Solutions and Strategies for the Global Fast Food Market Challenges

This essay examines the global fast food market, highlighting its rapid growth and substantial revenue, while also addressing its negative health impacts, such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases. It critiques the lack of shared responsibility for the common good within this market, particularly concerning the impact of advertising on children. The essay proposes several strategies to address these challenges, including banning fast food advertisements, implementing stricter regulations in schools, and empowering national organizations and advocacy groups. It emphasizes the importance of parental involvement and vigilance. The paper advocates for policies that restrict the sale and advertisement of fast food, promoting a healthier environment for children, and ultimately contributing to a disease-free life and increased life expectancy. The essay concludes by reiterating the need for collective action and emulation of successful strategies to prevent the rise of health complications associated with the fast food market.

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Proposed strategies to address global fast food markets.
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Proposed strategies to address global fast food markets.
The Global “Fast Food” Market is one of the global issues where the shared
responsibilities for the common good are not being realized. It is the common objective or
agenda of any individual to live a life free from diseases to attain the maximum life expectancy.
With the rapid growth of the global fast food markets however, this has not been the case. A
recent report in 2019 illustrate that the global fast food market in the last five years, has grown
by a margin of 2.9%. Furthermore, this market has managed a gross revenue of $856 billion
during the same period. The number of employees in fast food market has also increased by
3.8% (Scrinis, 2015). Some of the biggest global fast food companies include Yum Inc. and the
McDonalds Corporation. Fast food products are also estimated to generate $570 billion that is
above majority of different sectors. From this statistics, it is clear that the global fast food market
is of benefit to sections of some people and governments. On the other hand, studies have found
out that fast food market is the leading cause of obesity, diabetes, hypertension and
cardiovascular diseases. In fact, cardiovascular diseases are believed to be the leading causes of
mortality globally (Li et al., 2016). From the above facts, fast food market appears to be
benefiting different government and employees while affecting children with different health
conditions. It therefore becomes difficult to achieve a common good.
Evidence from multiple sources indicate that rigorous advertisement has been at the
center of success of the fast food market. Evidence has it that advertisement affects the children’s
choice of food. It is therefore necessary for different stakeholders to come up with strategies to
ban advertisement of fast food on television. Such programs have there before but they have
been less effective since governments don’t follow up. There has been the Action for Children’s
Television act whose objective was to ban advertisements directed at children (Tripicchio et al.,

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2016). Different stakeholders should therefore revisit these programs. The Nordic countries have
also taken a big step in eradicating fast food advertisements targeting children. Sweden is one
such country that has the toughest rules since 1991 that bar fast food advertisement to children
below the age of 12 years. The ban does not only target televisions but radios too. In Belgium, it
is even illegal to make fast food advertisement during children’s programs. The advertisements
are only allowed five minutes before and after the programs. This is almost similar in Australia
where fast food ads are not allowed to preschoolers. Despite the considerable efforts, more
stringent regulation of fast food advertisements are needed to outshine the fast food market and
its consequences.
The highest consumers of fast food are children and they are the ones that benefit and
sustain the fast food markets. In order to avert the consequences of fast food, it is necessary to
limit or prevent access to their customers. Most of the public schools in different countries lack
policies that regulate commercial marketing endeavors in schools. In a survey by the US GAO,
results how that only 19 stets in the United States of America have put in place policies to
regulate commercial activities in schools. Lack of proper regulatory policies on fast food markets
in schools has bolstered consumption of fast food that is really affecting children (Whalen,
Harrold, Child, Halford, & Boyland, 2017). It is therefore important that public schools come up
with policies that restrict sale and advertisement of fast food in public schools. Public schools
have the highest number of children and such a strategy will yield fruits. Several countries have
already initiated this strategy and the results have been phenomenal. Countries like Peru,
Uruguay and Costa Rica have banned the sale of junk food in all public schools since 2012.
Oakland and California school districts have also banned the soft drinks like soda and candy
since 2002. The Los Angeles unified school district that has more 677 schools and 736,000

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students banned the sale of soft drinks in schools (Nixon et al., 2015). New York and California
have also incorporated the policies that prohibit and restrict different commercial activities in
public schools.
National organizations and youth advocacy groups can also play a crucial role in
regulating the impact of fast food market (Minaker et al., 2016). In the United States of America,
such groups have become increasingly concerned with the influx of fast food in public schools
and have on several cases held demonstrations. The aim of the demonstrations is to limit
commercial activities in public schools. Majority of them claim that the health of children is
important and should not be regarded as tradeoffs for higher revenue. Furthermore, the
Consumers Union Education in the US should mobilize parents and educators to team up and
make public schools ad-free zones so that the young children are able to pursue academics
without the influence of commercial activities (Heo, Pietrobelli, Wylie-Rosett, & Faith, 2018).
The impact of these advocacy groups has been promising with many school districts in the US
declining to partner with soft drink companies. This was after the nationwide protests by parents,
students and other stakeholders.
Parents have to be more vigilant with their kids. In as much as advertising and the
internet are the major factors that contribute to the consumption of fast food, parents can play a
crucial role in lowering the rate at which their kids eat the fast food (Hawkes et al., 2015). The
parents should ensure that they monitor what their children watch on television and read in
magazines and journals. Furthermore, they can educate their children about the consequences of
fast food at their convenience. The fight against fast food markets should not be a collective
initiative and therefore should be on the fore front to ensure that their children read and watch
the right content both on television and magazines.

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It is the desire of each individual to live a disease free life to attain the maximum life
expectancy. With the fast food market rapidly encroaching on the society, this could not be the
case with studies linking fast food market to different health conditions like obesity,
cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancers. Without proper initiatives
to curb the expansion of the fast food markets, the prevalence of the above conditions are bound
to double. Some countries have come up with strategies such as banning advertisement, labelling
and restricting the sale of fast food in public schools. All countries and stakeholders should
emulate such so as to control or prevent an increase in the rate of the above mentioned
complications.

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