Lecture 33: World War II and the Advent of Fast Food
percent recognize Ronald McDonald. In fact, more people on Earth
recognize the golden arches than the cross.Negative Consequences of Fast Food
Clearly, the popularity of fast food had a lot to do with convenience.
It also has to do with more disposable income. People can afford to
eat out more, and the whole baby boom generation was targeted and
became addicted to fast food. An unforeseen by-product of the fast-food industry is waste.
Because they don’t want to spend time washing dishes and
silverware, those things are replaced with disposable packaging.
They’ve actually gotten better in recent years—perhaps out of
concern for the environment or public pressure—but they once used
Styrofoam containers for the hamburgers, which led to huge piles
of Styrofoam that never biodegrade. Now, everything is wrapped in
paper, but it is still an enormous waste. The biggest gripe against fast food has been the effect it has on
health. People have even tried to sue fast-food companies because
they became obese—as if they had no choice but to eat there or as
if they didn’t realize it was happening to them. People can look at
the nutrition labeling, which is now by law available to customers.
The people who eat this food seem to not be very concerned and are
certainly not going to stop eating it because of what the labels say. Sometimes, positive good can result from the power fast-food
chains wield. For example, demanding that their suppliers improve
standards for raising chickens and abandon battery-raised farming
(those tiny, stacked cages) changed the entire industry immediately. Another consequence of fast food is the way it is marketed
specifi cally to children. Happy meals include toys based on movies
that are released at the same time. It’s a way for Hollywood to
advertise and a way for the fast-food chain to attract kids. Ironically,
even if a movie fl ops, it can make a fortune by selling toys through