blog #5

     It seems today no one can escape from the fast food industry. Since the rise of fast food, people now depend on it more and more. Fast food took a big impact on the American everyday lifestyle especially in major cities. Nowadays almost anywhere you go in New York City you’re bound to find a fast food restaurant, whether it’s McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, White Castle or many others. It’s almost as if you cannot escape from them. Not only are adults the ones that can’t escape from it but our children as well. Fast food has been programmed to stay in our minds that it becomes sort of like our culture for when we get older. Fast food tastes good and it taste pretty darn good, but ever wonder why?

     Since I was a little girl I remember my mother taking my brother and I to McDonald’s or Burger King either for the breakfast or lunch meals. Both these restaurants had the playground so we would eat, play, eat a little more and go back to playing. The restaurant also appeared to be like a social gathering for the mothers as well as for young teens. As a teenager in high school, my friends and I would cut school and just hang out in a McDonald’s. On days we didn’t cut class we would go to the nearest Taco Bell or Wendy’s. This was like our daily routine, not a day went by that we didn’t eat from some sort of fast food restaurant and at times we would even eat fast food twice a day. Since our parents wouldn’t give us a lot of money and fast food is so cheap our only real option that we had where we were all able to afford was this food. We could get full for less than 5 dollars and that’s a bargain! Not to mention summertime. Mr. Softee ice-cream trucks sell their popsicles and cones for almost 4 bucks each. Why buy that when McDonald’s has a cone for less than 2 dollars.

     When McDonald’s was first on the rise their method was to sell food fast and hassle free. Sooner than later, other fast food corporations soon began to imitate this method too. Fast food drive-in joints began with parking areas for cars where waitresses, or better known as carhops, would bring the food to the parked cars. At first this service was a success, the customer and the business owners were both please with the results. Shortly after McDonald’s thought this was too rigorous and made a new method. No carhops, no plates, no silverware just pure paper and plastic and self-serving. Afterwards, the food was wrapped, so for a small kid eating at McDonald's was sort of like opening a gift. During this time period Disney was also on the rise. With Disney as competition McDonald’s soon began to create the idea for characters that are now known as Ronald McDonald and the McBurglars. At that time, McDonald’s was trying to create its own Disneyland. Playlands were built inside the restaurant and toys now came with the kid’s meals. So for parents who weren’t able to afford Disneyland going to McDonald's was as close as it could get.

     Commercials on the television for the franchises are always colorful and cheery, an eye catcher for children. Children are the ones being targeted with commercials. These commercials are made so that we can process them into our brains since a young age, as young as two years old. Kids watch commercials and then beg their parents for what they see on TV. They learn how to trigger both parents with nagging or whining until they can get what they want. And this isn’t only for fast food. Cigarettes and beer companies use the strategy to target kids as well. “A 1991 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that nearly all of the America’s six-year-olds could identify Joe Camel, who was just as familiar to them as Mickey Mouse” (43). Children could often recognize a logo before they can recognize their own age. Along with the rise of Disney, McDonald’s was also on the rise trying to get more children customers because if a child wanted McDonald’s, the whole family would eat at McDonald’s.

     Taking your child to eat at a fast food franchise seems to be the normal thing to do. Kids like it for the toys that come with the meal, the way the food is wrapped and the playgrounds that come with the restaurant. Parents like to take their kids as a way to make up for their busy schedules, so the kids could stop nagging, or because they feel they’re doing the right thing. These fast food chains are programmed into our minds that we think it’s normal. Kids are the targeted ones because if it’s in their brains since little it’ll stay with them growing up and if it stays with them growing up then there’s a forever customer.