
Introduction

History

How many fast food locations are there ?
o
Figure 1
o
The top global Food chains
o
The top American food chains

Revenue
o
Graph 3

Employment
o
Graphs 4 and 5

How often are people going ?
o
Graph 6

House hold effect
o
Graphs 7, 8, and 9

Health
o
Graph 10

Advertising
o
Graph 11

Conclusion
Fast Food is a term meaning food that can be prepared quickly and easily and is sold in restaurants and snack bars as a quick meal or to be taken out. This definition does not come close to accounting how much of an impact the fast food industry has on our world. It affects many areas of everyday life. As much as many people hate to admit this, fast food has a huge impact on everyone’s everyday life.
Of course it affects eating habits, health, and social aspects of day-to-day activities; but there are also many less obvious impacts. For example the fast food industry generated about 154.7 billion dollars in 2008 alone. According to the US Bureau of
Labor Statistics 4.1 million people in the United States alone work in the food preparation or serving of food. This does not account for all of the employees that are involved in the growing, delivering, marketing, advertising, or corporate world that each fast food chain has. This industry also puts a huge strain on the environment with all of the waste products. This presentation is designed to

educate readers on just how much the Fast Food industry impacts the world and everyone in it.
A type of fast food industry can be dated all the way back to the ancient
Roman and Greco world. Many people, especially while traveling relied on restaurants or food vendors for their meals. The modern version of what we think of as fast food started in the early 20 th century in America. The invention of the automobile aided in its quick rise of popularity. 1921 is the most common date given to the first “modern” fast food restaurant with the opening of White Castle.
The most recognizable/popular one opened in 1948 and was named after the last name of the founding brothers, McDonalds. With that a fast food powerhouse was born.
At the time nobody realized what an impact McDonalds would have on the rest of the world. It is not just a fast food company, but it stands as a prime example of what modern day capitalism could be. The golden arches of McDonald’s are one of the most recognized symbols in the world, in fact it is more recognizable then the symbol of a cross.
There are few parts of the world that remain untouched by the fast food industry. However America can account for about 52% of the total fast food industry. This presentation will have a heavy focus on American fast food industry, but will incorporate global impacts as well.
Fast food restaurants are everywhere we turn. It is hard to determine exact numbers 1) because of the amount of locations and 2) because different organizations have different definitions for the term fast food restaurants. It is estimated that there are nearly 313,000 Fast food locations in the
United States alone. Globally it is hard to determine because as before the sheer number and definition discrepancy.
*the map shows density of McDonalds*
Globally the top ten fast food chains (by number of locations) are laid out in this table. McDonalds being the highest with nearly 19,000 locations outside the United States

Papa Johns
Dairy Queen
Dunkin Donuts
Domino's
Burger King
Starbucks
Pizza Hut
Subway
KFC
McDonalds
0 2 000 4 000 6 000 8 000 10 000 12 000 14 000 16 000 18 000 20 000
The United States has a slightly different list of the top ten fast food chains (by number of locations). Subway beats out McDonalds By the amount of locations with its nearly 25,000 locations.
Domino's
Taco Bell
Dairy Queen
Wendy's
Dunkin Donuts
Burger King
Pizza Hut
Starbucks
Mcdonalds
Subway
0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000
As previously stated the amount of money that goes in an out of the fast food industry is unfathomable. It is one of the largest industries in the world. Even with the economic downturn in several countries, fast food thrives because of its low prices. Records keep breaking as sales goes up. The total revenue in 2010 was 184 billion dollars for the fast food industry. In the same year an AVERAGE fast food location made $753,000 in sales. With revenue in the billions, the top five Fast food chains are huge players on the economic front. Again McDonalds leads the way by a

huge margin. Its total revenue was 32.4 billion dollars in 2010. Here is a graph of the top five fast food companies according to revenue.
$35,00
$30,00
$25,00
$20,00
$15,00
$10,00
$5,00
$0,00
Mcdonalds Subway Burger King Wendys Starbucks
An industry as large as the fast food one requires a ton of people to keep it going. There are over 4.1 million fast food workers. Some facts about them may surprise you. It is a common misconception that working in fast food is somewhat of a teenager or high schoolers jobs. When in reality the average for a worker is 29 years old, and 70% of the workers are over the age of 20. This group includes a wide variety of races but over 50% of the workers are Caucasian. Also there are more female fast food workers than male. And just to show how common working in fast food is, 1 in every 4 adults has or is currently working in the fast food industry.
Asian
4%
Other
2%
Latino
19%
55+ years old
3%
23-34 years old
36%
16-19 years old
30%
Black
16%
White
59%
20-24 years old
31%
Contrary to the massive amount of money made in sales, fast food workers are paid poorly. The majority of workers make in-between $7.26-$10.09 an hour. As stated before many of these workers are adults and these wages are not large enough to support a person, let alone a family. In America, the people who cannot support themselves turn to the government. Governmental aid in the form of food stamps, housing and other programs are helping these people. It is thought that the

American government is losing huge amount of money because of low wages in the fast food industry. Because of this in recent news, American fast food workers have been striking, or planning walkouts in several cities. They are in favor of higher wages.
Now that we have looked at the inner working of the industry it is time to see of the individual consumers are being affected. First we will start with how often people eat fast food. According to a study done by gulf news, when people were asked, “how often in a week do you eat in a fast food outlet?”
The highest response was once per week and was about 44% of all people surveyed.
28% of people admitted to not eating it. Another
14% said twice per
Everyday
6%
More than once
8%
Twice
14%
Never
28%
Once
44% week, 8% more than once, and 6% said everyday. Fast food is so common in
America that children now get about one quarter of their total vegetable servings in the form of potato chips and French fries. Every day about one quarter of the U.S. population eats fast food.
Because people are eating out so much, not only does this add up on fast food meals, but it also cuts down on the meals eaten at home. In home cooked meals the ingredients are monitored, and way lees artificial chemicals are consumed. A wider variety of food is eaten. Less processed food is eaten, and it gives people a chance o take in the benefits of fruits and vegetables.
Another problem is fast food is cutting down on family dinnertime. Over the years many studies have been conducted to show the positive effects of family dinnertime. It ranges from health to school and even social benefits.
10%
15%
35%
50
%
50
%
90% 85%
65%

Above are the charts that show how much money is being spent on food either for home cooked meals (red), or for meals eaten outside the home (blue).
It is a well-known fact the fast food is bad for you. It is especially bad for children, not only is childhood obesity at an all time high, but they also acquire horrible eating habits for the rest of their lives. Here are just some of the risks associated with eating fast food for people of all ages:
 High blood pressure
 Stroke
 Obesity
 Type 2 diabetes
 Cardiovascular diabetes
 Cancer
Some horrifying statistics from healthyeating.com obviously show the dangers of fast food consumption. “ Living near a fast food restaurant is linked to a 5.2 percent greater risk of obesity.” Weight gain seems to be the most popular fast food statistic in the media. It is also the thing fast food restaurants get the most criticism over.
“The number of people worldwide living with diabetes has more than doubled since
1980, from 153 million then to nearly 350 million in 2011.”
In the graph below, I mapped out the obesity percentages for each country, and the number of McDonalds per person in each country. The smaller the blue bar, the more McDonalds per capita and vice versa. This means Switzerland has the least amount of McDonalds per person of the countries in the graph.
60000
50000
40000
30000
20000
10000
0
80,0%
70,0%
60,0%
50,0%
40,0%
30,0%
20,0%
10,0%
0,0%
Advertisement is huge in the fast food industry. As previously stated the
McDonalds arches are more recognizable then the Christian Cross. They target every age group from people of all walks of life. However the fast food industry is under some criticism for advertising to young children so much. Children have minds that

are very impressionable which seems like an unfair advantage for a company to “trick” little kids into wanting the product. This graph shows just how many times a year children are exposed to advertisements from each company.
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
6-11 years old
2-5 year olds
With all of this horrible knowledge about fast food restaurants, why are they so popular? Using the information in all the above headings I will draw conclusions about why fast food popularity grows and grow. For one, they are everywhere, on every corner in big cities, or even the city centers in small towns across America. Also, they are extremely convenient; they are not called fast food for nothing. As people of the 21 st century work more and more hours to keep up with society, people have less time to spend at home cooking meals, let alone in the grocery store buys fresh produce. A quick trip to
McDonalds allows a mother to feed a family of 4 in about ten minutes, all without even leaving her car. Familiarity is another seller of fast food. People know exactly what they are going to get weather it is a Burger King in Italy, America, or even
China. Overall fast food is a cheap, convenient, and easy way for people to get a meal.
The idea of fast food restaurants have been around for a long time, but the modern idea of fast food is relatively new. The industry has grown at an exponential rate in the last hundred years, and continues to rise. The industry is a major player in the world economy, health, environment, advertisement, marketing and individual level. Children are being targeted by ads. Even the obesity percentages of the world are rising. Having said that, not everything about the fast food industry is

bad. As a society we must be aware of the affects of it and learn to minimize our consumption. Once in a while a meal from a fast food outlet could serve as a quick easy fix to dinner plans. It is important to keep it in moderation.