Title: 37 Percent of American Adults Eat Fast Food Daily: CDC Report | Everyday Health
Headings: Many American Adults Eat Fast Food Daily — Here’s Why That’s a Problem
Many American Adults Eat Fast Food Daily — Here’s Why That’s a Problem
Debunking the Fast Food and Poverty Myth
Women Get Fast Food Snacks More Than Men
Why Fast Food Often Isn’t the Healthiest Option
How to Make Smarter Choices When You’re on the Go
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Content: The data, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), align with growing epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes in the United States, as well as with recently reported fast-food eating trends in young people. “Back in 2015, we found that 34 percent of youth eat fast food daily, so we predicted similar numbers for adults,” says one of the study's authors, Cheryl Fryar, a health statistician with the National Center for Health Statistics in Washington, DC. In the current report, Fryar and her team found that 37 percent of American adults eat fast food daily, with black adults eating fast food the most (about 42 percent), followed by white adults (about 38 percent), Hispanic adults (about 36 percent), and Asian adults (about 31 percent). Researchers looked at 2013–2016 data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which asked participants to recall the food and source of food they ate in the last 24 hours. They defined those sources as “restaurant fast food/pizza.” In the report, not only did researchers measure how often American adults ate fast food, they also identified certain trends based on income and sex. Debunking the Fast Food and Poverty Myth
The higher your income, the more likely you are to swing by the drive-through, the data suggest. Contrary to the belief that people who earn less rely more on fast food because it offers a cheap source of calories, the CDC found that the percentage of adults who ate fast food daily increased with family income. About 32 percent of people with the lowest income eat fast food daily, compared with about 36 percent of people with a middle income and 42 percent of people with the highest income. While the current study didn’t explore why, past research offers clues.