitude toward the restaurant [ 8 ]. Revisit intention is a substantial topic in hospitality research [ 8 , 9 , 10 ]. To date there has been little agreement on that word of mouth can affect revisit intention after experience of customer satisfaction. For instance, when a customer is satisfied at a fast food restaurant experience, however, the customer’s family and friends do not share the same satisfying experience. Will this word of mouth affect the customer’s revisit intention? Food quality is acknowledged as a basic component of the restaurant’s overall experience to affect consumer revisit intention. Fast food quality is substantially associated with customer satisfaction and it is an important predictor of behavioral intention [ 11 ]. Service quality is an essential factor to produce consumers’ revisit intentions [ 12 ]. Furthermore, physical environment quality affects behavior of consumers at restaurants, hotels, hospitals, retail stores, and banks [ 13 ]. Physical environment quality is a precursor of customer satisfaction [ 9 ]. This suggests that customer satisfaction is associated with fast food quality, restaurant service quality, physical environment quality, and revisit intention.

Aims of the study

This study is to investigate the association of fast food quality, restaurant service quality, physical environment quality with customer’s revisit intention through mediation of customer satisfaction using S-O-R theory and moderation of word of mouth on the relationship of customer satisfaction with revisit intention based on social conformity theory. This study empirically tests a conceptual research framework based on S-O-R and social conformity theory adding value to the knowledge. Objectives of the study are given below.

To investigate the association of fast food quality, restaurant service quality, and physical environment quality with revisit intention through customer satisfaction based on S-O-R theory in the context of Pakistani fast food restaurants.

To investigate moderation of WOM on relationship of customer satisfaction with revisit intention based on social conformity theory in the context of Pakistani fast food restaurants.

Furthermore, little empirical evidence is present about customer satisfaction with respect to fast food restaurant service quality [ 14 ]. Customer satisfaction is a post-consumption assessment in service industry. Customer satisfaction acts as the feedback mechanism to boost consumer experience [ 15 ]. Customer satisfaction brings competitive advantage to the firm and produces positive behavioral revisit intention [ 16 ]. Marketing literature emphasizes customer satisfaction in anticipation of positive word of mouth, revisit intention, and revisit behavior [ 5 ]. Behavioral intention is assessed through positive WOM, and it is important in service industry [ 15 ], whereas social influence in shape of WOM affects the behavior of individuals toward conformity leading to a driving effect based on social conformity theory [ 17 ].

  • Food quality

Food quality plays a central role in the restaurant industry. Food quality is essential to satisfy consumer needs. Food quality is a substantial condition to fulfill the needs and expectations of the consumer [ 18 ]. Food quality is acknowledged as a basic component of the restaurant’s overall experience. Food quality is a restaurant selection’s most important factor, and it is considerably related to customer satisfaction [ 11 ]. Food quality affects customer loyalty, and customer assesses the restaurant on the basis of food quality [ 19 ]. Food quality entails food taste, presentation, temperature, freshness, nutrition, and menu variety. Food quality influences customers’ decisions to revisit the restaurant [ 20 ]. Academic curiosity is increasing in the restaurant’s menus, as variety of menu items is considered the critical characteristic of food quality [ 11 ]. Taste is sensual characteristic of food. Taste is assessed after consumption. Nonetheless, customers foresee taste before consumption through price, quality, food labels, and brand name. Taste of food is important to accomplish customer satisfaction. Presentation of food enhances dining customer satisfaction [ 21 , 22 ]. Customer’s concerns of healthy food substantially affect customer’s expectations and choice of a restaurant [ 23 ]. Freshness is assessed with the aroma, juiciness, crispness, and fresh posture of the food. Food quality enhances customer satisfaction [ 24 ].

  • Restaurant service quality

Quality as a construct is projected by Juran and Deming [ 25 , 26 ]. Service quality is comparatively a contemporary concept. Service quality assesses the excellence of brands in industry of travel, retail, hotel, airline, and restaurant [ 27 ]. Restaurant service quality affects dining experiences of customers. Service quality creates first impression on consumers and affects consumers’ perception of quality [ 28 ]. Service industry provides good service quality to the customers to attain sustainable competitive advantage. Customer satisfaction depends on quality of service at the restaurant [ 29 ]. Service quality entails price, friendliness, cleanliness, care, diversity, speed of service, and food consistency according to menu. Customer satisfaction also depends on communication between restaurant’s personnel and the customers [ 30 ]. Consumer’s evaluation of service quality is affected by level of friendliness and care. Service quality leads to positive word of mouth, customer satisfaction, better corporate image, attraction for the new customers, increase revisits, and amplified business performance. Service quality increases revisits and behavioral intentions of customers in hospitality industry [ 12 ].

  • Physical environment quality

PEQ is a setting to provide products and services in a restaurant. Physical environment quality contains artifacts, decor, spatial layout, and ambient conditions in a restaurant. Customers desire dining experience to be pleasing; thus, they look for a physical environment quality [ 31 ]. Physical environment quality satisfies and attracts new customers. PEQ increases financial performance, and it creates memorable experience for the customers [ 9 ]. Consumers perceive the quality of a restaurant based on cleanliness, quirky, comfortable welcoming, physical environment quality, and other amenities that create the ambiance [ 32 ]. Effect of physical environment quality on behaviors is visible in service businesses such as restaurants, hotels, hospitals, retail stores, and banks [ 33 ]. Physical environment quality is an antecedent of customer satisfaction [ 34 ]. Thus, restaurants need to create attractive and distinctive physical environment quality.

  • Customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction contains the feelings of pleasure and well-being. Customer satisfaction develops from gaining what customer expects from the service. Customer satisfaction is broadly investigated in consumer behavior and social psychology. Customer satisfaction is described “as the customer’s subjective assessment of the consumption experience, grounded on certain associations between the perceptions of customer and objective characteristics of the product” [ 35 ]. Customer satisfaction is the extent to which an experience of consumption brings good feelings. Customer satisfaction is stated as “a comparison of the level of product or service performance, quality, or other outcomes perceived by the consumer with an evaluative standard” [ 36 ]. Customer satisfaction constructs as a customer’s wholesome evaluation of an experience. Customer satisfaction is a reaction of fulfilling customer’s needs.

Customer satisfaction brings escalated repeat purchase behavior and intention to refer [ 37 ]. Dissatisfied consumers are uncertain to return to the place [ 38 ]. Satisfactory restaurant experience can enhance revisit intention of the consumer. Positive WOM is generated when customers are not only satisfied with the brand but they demand superior core offering and high level of service [ 15 ].

  • Word of mouth

Word of mouth is described as “person-to-person, oral communication between a communicator and receiver which is perceived as a non-commercial message” [ 39 ]. WOM is also defined as “the informal positive or negative communication by customers on the objectively existing and/or subjectively perceived characteristics of the products or services” [ 40 ]. Moreover, [ 41 ] defines it as “an informal person to person communication between a perceived non-commercial communicator and a receiver regarding a brand, a product, an organization or a service”. WOM is described as a positive or negative statement made by probable, actual or former customers about a product or a company, which is made available through offline or online channels [ 42 , 43 ]. WOM is an important and frequent sensation; it is known for long time that people habitually exchange their experiences of consumptions with others. Consumers complain about bad hotel stays, talk about new shoes, share info about the finest way of getting out tough stains, spread word about experience of products, services, companies, restaurants, and stores. Social talks made more than 3.3 billion of brand impressions per day [ 44 ].

WOM has substantial impact on consumer’s purchasing decision; therefore, a vital marketing strategy is to initiate positive WOM [ 45 ]. However, negative WOM is more informative and diagnostic where customers express their dissatisfaction [ 38 ]. Word of mouth communications are more informative than traditional marketing communications in service sector. WOM is more credible than advertisement when it is from friends and family [ 46 ]. WOM is a vital influencer in purchase intention. WOM escalates affection that enhances commitment of consumer purchase intention. WOM is generated before or after the purchase. WOM helps the consumers to acquire more knowledge for the product and to reduce the perceived risk [ 47 ]. WOM in the dining experience is very important. People tend to follow their peers’ opinions when they are to dine out.

  • Revisit intention

To predicting and to explain human behavior is the key determination of consumer behavior research. Consumer needs differ and emerge frequently with diverse outlooks. Revisit intention is to endorse “visitors being willing to revisit the similar place, for satisfactory experiences, and suggest the place to friends to develop the loyalty” [ 48 ]. Consumer forms an attitude toward the service provider based on the experience of service. This attitude can be steady dislike or like of the service. This is linked to the consumer’s intention to re-patronize the service and to start WOM. Repurchase intention is at the core of customer loyalty and commitment. Repurchase intention is a significant part of behavioral and attitudinal constructs. Revisit intention is described as optimistic probability to revisit the restaurant. Revisit intention is the willingness of a consumer to visit the restaurant again. Furthermore, the ease of visitors, transportation in destination, entertainment, hospitability, and service satisfaction influence visitor’s revisit intention.

Consumer behavior encircles the upcoming behavioral intention and post-visit evaluation. Post-visit evaluation covers perceived quality, experience, value, and the satisfaction. Restaurant managers are interested to understand the factors of consumer revisit intention, as it is cost effective to retain the existing customers in comparison with attract new customers [ 49 ]. Substantial consideration is prevailing in literature for the relationship among quality attributes, customer satisfaction, and revisit intention. There is a positive association between customer satisfaction and revisit intention. Indifferent consumer, accessibility of competitive alternatives and low switching cost can end up in a state where satisfied consumers defect to other options [ 2 ]. Consumer behavior varies for choice of place to visit, assessments, and behavioral intentions [ 50 ]. The assessments are about the significance perceived by regular customers’ satisfactions. Whereas, future behavioral intentions point to the consumer’s willingness to revisit the similar place and suggest it to the others [ 51 ].

S-O-R model is primarily established on the traditional stimulus–response theory. This theory explicates individual’s behavior as learned response to external stimuli. The theory is questioned for oversimplifying ancestries of the behaviors and ignoring one’s mental state. [ 52 ] extended the S-O-R model through integrating the notion of organism between stimulus and response. S-O-R concept is embraced to reveal individual’s affective and cognitive conditions before the response behavior [ 53 ]. S-O-R framework considers that environment comprises stimuli (S) leading changes to the individual’s internal conditions called organism (O), further leading to responses (R) [ 52 ]. In S-O-R model, the stimuli comprise of various components of physical environment quality, organism indicates to internal structures and processes bridging between stimuli and final responses or actions of a consumer [ 9 ]. Behavioral responses of an individual in a physical environment quality are directly influenced by the physical environment quality stimulus [ 54 ]. S-O-R framework is implemented in diverse service contexts to examine how physical environment quality affects customer’s emotion and behavior [ 55 ]. The effect of stimulation in an online shopping environment on impulsive purchase is investigated through S-O-R framework [ 56 ]. The effects of background music, on consumers’ affect and cognition, and psychological responses influence behavioral intentions [ 57 ]. Perceived flow and website quality toward customer satisfaction affect purchase intention in hotel website based on S-O-R framework [ 58 ]. Therefore, this study conceptualizes food quality, restaurant service quality, and physical environment quality as stimuli; customer satisfaction as organism; and revisit intention as response.

Moreover, social conformity theory (SCT) is to support the logical presence of WOM in the conceptual framework as a moderator on the relationship of customer satisfaction and revisit intention. Social conformity influences individual’s attitudes, beliefs and behaviors leading to a herding effect [ 17 , 59 ]. Thus, social influence (WOM) moderates the relationship of customer satisfaction and revisit intention. Following hypotheses are postulated, see Fig.  1 .

figure 1

Conceptual research framework

Food quality is positively associated with customer satisfaction in fast food restaurant.

Restaurant service quality is positively associated with customer satisfaction in fast food restaurant.

Physical environment quality is positively associated with customer satisfaction in fast food restaurant.

Customer satisfaction is positively associated with revisit intention of customer in fast food restaurant.

Customer satisfaction mediates between food quality and revisit intention of customer in fast food restaurant.

Customer satisfaction mediates between restaurant service quality and revisit intention of customer in fast food restaurant.

Customer satisfaction mediates between physical environment quality and revisit intention of customer in fast food restaurant.

WOM positively moderates the relationship between customer satisfaction and revisit intention of customer in fast food restaurant.

There are two research approaches such as deductive (quantitative) and inductive (qualitative). This study utilized the quantitative research approach as it aligns with the research design and philosophy. Quantitative research approach mostly relies on deductive logic. Researcher begins with hypotheses development and then collects data. Data are used to determine whether empirical evidence supports the hypotheses [ 60 ]. The questionnaires survey is used. This study chose the mono-method with cross-sectional time horizon of 6 months. Deductive approach is utilized in this study. Cross-sectional time horizon also known as “snapshot” is used when investigation is related with the study of a specific phenomenon at a particular time [ 61 ]. Questionnaire survey is mostly used technique for data collection in marketing research due to its effectiveness and low cost [ 62 ]. Data are collected through self-administered questionnaires. Following the footsteps of Lai and Chen [ 63 ] and Widianti et al. [ 64 ] convenience sampling is applied. Famous fast food restaurants in twin cities (Rawalpindi and Islamabad) of Pakistan were chosen randomly. Furthermore, 650 questionnaires (with consideration of low response rate) were distributed to the customers at famous fast food restaurants. Moreover, researchers faced difficulty in obtaining fast food restaurant’s consumers data.

It yielded a response rate of 68.92% with 448 returned questionnaires. Fifteen incomplete questionnaires are not included; thus, 433 responses are employed for data analysis from fast food restaurant customers. The obtained number of usable responses was suitable to apply structural equation modeling [ 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 ].

Sample characteristics describe that there are 39.7% females and 60.3% males. There are 31.4% respondents of age group 15–25 years, 48.3% of age group 26–35, 12.2% of age ranges between 36 and 45, 6.7% of age ranges between 46 and 55, and 1.4% of age group is above 56 years. The educational level of the respondents indicates that mostly respondents are undergraduate and graduate. Occupation of respondents reflects that 28.6% work in private organizations and 24.9% belong to student category. Monthly income of 29.3% respondents ranges between Rupees 20,000 and 30,000 and 25.6% have monthly income of Rupees 41,000–50,000. Average monthly spending in fast food restaurants is about Rupees 3000–6000, see Table  1 .

Measures of the constructs

Food quality is adopted from measures developed by [ 69 ]. Food quality contains six items such as: food presentation is visually attractive, the restaurant offers a variety of menu items, and the restaurant offers healthy options. Restaurant service quality is adopted with six items [ 70 ]. This construct contains items such as: efficient and effective process in the welcoming and ushering of the customers, efficient and effective explanation of the menu, efficient and effective process in delivery of food. Physical environment quality is adopted with four items [ 71 ], and one item is adopted from measures developed by [ 70 ]. The items are such as: the restaurant has visually striking building exteriors and parking space, the restaurant has visually eye-catching dining space that is comfortable and easy to move around and within, and the restaurant has suitable music and/or illumination in accordance with its ambience. Revisit intention is measured through four adapted items [ 8 ]; such as: I would visit again in the near future and I am interested in revisiting again. Customer satisfaction is measured by three adopted items [ 29 ]; such as: I am satisfied with the service at this restaurant, and the restaurant always comes up to my expectations. Word of mouth is measured with four adopted items such as: my family/friends mentioned positive things I had not considered about this restaurant, my family/friends provided me with positive ideas about this restaurant [ 72 ]. Each item is measured on 5-point Likert scale, where 1 = strongly disagree, 3 = uncertain, and 5 = strongly agree.

Results and discussion

Validity and reliability.

Validity taps the ability of the scale to measure the construct; in other words, it means that the representative items measure the concept adequately [ 73 ]. The content validity is executed in two steps; firstly, the items are presented to the experts for further modifications; secondly, the constructive feedback about understanding of it was acquired by few respondents who filled the questionnaires. Each set of items is a valid indicator of the construct as within-scale factor analysis is conducted.

The factor analyses allotted the items to their respective factor. Fornell and Lacker’s [ 74 ] composite reliability p is calculated for each construct using partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modeling and Cronbach’s coefficient α [ 75 ]. Cronbach’s α is used to evaluate the reliability of all items that indicates how well the items in a set are positively related to one another. Each Cronbach’s α of the instrument is higher than .7 (ranging from .74 to .91); see Table  2 .

Common method bias

Same measures are used to collect data for all respondents; thus, there can be common method bias [ 76 ]. Firstly, questionnaire is systematically constructed with consideration of study design. Secondly, respondents were assured for the responses to be kept anonymous [ 77 ]. Common method bias possibility is assessed through Harman’s single factor test [ 78 , 79 , 80 , 81 , 82 , 83 ]. Principal axis factor analysis on measurement items is exercised. The single factor did not account for most of the bias and it accounted for 43.82% variance that is less than 50%. Thus, common method bias is not an issue [ 80 , 81 ].

SEM-PLS model assessment

Survey research faces a challenge to select an appropriate statistical model to analyze data. Partial least squares grounded structural equation modeling (SEM-PLS) and covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) are generally used multivariate data analysis methods. CB-SEM is based on factor analysis that uses maximum likelihood estimation. PLS-SEM is based on the principal component concept; it uses the partial least squares estimator [ 84 ]. PLS-SEM is considered appropriate to examine complex cause–effect relationship models. PLS-SEM is a nonparametric approach with low reservations on data distribution and sample size [ 84 ].

Measurement model assessment

To evaluate convergent validity measurement model (outer model) is assessed that includes composite reliability (CR) to evaluate internal consistency, individual indicator reliability, and average variance extracted (AVE) [ 85 ]. Indicator reliability explains the variation in the items by a variable. Outer loadings assess indicator reliability; a higher value (an item with a loading of .70) on a variable indicates that the associated measure has considerable mutual commonality [ 85 ]. Two items RSQ 14 and PEQ 24 are dropped due to lower value less than .60 [ 86 ]. Composite reliability is assessed through internal consistency reliability. CR values of all the latent variables have higher values than .80 to establish internal consistency [ 85 ]; see Table  2 .

Convergent validity is the extent to which a measure correlates positively with alternative measures of the same variable. Convergent validity is ensured through higher values than .50 of AVE [ 74 ], see Table  2 . Discriminant validity is the degree to which a variable is truly distinct from other variables. Square root of AVE is higher than the inter-construct correlations except customer satisfaction to hold discriminant validity [ 74 ]. Additional evidence for discriminant validity is that indicators’ individual loadings are found to be higher than the respective cross-loadings, see Table  3 .

Structural model assessment

Structural model is assessed after establishing the validity and reliability of the variables. Structural model assessment includes path coefficients to calculate the importance and relevance of structural model associations. Model’s predictive accuracy is calculated through R 2 value. Model’s predictive relevance is assessed with Q 2 , and value of f 2 indicates substantial impact of the exogenous variable on an endogenous variable in PLS-SEM [ 85 ]. SEM is rigueur in validating instruments and testing linkages between constructs [ 87 ]. SMART-PLS produces reports of latent constructs correlations, path coefficients with t test values. The relationships between six constructs of food quality, restaurant service quality, physical environment quality, customer satisfaction, word-of-mouth, and revisit intention are displayed in Fig.  2 after bootstrapping. Bootstrapping is a re-sampling approach that draws random samples (with replacements) from the data and uses these samples to estimate the path model multiple times under slightly changed data constellations [ 88 ]. Purpose of bootstrapping is to compute the standard error of coefficient estimates in order to examine the coefficient’s statistical significance [ 89 ].

figure 2

Bootstrapping and path coefficients

Food quality is positively associated to customer satisfaction in fast food restaurant; H 1 is supported as path coefficient = .487, T value = 8.349, P value = .000. Restaurant service quality is positively associated with customer satisfaction; H 2 is supported as path coefficient = .253, T value = 4.521, P value = .000. Physical environment quality is positively associated with customer satisfaction in fast food restaurant; H 3 is supported as path coefficient = .149, T value = 3.518, P value = .000. Customer satisfaction is positively associated with revisit intention of customer in fast food restaurant; H 4 is supported as path coefficient = .528, T value = 11.966, P value = .000. WOM positively moderates the relationship between customer satisfaction and revisit intention of customer in fast food restaurant; H 8 is not supported as path coefficient = − .060, T value = 2.972, P value = .003; see Table  4 .

Assessing R 2 and Q 2

Coefficient of determination R 2 value is used to evaluate the structural model. This coefficient estimates the predictive precision of the model and is deliberated as the squared correlation between actual and predictive values of the endogenous construct. R 2 values represent the exogenous variables’ mutual effects on the endogenous variables. This signifies the amount of variance in endogenous constructs explained by total number of exogenous constructs associated to it [ 88 ]. The endogenous variables customer satisfaction and revisit intention have R 2  = .645 and .671, respectively, that assures the predictive relevance of structural model. Further the examination of the endogenous variables’ predictive power has good R 2 values.

Blindfolding is to cross-validate the model’s predictive relevance for each of the individual endogenous variables with value of Stone–Geisser Q 2 [ 90 , 91 ]. By performing the blindfolding test with an omission distance of 7 yielded cross-validated redundancy Q 2 values of all the endogenous variables [ 88 ]. Customer satisfaction’s Q 2  = .457 and RVI’s Q 2  = .501; this indicates large effect sizes. PLS structural model has predictive relevance because values of Q 2 are greater than 0, see Table  5 .

Assessing f 2

Effect size f 2 is the measure to estimate the change in R 2 value when an exogenous variable is omitted from the model. f 2 size effect illustrates the influence of a specific predictor latent variable on an endogenous variable. Effect size f 2 varies from small to medium for all the exogenous variables in explaining CS and RVI as shown Table  6 .

Additionally, H 5 : CS mediates between food quality and RVI is supported as CS partially mediates between FQ and RVI. Variation accounted for (VAF) value indicates that 70% of the total effect of an exogenous variable FQ on RVI is explained by indirect effect. Therefore, the effect of FQ on RVI is partially mediated through CS. Similarly, the VAF value indicates that 70% of the total effect of an exogenous variable RSQ and 35% VAF of PEQ on RVI is explained by indirect effect. Therefore, the effects of RSQ and PEQ on RVI are also partially mediated through CS. H 6 is supported as the effect of CS is partially mediated between RSQ and RVI of customer in fast food restaurant. H 7 is supported as the effect of CS is partially mediated between PEQ and RVI of customer in fast food restaurant, see Table  7 . This clearly indicates that customer satisfaction mediates between all of our exogenous variables (food quality, restaurant service quality and physical environment quality) and dependent variable revisit intention of customer in fast food restaurant [ 88 , 92 ] (Additional files 1 , 2 and 3 ).

This is interesting to note that food quality, restaurant service quality, physical environment quality, and customer satisfaction are important triggers of revisit intention at fast food restaurants. However, surprisingly, word of mouth does not moderate the relationship of customer satisfaction with revisit intention of customer at fast food restaurant. The results of the study correspond with some previous findings [ 15 , 29 , 32 , 69 , 93 ]. Positive relationship between customer satisfaction and revisit intention is consistent with the findings of the previous studies [ 5 , 8 , 94 , 95 , 96 ]. Food quality is positively associated with revisit intention; this result as well corresponds to a previous study [ 24 ]. Furthermore, interior and amusing physical environment is an important antecedent of revisit intention at a fast food restaurant; this finding is congruent with previous findings [ 29 , 70 , 97 , 98 ] and contrary to some previous studies [ 9 , 15 ].

Intensified competition, industry’s volatile nature, and maturity of the business are some challenges that fast food restaurants face [ 5 ]. Amid economic crunch, competition becomes even more evident, driving fast food restaurants to look for unconventional ways to appeal the customers. In fact, these findings somehow show that significance of physical environment quality in creating revisit intention is probably lower in comparison with food quality and restaurant service quality. Nonetheless, fast food restaurant’s management should not underrate the fact that physical environment quality considerably affects the revisit intention. Due to this, the importance of physical environment quality must not be overlooked when formulating strategies for improving customer satisfaction, revisit intention and creating long-term relationships with customers.

Managerial implications

The results imply that restaurant management should pay attention to customer satisfaction because it directly affects revisit intention. Assessing customer satisfaction has become vital to successfully contest in the modern fast food restaurant business. From a managerial point of view, the results of this study will help restaurant managers to better understand the important role of food quality, restaurant service quality and physical environment quality as marketing tool to retain and satisfy customers.

Limitations

There are certain limitations with this study. This study is cross sectional, and it can be generalized to only two cities of Pakistan. Scope of research was limited as the data were collected from two cities of Pakistan (Islamabad and Rawalpindi) using convenience sampling.

Future research

A longitudinal study with probability sampling will help the researchers to comprehensively investigate the relationships among the constructs. Moreover, it would be useful for future research models to add information overload as an explanatory variable and brand image as moderating variable in the research framework. Additionally, moderation of WOM can be investigated in other relationships of conceptual model.

The study encircles the key triggers of customer satisfaction and revisit intention in fast food restaurants. It also offers a model that defines relationships between three factors of restaurant offer (food quality, restaurant service quality, and physical environment quality), customer satisfaction, word of mouth, and revisit intention at fast food restaurants. The model specially focuses the revisit intention as dependent variable of conceptual model despite behavior intentions. The findings suggest the revisit intention is positively associated with customer satisfaction, food quality, restaurant service quality, and physical environment quality in a fast food restaurant.

However, contrary to the findings of a previous study [ 99 ], WOM do not positively moderate between the relationship of customer satisfaction and revisit intention. The empirical findings confirm the significant impact of food quality, restaurant service quality, physical environment quality, and customer satisfaction which are important antecedents of revisit intention at fast food restaurant through mediation of customer satisfaction. Moreover, findings of the research support the assumptions of SOR theory strengthening our conceptual model which states the external stimuli (FQ, RSQ, PEQ) produced internal organism (CS) which led to the response (RVI). However; assumption of social conformity theory failed to influence the satisfied customer. In other words, customer satisfaction plays dominating role over social influence (i.e. WOM) in making revisit intention. Therefore, WOM was not able to influence the strength of relationship of CS and RVI.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Social conformity theory

Stimulus-organism-response

Structural equation modeling with partial least squares

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The authors gratefully acknowledge the conducive research environment support provided by Department of Management Sciences at COMSATS University Islamabad, Wah Campus and Higher Education Commission Pakistan for provision of free access to digital library.

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PLS Algorithm.

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Rajput, A., Gahfoor, R.Z. Satisfaction and revisit intentions at fast food restaurants. Futur Bus J 6 , 13 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s43093-020-00021-0

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3D Printed Meat Market, By Product Type (Beef, Poultry, Seafood, Pork, Exotic Meats, Blended Products), By End-Use (Restaurants & Hotels, Fast-Food Chains, Retail, Specialty Stores, Institutions), By Nutritional Profile (Standard, Enhanced, Customized), By Production Technique (Bioprinting, Extrusion-Based Printing), By Price Range (Premium, Mid-Range, Economical), By Cultural & Dietary Preferences (Halal, Kosher, Vegetarian/Vegan Hybrid), By Environmental Impact (Low Carbon Footprint, Resource-Efficient), By Geography (North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa)

Dec 11, 2023  |  Published by: Coherent Market Insights  |  USD 4,500

... Technique (Bioprinting, Extrusion-Based Printing), By Price Range (Premium, Mid-Range, Economical), By Cultural & Dietary Preferences (Halal, Kosher, Vegetarian/Vegan Hybrid), By Environmental Impact (Low Carbon Footprint, Resource-Efficient), By Geography (North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, ... Read More

Fast Food Market Global Market Report 2024

Dec 05, 2023  |  Published by: The Business Research Company  |  USD 4,000

... Anne's Inc.; Cinnabon Franchisor SPV LLC; Domino's Pizza Inc.; Dunkin' Brands Group Inc.; Hardee's Restaurants LLC Fast Food Market Global Market Report 2024 from The Business Research Company provides strategists, marketers and senior management with ... Read More

Fast Food and Takeaway Food Services in Australia - Industry Market Research Report

Nov 29, 2023  |  Published by: IBISWorld  |  USD 790

... Heightened awareness of the nutritional content of fast food and a conscious effort by consumers to choose healthier options have influenced demand. Fast food brands have responded by introducing a range of healthier, premium choices ... Read More

Takeaway & Fast-Food Restaurants in the UK - Industry Market Research Report

Nov 29, 2023  |  Published by: IBISWorld  |  USD 655

... fast-food operators. Britons' growing health and sustainability awareness is presenting a significant opportunity for takeaway and fast-food businesses to introduce more expensive organic and meat-free menu items. Industry revenue is expected to grow at a ... Read More

Fast Food Restaurants in the US - Industry Market Research Report

Nov 27, 2023  |  Published by: IBISWorld  |  USD 1,095

... saturated food service landscape that has kept prices low. The rising popularity of fast-casual restaurants benefits the industry, helping to maintain revenue growth. Moreover, intense internal and external competition forces fast-food operators to emphasize low ... Read More

Airport Quick Service Restaurant Market Size, By Cuisine Type (Fast Food Chains, Beverages, Bakery & Confectionery, International Cuisine), By Franchise Type (Branded Chains, Local Brands), Forecast 2023 - 2032

Nov 27, 2023  |  Published by: Global Market Insights  |  USD 4,850

... size is projected to expand at over 3% CAGR from 2023-2032, driven by concerted efforts to enhance the overall passenger experience. Airports globally are recognizing the importance of quick service restaurants (QSRs) in providing travelers ... Read More

Fast Food Chicken Restaurants in the US - Industry Market Research Report

Nov 15, 2023  |  Published by: IBISWorld  |  USD 1,095

... industry includes take-out, delivery and purchases consumed on-site. Over the past five years, economic growth has resulted in higher disposable income levels. Simultaneously, consumer preferences have shifted as more individuals have become more health-conscious. During ... Read More

Fast Food and Quick Service Restaurants Market Size, Share, Trends, Growth, Outlook, and Insights Report, 2023- Industry Forecasts by Type, Application, Segments, Countries, and Companies, 2018- 2030

Nov 14, 2023  |  Published by: VPA Research  |  USD 3,800

... market is a large and high-potential growth industry. In 2023, the market is poised to register positive year-on-year growth over 2022. Further, the Fast Food and Quick Service Restaurants market size maintains a super-linear growth ... Read More

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Fast foodies are getting fed up with price hikes at the drive-thru

Look no further than the fast-food drive-thru for evidence of inflation fatigue.

Food companies have been passing along higher labor and ingredient costs to consumers long after inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022. Diners are getting fed up, eating less fast food and griping on social media that their go-to cheap meals aren’t so cheap anymore.

Sales show it. McDonald’s reported underwhelming results in the fourth quarter, and Yum Brands showed weaker-than-expected growth in its top brands , which include KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut.

Fast-food executives are taking note. McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski told analysts Monday that consumers are becoming more discriminating with their dollars, and he promised the company would focus more on affordability this year.

McDonald's Big Mac Meal

Kempczinski noted that consumers earning $45,000 or less annually were favoring comparatively cheaper groceries over Mickey D’s, opting to cook their own meals more often.

“Eating at home has become more affordable,” he said. “The battleground is certainly with that low-income consumer.”

Some common grocery items have been falling in price . In the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index, the food at home category rose only 1.3% between December 2022 and December 2023, but food away from home rose 5.2%.

Long known for its Dollar Menu, McDonald’s was recently pilloried online for a Connecticut restaurant’s $18 Big Mac combo meals and $7 Egg McMuffin.

McDonald’s told NBC News that pricing is up to franchisees and can vary by location but that the company strives to strike a balance for value.

In recent years, many fast-food companies have expanded offerings and tweaked their restaurants to try to attract as many customers as possible across income levels. McDonald’s recently upgraded its famous burgers and opened a new concept called CosMc’s , all while leaning into nostalgia.

But inflation-scarred diners may care more about price, said Laura Murphy, managing director of Bolt PR who specializes in food and beverage marketing.

“People are really telling fast food QSR [quick-service restaurant] industry leaders, ‘This is what we’re looking for, this is what we want: We want efficiency. We want affordability.’”

A car drives in front of a McDonald's restaurant on February 6, 2024, in San Leandro, Calif.

Meanwhile, Taco Bell is leaning in on its value menu, promoting 10 items for $3 or less. The company told NBC News it “remains dedicated to offering our fans delicious food at affordable prices.”

This isn’t the first time in recent years that consumers have balked at menu price hikes, or taken to social media to gripe about them .

Yum CEO David Gibbs told Yahoo Finance last year that the company was planning more modest price increases than the ones it implemented in 2022. Amid the latest quarter’s disappointing results, Yum announced plans to juice sales at KFC by launching a smashed potato bowl and the chicken chain’s first loyalty program.

Some major food and beverage brands operating in the Middle East — including McDonald’s, Starbucks and Yum — have said conflict in the region and related boycotts have also dented business. Burger King’s parent company warned in November that the turmoil there threatened to pile on top of other global pressures, from the war in Ukraine to Covid-19, that have already driven up costs over the last few years.

That could potentially “have an adverse impact on our business and results of operations if we and our franchisees are not able to adjust prices sufficiently ... without negatively impacting consumer demand,” the company told investors.

Bucking the trend, Chipotle’s sales rose 8.4% in the fourth quarter and foot traffic improved, too, after a 3% menu price hike back in October. The company credited the return of carne asada with helping drive the growth.

With prices for almost everything higher today than three years ago, even though inflation has slowed sharply , Murphy said what matters most in today’s fast-food industry are cost and convenience.

“Let’s go back to really making sure that we’re providing simple food in an affordable way that’s efficient, quick, and it gives people really the basics of what they’re looking for,” she said.

Christine Romans is the senior business correspondent at NBC News.

TheStreet

Major fast-food chains are starting to face the consequence for high prices

A fter some of the most popular fast-food chains quietly hiked their prices last year, slowly cutting away at their affordability, consumers are starting to retreat. Amid high inflation and an overall tight economy, consumers are beginning to hurt the pockets of major fast-food chains as they further tighten their wallets and restrict their spending.

Fast-food brands Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut, which are all operated by Yum Brands, are starting to see consumers pull back. Yum Brands recently reported weak sales growth for all three fast-food chains in its fourth-quarter earnings for 2023.

Related: McDonald's CEO explains why the company benefits from a 'difficult' economy

Taco Bell’s U.S. same-store sales during the fourth quarter only grew by 3%, which is less than the 8% growth it reported during the previous quarter. For KFC, same-store sales remained even, and for Pizza Hut, same-store sales for the chain decreased by 4% after remaining stagnant during the third quarter.

The news comes after McDonald’s also reported a slowdown in sales growth in the U.S. during its fourth-quarter earnings. The brand’s sales only increased by 4.3% in the U.S. which is a decrease from the 8.1% sales growth it saw during the third-quarter.

The weak sales from fast-food chains come after many have been called out by users on social media for their high prices.

In September last year, a user on Reddit claimed  that Taco Bell has hiked its prices in their region where “all of the boxes and most combos were increased by $2.00.”

Pizza Hut also quietly raised some of its prices last year. In October 2023, it introduced a $7 Deal Lover’s menu where consumers can choose two or more items “for just $7 each.” The previous value deal was $5.

McDonald’s was also put on blast by a user on social media in a viral TikTok video where a man in Connecticut highlighted that the price of a Big Mac combo meal was $16.89 at a local McDonald’s store.

"Y'all remember them stimulus checks that they gave out? Y'all thought you were getting away with that stimulus money, they want it back," he said in the video.

During an earnings call last year, McDonald’s Chief Financial Officer Ian Borden admitted that the company has raised its menu prices during the third quarter and estimated that by the end of 2023, prices across the company’s U.S. locations would have increased by 10%.

As consumers are feeling the brunt of inflation, some have turned to making cuts to their spending on prepared food. According to a recent survey by research company Datassential, which was presented in a webinar in December last year, 46% of consumers have cut their spending on restaurant meals and dining out. 

Also, 31% of respondents are opting to cook food at home that they could buy prepared at restaurants in an effort to save money. The survey also found that 75% of respondents cited inflation and the rise of cost of living as their top concern.

Related: Veteran fund manager picks favorite stocks for 2024

Hamburgers with regular and spicy fries in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on January 05, 2023. (Photo by Creative Touch Imaging Ltd./NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Former Lawrence manager sentenced to prison for child sex crimes with teen employee

LAWRENCE, Kan. (KCTV) - A former Lawrence fast food manager will spend nearly 6 years in prison for child sex crimes after he gave a 15-year-old employee alcohol and attempted to have sexual intercourse with her.

Douglas Co. District Attorney Suzanne Valdez announced on Thursday, Feb. 22, that Stephen T. Wampler , 28, of Lawrence, has been sentenced to 70 months - just under six years - in prison following his child sex crimes convictions.

Lawrence man pleads guilty to child sex crimes

Court records indicated that Wampler was convicted of two counts of attempted aggravated indecent liberties with a child and one count of furnishing alcohol to a minor.

“We will continue to aggressively prosecute those who exploit children in our community,” District Attorney Valdez said. “We all have a continuing obligation to do everything we can to ensure that the most vulnerable members of our community are protected.”

Court records also showed that Wampler pleaded guilty to the crimes in September 2023.

Judge Sally Pokorny said she sentenced Wampler to 34 months for the first count of attempted aggravated indecent liberties with a child, 31 months for the second count and five months for furnishing alcohol to a minor.

Court records noted that charges stemmed from incidents that happened in July 2022 when Wampler provided alcohol to a then 15-year-old girl. He then attempted to engage in sexual intercourse with her while at his home. At the time, he was employed as the minor’s manager at a fast food restaurant in the city.

Copyright 2024 KCTV. All rights reserved.

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The Navy’s New Radar-Killing Missile Is Fast as Hell. Here’s How It Strikes Down Enemy Defenses

The Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range homes in on enemy ground-based air defenses, giving their operators a choice between continuing to operate ... or being destroyed.

a fighter jet flying in the sky

✅ Quick Facts:

  • AARGM-ER is designed to hunt enemy air-defense radars, forcing them to shut down—or be destroyed.
  • The Navy has failed to properly name AARGM-ER, which for once isn’t a bad thing, because it sounds like something used by pirates.

A new anti-radar missile meant to help air forces blast a hole in enemy air-defense networks is currently in testing and should wrap up later this year . The Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range, or AARGM-ER, homes in on enemy ground-based air defenses, giving their operators a choice between continuing to operate or being destroyed. Here’s what you need to know about it.

🏴‍☠️ As an acronym, AARGM-ER (“Arrghem”) sounds like a catchphrase from September 19, otherwise known as National Talk Like a Pirate Day .

The Missile Threat

vietnam ussr two sa 2 guideline s 75 dvina missiles in the national museum of military history in sofia, bulgaria, 2008 photo by tourbillon cc by 30 license

In the 1960s, Space Age technology led to the development of the ground-based surface-to-air missile . For decades, ground-based air defenses relied on guns like the German “88” 88-mm anti-aircraft gun to down enemy aircraft. Guns could fire rapidly and reach a considerable distance—the “88” had an effective ceiling of 25,000 feet —but their shells were unguided, and defenders relied on filling the sky with shards of shrapnel, known as “flak,” to damage and destroy planes.

All of this changed as engineers matched rocket motors with radar-guidance systems. Missiles like the American Nike Hercules , British Thunderbird , and Soviet S-75 Dvina (also known as SA-2 Guideline to NATO) could intercept high-flying aircraft in all weather conditions with a good single-round hit probability. A typical setup included a search radar for detecting aircraft, a separate fire-control radar for directing a missile toward its target, and a battery of several surface-to-air missile launchers.

HARM to AARGM

weapons technician anthony toliver secures a agm 88 high speed anti radiation missile harm at th

Radar-based missiles became a major threat to waves of attacking aircraft. In the mid-1960s, during the air war over Vietnam, the U.S. Air Force formed hunter-killer teams of fighter bombers whose purpose was to locate, identify, and suppress enemy air defenses ahead of a major air strike. These aircraft, known as “Wild Weasels,” carried new missiles designed to home in on the electromagnetic emissions emitted by missile radar systems. Once launched, these anti-radiation missiles (ARMs) forced defenders into a dilemma: continue broadcasting and risk a missile from above or turn off their radars.

In the 1980s, a new missile, the High Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM), entered U.S. service. As the name implies, HARM was designed to rapidly close the distance with an enemy air-defense radar, forcing it off the air earlier. But a radar truck or trailer could still turn itself off, move to a new location, and then start broadcasting again. The gain was often the time the radar was shut off, but repeated missions in the vicinity meant that surviving radars would have to be dealt with again and again.

In the 2010s, HARM was replaced by AARGM, which took the tail section of HARM, including the rocket motor, and mated it with a new front section. AARGM is packed with new electronics including GPS; the ability to transmit imagery of the target via satellite moments before impact; and a millimeter wave radar that can not only identify a radar system with its radar turned off, but one in the process of scurrying to safety. AARGM is carried by the Navy’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet strike fighters , EA-18G Growler electronic attack jets, F-35C fighters, and German Air Force Tornado attack jets.

The Missile of Theseus

a military jet flying in the sky

In Greek mythology, the hero king Theseus owned a ship for so long that years of repairs and replacement parts posed the question: was the ship really the same ship, or was it something new?

In the late 2010s, the U.S. Navy funded development of a new version of AARGM, the Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile, Extended Range (AARGM-ER). AARGM-ER appears to use the front end of AARGM, which had replaced the front end of HARM, with a new warhead and tail-end rocket motor. AARGM-ER not only has double the range, somewhere around 120 miles , but is apparently twice as fast , putting it somewhere in the Mach 4 ballpark. In addition to the Navy, the Air Force will also operate AARGM-ER, with the missiles carried internally in USAF F-35As.

a rocket with a yellow stripe

The Ship of Theseus is considered a philosophical thought experiment, but the Navy’s continuous improvement of the HARM lineage makes this experiment a reality. Over three generations, the Navy has completely replaced all of the components that make up the original HARM, resulting in a totally new missile. This new missile will now form the foundation for yet another missile, the Air Force’s Stand-in Attack Weapon ( SiAW ), which will replace missiles like the outdated AGM-65 Maverick for short-range attacks.

Over the past four decades, the Pentagon has gotten lazy about assigning weapons names. The F-35 might be the Lightning II and the AGM-65 might have been the Maverick, but the AGM-88 HARM was never given a proper name, nor the AARGM. At this rate, it appears AARGM-ER won’t either, but will probably be pronounced “Arrghem.” Arguably, the similarity to pirate speak gives it a certain panache, especially in naval warfare.

The Takeaway

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs once said, “It is better to be a pirate than in the navy.” “Arrghem” is proof one can be in both at the same time. Pilots flying air-defense suppression missions are often exposed to extreme danger with a narrow window to destroy their enemies on the ground. AARGM-ER, traveling at more than 3,000 miles per hour, is a pilot’s best friend for making the local airspace a little more survivable.

Headshot of Kyle Mizokami

Kyle Mizokami is a writer on defense and security issues and has been at Popular Mechanics since 2015. If it involves explosions or projectiles, he's generally in favor of it. Kyle’s articles have appeared at The Daily Beast, U.S. Naval Institute News, The Diplomat, Foreign Policy, Combat Aircraft Monthly, VICE News , and others. He lives in San Francisco.

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Fast-food, everyday life and health: a qualitative study of ‘chicken shops’ in East London

Introduction.

Excess consumption of fast food has been linked with a variety of health problems including obesity and type 2 diabetes ( Jeffery et al., 2006 ; Pereira et al., 2005 ; Stender et al., 2007 ). Fast food is energy dense and nutrient poor compared to food prepared at home ( Guthrie, 2002 ) and portion sizes have been increasing over the past 50 years ( Young & Nestle, 2003 ). Fast food also contains industrially produced trans-fats which have been associated with risk of weight gain ( Stender et al 2007 ) and products purchased from independent and smaller franchise fast food outlets, rather than from large fast food chains, may have higher energy content and use lower quality fats (Jaworowska et al., 2014; Shift, 2013 ). Fast food restaurants are also more prevalent in disadvantaged neighbourhoods compared to more advantaged ones ( Fleischhacker et al., 2010 ; Jiao et al., 2015 ), suggesting that exposure to fast food outlets is likely to be greater for those on low incomes. Living near greater densities of fast food restaurants has been found to be associated with a lower likelihood of eating the recommended daily intake of fruits and vegetables ( Timperio et al., 2008 ) and an increased consumption of fast food ( Burgoine et al., 2016 ; Jiao et al., 2015 ). Consumption of, and proximity to, fast food has therefore been established as a potential risk-factor for diet-related poor health.

In the United Kingdom, the “Chicken Shop” has been a popular focus of concern, given their ubiquitous presence in urban neighbourhoods and their established place in urban youth culture. Chicken shops are outlets which specialise in fries (chips), deep-fried coated chicken pieces and chicken burgers in various combinations, typically served with a sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) ( Shift, 2013 ). Fried chicken is the fastest growing product in the fast-food sector in the UK, with growth concentrated within the independent and small chain retail sector (Meltzer, 2011). The appeal of the chicken shop can be partly understood as a matter of cost and affordability. Chicken is a cheap product and chicken shops are low-cost and convenient ( Boseley, 2016 ; McBain, 2013 ). Added to which, the format is easy to adapt to culturally appropriate diets of diverse urban populations, especially Halal.

In East London there have been numerous local initiatives to address the use of these establishments by school age children ( Rayner, 2013 ; Shift, 2013 ). However, despite the health and social problems associated with, and ascribed to, chicken shops, these fast food outlets remain firmly embedded in the food and cultural landscape of London ( Rhys-Taylor, 2017 ). At present, little is known about how chicken shops figure in the practices and experiences of local residents, and how they perceive them in relation to diet. There is an absence of public health social science research that examines chicken shops as a discrete sub-type of fast food outlet. Research and commentary that directly addresses the chicken shop is predominantly from charity, social enterprise, and national media sources [see ( Boseley, 2016 ; Cadwalladr, 2015 ; Davis, 2015 ; Hughes, 2018 ; McBain, 2013 ; Shift, 2013 )]. And yet, the popularity of fried chicken in the UK has been growing steadily since the 1990s. The independent chicken shop subtype has come to develop its own social, gustatory and sensory signatures ( Rhys-Taylor, 2017 ). They are ubiquitous and recognisable spaces in which local residents frequently come into contact with each other. They have long opening hours and cheap and palatable produce that make meeting and spending time in them appealing, and are typically run by local entrepreneurs and families ( Hughes, 2018 ; Rhys-Taylor, 2017 ). In this sense, they are community spaces with local and symbolic value and, as such, they warrant investigation as distinct features of local food environment in their own right.

An understanding of perceptions of the local community food environment is needed both to identify environmental barriers to improving diet and informing strategies to overcome them ( Jilcott et al., 2009 ). There have been calls for researchers to explore the perceptions of those local populations with high exposure to fast food outlets, and to observe how those food outlets are used ( Caraher et al., 2016 ). The aim of this paper therefore is to explore local perceptions and experiences of chicken shops in Newham, a low-income neighbourhood in East London. In doing so, it will address the following two objectives. First, to describe the ways in which local residents frame chicken shops as part of the food environment and in relation to dietary health. Second, to characterise the ways in which local residents described using chicken shops in relation to their health and health-related practices.

The data used in this study were drawn from the qualitative component of a larger mixed-methods study of local perceptions of neighbourhood change associated with the London 2012 Olympic Games ( Smith et al., 2012 ). Two waves of data collection were conducted: the first in 2012 and the second in 2013. The rationale for collecting two waves of data was to capture perceptions immediately after the Games (a matter of weeks) and then follow-up on the stability and consistency of these initial perceptions a year later.

Recruitment and Sampling

Qualitative data were generated from a family sample and an adolescent sample. At wave one a total of 66 participants took part, with 40 participants retained at wave 2.

All of these participants were recruited directly or indirectly via the quantitative component of the larger study. In brief the quantitative component included a prospective school-based survey of adolescents (11–12 years at the time of initial recruitment) drawn from 26 schools across four London boroughs. Subsequently, parent data was collected through face-to-face interviews at home. Effectively, children were recruited through their schools and parents were recruited through their children. Informed consent was obtained from head teachers, adolescents and parents. The qualitative subsamples were recruited from this cohort as detailed below.

i) Family sample

Recruitment for the nested qualitative study was initiated by contacting parent participants who had indicated during the survey interview that they would consider taking part in further qualitative work. This was followed up with a telephone call inviting these parents, their adolescent children (who were also participating in the quantitative component) and any other household members who wanted to take part in a family interview. In this sense, the parents acted as gatekeepers for the further participation of family members. A total of 40 participants were initially recruited in this way; consisting of 21 adults (8 males and 13 females) and 19 young people (10 males and 9 females aged between 11 -14 years).

ii) Adolescent sample (aged 12-15 years)

Recruitment for this sample was undertaken after the family interviews and sought to recruit a completely separate group of young people. Three schools participating in the quantitative arm of the study were approached and agreed to take part in the qualitative data collection. At each of the three schools, a key school contact, who served as gatekeepers for qualitative recruitment, was asked to select up to 9 students to participate in a half-day video focus group workshop. A total of 26 young people were initially recruited in this way from across the three schools; 12 boys and 14 girls (aged 12-15 years).

Data collection

Data were collected at both waves using the following methods (i) narrative interviews and go-along interviews with the family sample (ii) School video focus group workshops with the adolescent sample.

Narrative family interviews and go-along interviews

Twenty family interviews were conducted at participants’ homes. Mostly, these involved two people (a parent and child pair recruited from the quantitative component). This format accounted for ten of the 20 interviews. The largest family interview involved four members of the same household. In all cases, the adult or parent participant was given the choice between being interviewed alone (as two chose to do) or including members of their family in the interview, thus allowing the participant to judge whether or not a joint (family) interview was appropriate. Additionally, flexibility was built into the process, with members of the households ‘dropping in’ to contribute to the discussion as they saw fit ( Voltelen et al., 2017 ). In effect, this gave the interviews an informal feel. The core adult-child pair were typically the focus of the interview with other household members coming in and out of the room (sometimes staying for the duration) and joining-in when they wished or were called upon to by those already talking.

The interviews were used to examine how wider cultural discourse about Olympic regeneration and change featured in participants personal narratives and how this was achieved in interaction. Participants were asked, at both waves, to characterise their local area in terms of aspects such as safety, opportunities for physical activity, the food environment, the quality of local schools, and new developments in the area relevant to the regeneration. At wave two, we asked the families to revisit their original narratives and update us on events between waves. Interviewing more than one family member at a time highlighted how shared narratives are dialogically constructed as individual family members negotiated the emerging account of their lives ( Maybin, 2001 ).

At both waves, families were also invited to participate in go-along interviews ( Carpiano, 2009 ); taking a researcher around a local place of personal significance to them and talking about that place whilst walking around it. Six participants went on go-alongs at wave one and four at wave two.

Adolescent data collection: School video focus group workshops

Half-day workshops were organised at each of the three participating schools. The focus group format was used as it generates co-constructed accounts within a social context that illuminates shared values ( Robinson, 1999 ). We designed a programme of discussions and visual data generation activities for the workshops [see ( Thompson et al., 2017 ) for a full description and rationale). In summary, the first half of each session was a focus group interview on participants’ perceptions and experiences of the Games and of their local neighbourhoods. Participants were prompted on aspects of their local neighbourhood including crime and safety, new building developments in the area, the local food environment, and their views on school. After which the participants were split into small groups and given the task of interviewing each other about subjects arising from the focus group discussion. The conversational nature of this method reflects the way children and adolescents discuss issues both within their peer groups and in classroom settings ( Krueger, 1994 ). The sessions were video recorded so that they could be viewed by these participants at the next wave of data collection and serve as a prompt for reflection. Participants were asked, in their groups, to comment on clips of video footage and update us on how, if at all, their perceptions and experiences had changed since we last saw them.

Ethics and informed consent

For the family sample the lead-adult (parent) was provided with a study information sheet, a consent form, a verbal explanation of what would happen to their data and their right to withdraw at any time. These participants were positioned as family gatekeepers. The proposed content of the interviews and the invitation for other family members to participate in the (joint) family interview were discussed on the telephone at the recruitment stage and again whilst obtaining informed consent. This was intended to make the process a participant-led one, allow scope for participants to change their mind and avoid contriving interactions that would challenge or strain existing family dynamics in the household ( Voltelen et al., 2017 ).

For video focus group workshops, contact teachers were provided with opt-out parental consent forms and information sheets to pass on to the parents of those adolescents selected to participate. Separate consent forms and information sheets were distributed for the interview data and video footage. Full ethical approval was obtained from the Queen Mary Research Ethics Committee (QMREC/2011/40).

Data analysis

NVivo9 software was used to facilitate a narrative analysis of the complete dataset. Specifically, the narrative interviews, go along interviews, and audio recordings from the video focus group workshops were all transcribed verbatim and combined into one data set for analysis. The video data were not subject to a separate multimodal analysis – given that its primary function was to serve as a reflective prompt at interview – rather, it was combined with all the other data (both family and adolescent) into one data set for a narrative analysis.

Narrative approaches are particularly useful for understanding lived experiences of health because they examine how social conditions are perceived and handled and, thereby, how they shape behaviour and interpretation ( Squire, 2008 ; Williams, 2000 ). We approached analysis in two ways. Firstly, narrative episodes were identified in the data. A narrative episode is a section of talk that tells a story – or segment of a story – about a particular topic that is structured around an action, incident, development, event, or perceived instance of cause and effect. For example, this could be an account of how someone got a new job or how they experienced the disruption caused by building works around hosting the Olympic Games. These narrative episodes were then used to produce a list of core narratives (the most dominant and frequent types of stories arising from the data set) for comparison across waves and cases. Then, the progressions and sequencing of themes into narrative sense-making was identified and described (essentially, looking for common devices, assumptions and values). Secondly, we examined the ways in which speakers deployed wider cultural discourses within their personal narratives and drew upon shared meanings ( Greenhalgh et al., 2005 ; Milligan et al., 2004 ; Squire, 2008 ). Specific questions on chicken shops were not included in the original topic guides. However, in interviews and focus groups, chicken shop narratives figured frequently and consistently across both waves of data collection in participants’ descriptions of the local area and when talking about change. Closer examination of these narratives highlighted the contradictory ways in which chicken shops were perceived and used by residents.

Chicken shop narratives had three defining and somewhat contradictory features: accounts of these establishments as ubiquitous and unhealthy spaces; descriptions of chicken shops as part of everyday life and valued community spaces; and explanations of how consuming chicken shop food can be ‘healthy’ and part of a healthy lifestyle. These characteristics and the way they were resolved in narrative are described in the sections below. Pseudonyms are used throughout to refer to participants.

Chicken shops as the defining feature of an unhealthy food environment

Residents were very much aware that chicken shops were the dominant format of fast food outlet in the local area. Participants did not perceive their local area to be one that promoted health or was easy to lead a healthy life style in. The primary reason given for this was the ready availability of fast food and an unhealthy food environment. As one participant put it, ‘half the shops are fast food shops’ . Nearly all references to fast food in the area included at least a mention of chicken shops. In fact, chicken shops were overwhelmingly mentioned first and described in more detail than other types of fast food outlet. The topic of chicken shops almost always came up when participants’ were asked the question ‘is Newham a healthy place to live?’ They invariably answered ‘no’ . Jim, a 13 year-old, succinctly summed it up during a wave two focus group discussion when he gave this description of his local neighbourhood:

Everything kind of kills us, that the food that we eat from like the chicken shop and stuff, like the air that we’re breathing and like everything, like the stress of going through for money and stuff, I think that it’s not that kind of environment you would like to grow up in.

Jim made very clear links between health and the local environment, stating that chicken shops were one of a number of environmental risks to health that could ‘kill’ local residents. This account of Newham having a problematic food environment dominated by fast food outlets, and most especially chicken shops was described multiple times across both cases and waves. This unhealthy-food-environment narrative was juxtaposed against a framing of the unhealthy food environment as an attraction for people to spend their time and money locally as an extract from an interview with Hifza, a mother of 4, shows: during a wave one family interview.

Interviewer: Do you think Newham’s a very healthy place to live?
Hifza: No …. Green Street itself every other shop is like a chicken, chips or a kebab shop or something like that, you know. I think people what I see they actually come down to this area first thing in the morning to evening because they know they can eat, drink and go back. They probably do that in other areas but here and it’s all the fatty foods and everything like that. Then, you know, you get tempted, you know, to go and buy things now and again and all that. I wouldn’t say itself they’re [the Local Authority] doing much to make it healthier because if anything you’re getting more of these opened.

Hifza describes the main road she lives by, Green Street, as full of fast food restaurants and becoming ever more so. Interestingly, she describes this fast food environment as harmful to health but tempting. The notion of temptation was widely used to explain the popularity of chicken shops, and fast food outlets more generally. Chicken shops are ‘tempting’ places. Their presence, their smell and the products they sell ‘tempt’ people into frequenting them. As Hifza reports, sometimes she gives into this irresistible temptation. The theme of temptation was a dominant feature of narratives about the chicken shop. When probed further, participants tended to articulate this in terms of addiction, likening eating food from the chicken shop to other unhealthy addictive behaviours such as smoking and drinking.

Participants were very much aware and vocal about the ultimate health costs of eating fast food, especially fried chicken, and made frequent references to obesity. Many participants also explained that chicken shops had a very poor reputation for food safety and hygiene, stating that eating the food could have more immediate health impacts, including stomach aches and food poisoning, although this did not appear to deter them from continued use. In a focus group discussion, two pupils, Tom and Umar discussed the relative advantages and disadvantages of patronising chicken shops, as opposed to more expensive fast food chains.

Tom: If you go to somewhere like McDonald’s who’s like the expectation is it is clean and … it may be a bit expensive but it’s more of a chance than getting salmonella poisoning from a chicken shop than McDonald’s.
Umar: Absolutely. I mean yes it might seem slightly higher if you go to a chicken shop to get poisonings …. but … these chicken shops I actually like them better so I go to my local chicken shop because it helps fricking (sic) them live, they live off of that, that’s their job. I’m not gonna stop going there just ‘cos I have a little food poisoning out of the food they make and I want to go there and support them.

Umar’s assertion that using chicken shops was worth the risk of ‘a little food poisoning’ may, at first glance, seem strange. However his comments are reflective of the strong local attachment and perceived value of chicken shops as distinctly local businesses. As Umar explains, chicken shops are the preferred local choice because they are ubiquitous, recognisable, social spaces where local residents can meet with each other, eat familiar, cheap and tasty food and be served that food by other local residents who run and staff them. This meant that the local chicken shop was often favoured over potentially more healthful or hygienic options. We explore these themes in more detail below.

Chicken shops as a habitual and valued part of everyday life

The appealing taste and ‘temptation’ of chicken shop food was continually highlighted by participants. The commonplace and ubiquitous presence of these outlets in the local food environment also made frequenting them an easy habit to form and maintain. They were perceived as being cheaper than larger chains and, therefore, better value. During a focus group interview, Peter, a 12 year-old, observed that, ‘in stead of going to KFC or anything people just go to chicken shops now … it’s much more cheaper.’ Beyond that, the community status, value and popularity of chicken shops was very much apparent, especially independent and small franchise outlets, as these were seen to have closer links to the local community and are often run by local entrepreneurs and local families. For the young people interviewed, visiting the chicken shop was often a highlight of their day and something they actively looked forward to and planned for. They described how they and their peers were willing both to travel and to wait all day if necessary in order to get to the chicken shop. In a family interview at wave one, Leila, a 15 year-old explained why there were so many chicken shops and how reducing their number would not reduce their popularity.

People are obviously going to want chicken and chips so they’ll travel as far as They can just to get like a box of chips or something but I don’t know, I guess if There was less, I think people would complain.

Leila indicates a high local demand for chicken shops. They are valued community spaces that people are willing to travel out of their way to and would be sorely missed if no longer available in the local food landscape. The food, value for money, familiarity and probability of running into acquaintances and neighbours that is inherent to these establishments cannot easily be found elsewhere. In a similar vein, it was described as a relatively common practice for local school children to save their dinner money, skip lunch and eat nothing all day at school so that they could go straight to the chicken shop for a meal after school. Even for children who received free school meals. They explained that they would rather spend money at the chicken shop than eat free food at school. In the extract below Serena (20 years old) and her brother Nathan (13 years old) describe this practice.

Nathan: No, I don’t eat in school.
Interviewer: Oh you come home?
Serena: No, he just doesn’t eat.
Nathan: I just wait for after school. I just don’t eat at school, I don’t like the school food, it’s disgusting … … I don’t like packed lunch, I’d rather go out from school.
Interviewer: So literally nothing all day from as soon as you get to school till you get out?
Nathan: Yeah, nothing.
Interviewer: Oh alright, so as you soon as you get out of the school gates where do you go then?
Nathan: I’ll go to [chicken shop near his school] or I’ll go to [café near his school], I’ll just go somewhere to get something to eat.. Like see, hot wings and chips and a drink.
Interviewer: Does anyone else at school do that?
Nathan: Basically everybody.
Interviewer: So even though it’s free [all laugh] you’d rather eat nothing at all and then pay for it after school.
Nathan: Yeah.

Nathan would rather not eat all day, even if the food is free, than spoil his appetite for the chicken shop after school. Nathan goes on to state that ‘basically everybody’ at his school does this. In line with this claim, a London-based observational study of food behaviours of secondary school pupils showed that the most purchased fast food takeaway product was chicken and chips. Further, that skipping lunch at lunchtime to save money for after school socialising and eating was a popular means of financing this ( Caraher et al., 2016 ). Patronising chicken shops is a valued part of everyday life for the young people interviewed in this study. While they acknowledged that this practice was health damaging, it appeared to be a secondary consideration. This apparent ambivalence can be understood as a trade-off in decision making between short-term rewards of taste, convenience, and participating in situated local practices, and the realisation of the associated cumulative health risk ( Dunn et al., 2011 ). This trade-off presented something of a discursive dilemma ( Horton-Salway, 2001 ) for participants: the widely known and undeniable health costs of regular fast food consumption as weighed against the ubiquitous and valued status of chicken shops in the local community.

Reframing chicken shops as ‘healthy’

The manner in which this dilemma was discursively resolved was via a series of rhetorical devices that ranged from minimising the potential health impacts, to describing behavioural strategies to offset negative health outcomes, through to reframing fried chicken and chicken shops as sometimes ‘healthy’ and part of a healthy lifestyle. One way of minimising the potential harm was to emphasise the role of biological determinism, rather than behaviour and lifestyle, in governing health outcomes. This can be seen in the following extract, from a wave two go-along interview with Asha, a father of two and local landlord. As we stood out on the street by his home, he indicated up and down street, talking about the surroundings.

If you walk along on this actual road itself from the traffic lights up to the bank there’s, one, two, three, four, five, five along this side … … so all in all just along this stretch there’s about eight takeaways. All doing [chicken] wings and chips for a pound, or [laughs] chicken and chips for a pound, okay? And as I said like it’s not gonna make a blind bit of difference them putting, you know, health conscious and all that … … At the end of the day … if your family has got a history of popping off at 50, whatever [both laugh], unfortunately whatever you do, you know … … because it’s in genetics, they’re born with it.

As Asha explains, outlets serving chicken and chips (fries) are numerous on his street. Much like Hifza, quoted earlier, he appears resigned to them being a permanent feature of the local landscape. He also goes so far as to indicate that being health conscious – and not patronising these takeaways – makes very little difference to health outcomes because they are determined by ‘genetics’. No sooner has he finished describing the unhealthy fast food environment, than he starts to negate and minimise its impact on health.

Participants further minimised the potential impact of an unhealthy local food environment by deploying the notion of ‘choice’ to counter the inherent ‘temptation’ of these spaces. In essence, it was repeatedly asserted that living near to a lot of chicken shops does not necessarily mean that people will use them because they can exercise choice and restraint (often directly contradicting alternative depictions of the fast food environment as all pervasive and almost impossible to resist). Dante, a 15 year-old, provided a clear example of this rationale in the below extract from a wave two focus group.

Like he’s saying, it’s kind of Newham can be bad and whatever and can have loads of chicken and chip shops and be unhealthy but at the end of the day it’s kind of our choice if we’re gonna buy it not, like ‘cos we can, I don’t know, you can easily go Tesco’s and get like a sandwich or meal deal or whatever, but I mean it’s just so quick and it’s so easy, it’s just so available to us that you know it’s just, can just go get it, so at the end of the day it is our choice but they kind of tempt you a little bit, there’s so many of them.

As Dante explains, people wanting to be healthy must resist temptation and make healthier choices. Interestingly, and as demonstrated here, when talking about (healthy) food choices in the local food environment, participants nearly always referred to the ‘chooser’ in the collective or third person – you/they/we/them. However, when describing their own consumption of chicken shop food, they listed a variety of qualities including ‘trust’, ‘cleanliness’, ‘freshness’, and ‘hygiene’, that could confer a degree of healthfulness on the chicken shop food that they themselves consumed. The most dominant form this took was to conflate ‘health’ with food hygiene. In effect, reframing a healthy diet to include fast food as long as the fast food places are clean or hygienic. In this sense, participants seemed to consciously deploy the term ‘healthy’ in line with notions of Environmental Health rather than dietary health. Again, this is very much at odds with other characterisations of independent chicken shops as much more likely to be sources of food poisoning than larger chain outlets. This particular rhetorical device can be seen in the accounts of a mother and daughter, Nuala and Mary, who talked about their favourite local chicken shop at both wave one and two family interviews. At wave one, a new chicken shop had just opened in their local area and had become a firm favourite.

Mary: The good one… Like the new one, the only one I appreciate is that one, yeah because of I saw um, hygiene.
Nuala: The quality.
Mary: The quality of meat and then yeah. But yeah, just that one. But there are others, we have other ones … …. We prefer this one because it looks healthy … It looks healthy, yeah.

For this family, the quality of the meat and the overall hygiene standards of the new chicken shop meant that it ‘looks healthy’. When we returned to the family at wave two, frequenting this outlet was an established part of their family food practices. This time around they also described the ‘good’ choices on offer, such as salad, that set this establishment apart.

Mary: We choose, yeah, you know, we can always choose [name removed]
Nuala: They’ve got selections so you can have like salad … A really good one. [name removed] is the only good one that I go to. I can pick the good choices and so we’ve been.
Mary: And it’s clean. And the equipment, do you know when you go there you see the kitchen equipment, when you see they’re very clean

Being highly selective about which of the many local chicken shops to patronise afforded a sense of agency and discernment; a way of re-framing their personal interactions with the local fast food environment as ‘healthy’. Among young people especially, this reframing of chicken shop food as potentially healthful went as far as completely rejecting the negative health impacts of chicken shop food by presenting regular physical activity and / or regular consumption of healthier foods as means of cancelling-out any ill effects. In the extract below, young people in a wave two focus group discuss how eating from the chicken shop several times a week, or even every day, does not make them unhealthy.

Peter: Just because there’s so many chicken shops doesn’t mean that you’re not healthy … because you can have … like maybe once every, no maybe two times every or every time a week … I have it nearly every day so there’s nothing wrong with me .. … if you take your food home and you’re sitting down or you’re lying down when you eat it, like this food is stored into your stomach. But then if you’re walking and you’re eating sometimes it burns down the food … … You’re not fat if you eat chicken and chips.
Sue: My point of view is eat salad and then eat chicken and chips … … we do PE like what, twice a week now? So say if I eat chicken and chips today, by Monday I’ll be fit again because we do Monday on, we’ve got PE on Monday.

Our data illustrate that in this part of East London local residents’ perceptions of chicken shops were multi-layered. Residents readily acknowledged and described the rapid proliferation of these outlets in the local fast food environment and the potential health cost. Their widespread popularity was attributed to their community status and the food they served being tempting, addictive, delicious and affordable. This contradiction was resolved in narrative via a process of normalisation and negation via notions of genetic determinism; individual consumer choice and skill to select ‘heathier’ outlets; and the consumption of chicken shop food being accommodated as part of balanced healthy lifestyle.

The findings presented here lend support to arguments around the knowledge-action gap within dietary health. Specifically, that public health interventions to facilitate healthy eating require much more than nutritional information and education. Nutritional literacy is not enough to dissuade people from eating fast food ( Dunn et al., 2011 ). Interventions primarily targeting individual-level behaviours have generally modest or null effects on sustaining weight loss. Focusing on population-level policies and interventions to improve the food environment may be a more effective approach ( Birch & Ventura, 2009 ). Regulation of fast-food outlets has been suggested as a viable way of tackling poor diets across socioeconomic groups and even reducing socioeconomic inequalities in diet ( Burgoine et al., 2016 ). However, this is complicated by the fact that, as our participants explained, chicken shops are embedded in the local food environment and chicken-and-chips fast food meals are ingrained in local food practices. Current London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, found this to be the case when, in 2015, he was still campaigning to be elected. He publically stated that East London had too many chicken shops ( Davis, 2015 ). His comments were keenly reported in the local and national press and while not disputed on public health grounds, there followed a flurry of negative online commentary defending chicken shops and their role in London life and the Capital’s economy ( Steerpike, 2015 ).

It has been shown that there is little public appetite for regulatory approaches to improving dietary health. Individual behaviour change approaches are more popular by comparison and considered less invasive and draconian, even if they are also less effective ( Hilbert et al., 2007 ; Oliver & Lee, 2005 ). An increasingly popular approach to this problem is that of ‘healthy fast food’. Rather than trying to restrict and regulate fast food, the emphasis is on making it more healthy while retaining the cheapness and tastiness that make it appealing ( Godlee, 2014 ). Perhaps the most high-profile of these schemes in London is Chicken Town, a ‘healthy chicken shop’ social enterprise that subsidises cheap and comparatively healthier and better quality fried chicken sold during the day with the profits from the full-priced restaurant that operates in the evenings ( Cadwalladr, 2015 ). However, such schemes remain bespoke and peripheral. The challenging task of attempting to scale them up as potential public health interventions has yet to be tackled ( Shift, 2014 ).

The findings presented here are also tell of the extent to which unhealthy neighbourhood food environments become normalised and commonplace for those live near and around them. Participants were very much aware of this, as well as the potential health cost, but did not appear greatly concerned by it. Nor did they anticipate it was something that could be changed. Chicken shop narratives were a consistent and notable aspect of the data set across both waves of data collection, lending weight to the assertion that chicken shops are enduring and significant features of the local community. In fact, there was strong support for chicken shops as local businesses. In part, this sense of resignation and permanency may help drive the narrative adaptations and contradictions that allow fast food to be reframed as healthy. It can also be interpreted as a form of cognitive dissonance, as a way of resolving the discomfort and inconsistency of having contradictory views and practices concerning chicken shops.

Chicken shops are a dominant and enduring format of fast food outlet that warrants further qualitative study in order to help elucidate the ways in which chicken shops are used, perceived, and embedded in local health and social practice. Despite a sustained interested in recent years in using (qualitative) photo elicitation and observational methods to explore interactions with local food environments, the field is still overwhelmingly quantitative ( Díez et al., 2017 ; Yoon et al., 2018 ). The relatively small body of qualitative research relevant to the food environment tends to focus on the perceptions and practices of specific (social) groups with shared norms and values [see ( Carnahan et al., 2016 ; Dwyer et al., 2008 ; Gram, 2010 ; Greves et al., 2007 )] rather than on specific types of outlets within food environments ( Janssen et al., 2017 ; Marshall, 2016 ). Insights generated by qualitative research on specific aspects and culturally significant sites within local food environments, such as chicken shops, could help inform tailored interventions.

Participants in this study recognised the ubiquity of fast food outlets in their local areas. Chicken shops in particular were frequently cited as a key determinant of poor community health, and there was an acceptance that the concentration and abundance of such outlets posed a health risk. Despite this, many acknowledged their own frequent patronage of chicken shops, justifying regular consumption as ‘healthy’, based particularly on the sanitary nature of outlets. This sort of ‘social accounting’ ( Gergen, 2001 ) was buttressed by notions that patronage supported important or socially-meaningful local businesses (the outlets themselves).

When talking about the health implications of the availability and concentration of fast food participants privileged narratives of individual responsibility, suggesting that people ought to be able to make responsible choices about fast food consumption or overall energy balance. This was in spite of an acceptance of the addictive quality of fast food and the temptation posed by chicken shops. Participants who raised the prospect of heightened local authority control of fast food outlets saw such actions as futile, or even undesirable.

Narratives do not unequivocally construct fast food outlets as undesirable or health damaging, in fact perceptions of their potentially health damaging impacts are muted. Chicken shops are neighbourhood resources and, thereby, part of local neighbourhood life. Tackling poor diet therefore needs context-sensitive environmental interventions. Current attitudes and perceptions could have implications for garnering public support and motivating local residents to improve their dietary health.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the NIHR Public Health Research Programme (Grant number: 09/3005/09 to SC). CT is funded by a Wellcome Trust Fellowship in Society & Ethics (Grant number: 108628/Z/15/Z). DL is funded by a Medical Research Council Skills Development Fellowship (Grant number: MR/N014588/1).

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  3. Design Context Blog: Food Infographic Research

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COMMENTS

  1. The Hidden Dangers of Fast and Processed Food

    Many people recognize that junk food, fast food, processed food, white flour, sugar, maple syrup, honey, agave nectar, and all the junk people are eating contribute to in obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, dementia and cancer, but many don't realize the strong causative role an unhealthy diet may have in mental illness.

  2. Fast food effects: Short-term, long-term, physical, mental, and more

    A 2015 study found that one fast food meal high in saturated fat increased airway inflammation in individuals with asthma. This inflammation acts as a trigger for asthma attacks. Affects nutrient...

  3. Fast Food Consumption and its Impact on Health

    Numerous studies have concluded that the poor nutritional value, the excessive salt content and the degree of saturated fats and trans fatty acid associated with fast food products likely...

  4. Here's How Fast Food Can Affect Your Body

    Policy A quick swing through the drive-thru can seem like a great option, but there's a definite downside. In order to serve up food so quickly, cheaply and consistently, many fast food restaurants focus on process and efficiency instead of on serving quality, nutritious foods.

  5. Fast Food and Fast Research: Life-threatening Phenomena

    Environmental stress, multitasking, low physical activity, and low academic achievement have been shown to influence the predilection for consuming fast food. 1 We have now faced with one similarly threatening phenomenon among university students and academics, which can be termed "fast research".

  6. Fast food consumption and overweight/obesity prevalence in students and

    According to our results, 72.4% (67.4% in females vs 80.7% in males) had at least one type of fast food consumption in the recent month including sandwich 44.4%, pizza 39.7%, and fried chicken 13.8%, The obesity prevalence based on BMI and WHR was 21.3% (95% CI: 19.4, 23.2%) and 33.2% (95% CI: 0.7, 35.7), respectively.

  7. Trends in the healthiness of U.S. fast food meals, 2008-2017

    Fast food consumption has been associated with unhealthy diets including increased calorie, total fat, and saturated fat intake, as well as poor health outcomes including overweight and insulin...

  8. Determining intention, fast food consumption and their related factors

    Background Today, with the advancement of science, technology and industry, people's lifestyles such as the pattern of people's food, have changed from traditional foods to fast foods. The aim of this survey was to examine and identify factors influencing intent to use fast foods and behavior of fast food intake among students based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Methods A cross ...

  9. Fast Food's Effects on 8 Areas of the Body

    Eating fast food frequently may negatively affect multiple areas of your body, possibly increasing your risk of conditions including type 2 diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure. As a result ...

  10. Fast Food Restaurants Have Expanded More Than Their Menus

    Researchers from Boston University and Tufts University found fast food meals have packed on extra calories and salt over the last three decades

  11. (PDF) Fast foods and their impact on health

    Fast Foods Fast foods and their impact on health Journal of Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences University 1 (2):7-15 Authors: S. Ashakiran Deepthi .R ESI-MC&PGIMSR, Rajajinagar, Bangalore,...

  12. Fast food News, Research and Analysis

    Fast food doesn't improve food security in urban Ghana: it's too costly. James Boafo, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Fast food brands target high- and middle-income ...

  13. Full article: Fast food consumption among young adolescents aged 12-15

    17,954 Views 39 CrossRef citations to date 0 Altmetric Listen Original article Fast food consumption among young adolescents aged 12-15 years in 54 low- and middle-income countries Lian Li , Ning Sun , Lina Zhang , Guodong Xu , Jingjing Liu , Jingcen Hu , Article: 1795438 | Received 30 Mar 2020, Accepted 29 Jun 2020, Published online: 07 Aug 2020

  14. High availability of fast-food restaurants across all US neighborhood

    It counted fast-food restaurants and supermarkets relative to other food outlets, and is the first, according to the researchers, to examine this relationship in four distinct types of ...

  15. Americans' Perceptions about Fast Food and How They Associate with Its

    Consumption of fast food (FF, food being mass-produced and served quickly) is common in the United States and many other industrialized countries, and it has been increasing steadily in some developing countries as well owing to factors such as its convenience, low cost, consistent taste, easy access through a variety of restaurant chains, and t...

  16. Prevalence of obesity and its association with fast-food consumption

    Fast food is pre-packaged food that is usually related to high calories. There is no precise and agreed definition of fast food in the field of scientific research [4]. However, fast-food consumption, the massive portion size of the meals, and increased amounts of sugar are undeniably related to overweight and obesity [1].

  17. Is fast food addictive?

    2011 Sep;4 (3):146-62. doi: 10.2174/1874473711104030146. Studies of food addiction have focused on highly palatable foods. While fast food falls squarely into that category, it has several other attributes that may increase its salience. This review examines whether the nutrients present in fast food, the characteristics of fast food consumers ...

  18. PDF Fast-Food Consumption and Obesity Among Michigan Adults

    Fast-food consumption is a trend that is still rising; quick-service restaurants are expected to post sales of $164.8 billion in 2010, a 3% increase from 2009 (19). ... Research at Michigan State University conducted the 2005 MiBRFS throughout the calendar year among a rep-resentative, statewide sample of adults aged 18 years or ...

  19. Satisfaction and revisit intentions at fast food restaurants

    This study emphasizes the importance of revisit intention as a vital behavioral reaction in fast food restaurants. This study reveals revisit intention's positive association with food quality, restaurant service quality, physical environment quality, and customer satisfaction based on stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) theory.

  20. Fast Food Market Research Reports & Industry Analysis

    Fast Food Industry Research & Market Reports Sort by: Refine your search Fast Food and Fast Casual Restaurants - 2024 U.S. Market Research Report with Updated Recession Risk Forecasts Feb 05, 2024 | Published by: Kentley Insights | USD 295

  21. Fast foodies are getting fed up with price hikes at the drive-thru

    Diners are getting fed up, eating less fast food and griping on social media that their go-to cheap meals aren't so cheap anymore. Sales show it. McDonald's reported underwhelming results in ...

  22. Taste and Health Information on Fast Food Menus to Encourage Young

    Theoretical Background The healthy food promotion model [ 8] describes that by increasing attention toward healthier foods and improving the reinforcing value (e.g., liking and wanting) through food promotion, people will be more likely to buy and consume these foods.

  23. How This One Food Can Lower Blood Pressure, According to ...

    The DASH diet focuses on eating plenty of non-starchy fruits and vegetables and moderate amounts of fat-free or low-fat dairy, whole grains, lean meats, poultry, beans, eggs, fish, nuts and seeds ...

  24. Major fast-food chains are starting to face the consequence for ...

    The weak sales from fast-food chains come after many have been called out by users on social media for their high prices. In September last year, a user on Reddit claimed that Taco Bell has hiked ...

  25. International Space Station Facts and Figures

    More than 20 different research payloads can be hosted outside the station at once, including Earth sensing equipment, materials science payloads, particle physics experiments like the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-02 and more.; The space station travels an equivalent distance to the Moon and back in about a day.

  26. The ontology of fast food facts: conceptualization of nutritional fast

    With the initial release of the ontology of fast food facts we discuss some future visions with the continued evolution of this knowledge base, and the challenges we plan to address, like the management and publication of voluminous amount of semantically linked fast food nutritional data.

  27. Former Lawrence manager sentenced to prison for child sex crimes ...

    A former Lawrence fast food manager will spend nearly 6 years in prison for child sex crimes after he gave a 15-year-old employee alcohol and attempted to have sexual intercourse with her.

  28. The Navy's New Radar-Killing Missile: AARGM-ER, Explained

    The Navy's new anti-radar missile is on track to wrap up tests this year. AARGM-ER is designed to hunt enemy air-defense radars, forcing them to shut down—or be destroyed. The Navy has failed ...

  29. Fast-food, everyday life and health: a qualitative study of 'chicken

    Living near greater densities of fast food restaurants has been found to be associated with a lower likelihood of eating the recommended daily intake of fruits and vegetables ( Timperio et al., 2008) and an increased consumption of fast food ( Burgoine et al., 2016; Jiao et al., 2015 ).