Psychology behind fast food

Psychology behind fast food

 

          Fast food restaurants are psychologically controlling most people to stay in business.

 

          Most people choose fast food because it is “fast”. Ironically, during times most people choose to eat, fast food is really slow. Typically (during rush hour), people wait for their food for at least 15 minutes. If people meal prepped and packed their meal, they would save time. How? It usually take less than 15 minutes to prepare a meal for later (given that the meal is a healthy low calorie meal).

 

          With that said, waiting for fast food means wasting time for high calorie consumption. Time is very valuable and we can never have time back or get more.

 

          Consistently eating fast food has been proven to take time off your life. The high calorie consumptions inevitably result in obesity. Obesity is the primary factor for heart disease and cancer.

 

          With this logic, most people should not be eating fast food and they should definitely not be eating fast food consistently if they truly value their time.

 

          What does it means to value your time? Valuing your time means getting the most out of life in all of the limiting time periods you have left (given that you don’t bound yourself to any given time period). It is best to make each second as valuable as possible.

 

          By choosing to take your time, fast food restaurants are easily valuing their time. They attract the people with the most time available (usually young people) and establish a habit of slowly draining customers’ time by providing short term value at the expense of long term value. This means that fast food companies do not want the public to think about their lives in the long term. If most people thought about the future of their long term health, fast food companies would go out of business.

 

          When is the only time fast food should be consumed? Fast food should be consumed when we are getting more out of the experience to eat fast food than actually eating fast food. For example, if we were eating a meal with people that have long term value in our life, creating the rare experience may be worth it. Usually, fast food is wise to consume if there is no longer a “long term” for you. This is impossible to estimate because no one knows their future, but older individuals should be indulging more in the present moment. As a result of indulging in the present moment, old people can truly appreciate life and eat fast food.

 

          Fast food should only be eaten on rare occasions or if you believe you are going to die in next 10 years. In conclusion, you can either use the present moment to care about yourself in the future or you can hope you have a future to one day care about.