Is fast food taking over the country?

Is fast food taking over the country?


How often do you eat fast food? A new study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that between 2013 and 2015, over one-third of adults in the U.S. ate fast food on any given day. That means each day, around 80 million adults will eat something from a fast-food restaurant.

This is raising health concerns because high-caloric fast food has been linked to rising rates of obesity in the United States.

While pricing, availability and time have been cited as factors in the popularity of fast food, the CDC research found that as family incomes have risen, the amount of fast food eaten by adults has actually grown.

Fast-food addiction seems to be a bigger problem for younger generations, pointing to a potential health crisis in the future. Nearly 45 percent of adults in America between the ages of 20 and 39 will eat fast food on any given day, compared with just 24 percent of adults over the age of 60.

Men and women eat fast food at about the same rate, the study found. Men reported typically eating fast food for lunch, while women said they were more likely to eat fast food as a snack or on impulse.

When broken down by race and ethnicity, non-Latino black adults were the most likely to eat fast food, followed by non-Latino whites and then Latino adults. However, despite some ethnic groups having significantly lower rates of fast food consumption, every demographic polled had at least 30 percent of adults eating fast food on any given day.

Unless fast food becomes healthier or healthier alternatives become more popular, a fast food health crisis might be just around the corner … or on every corner.

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