Summary Of Fast Food Nation

Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser, discusses the changes that the United States has gone through in recent years due to the development of fast food restaurants. Fast food places have led to Americans desiring more efficiency in their lives as well as changed many of the traditional values that Americans used to have, such as family and the role that youth play in the workplace. This book also agrees with what we have been learning in class about the fact that our industrialized food production has aided in our moving from dependency on others and family to being a highly individualized society. The efficient mechanisms by which fast food places run have drastically changed American values, economy, and health.
Question One One

Business owners know that a child can get their guardian to buy them fast food if they advertise it in ways that kids are highly attracted to. This includes adding toys to happy meals and putting play places in or by the restaurants because “‘playlands bring in children, who bring in parents, who bring in money’” (Schlosser, 2001, p. 47). All of this advertisement towards children prompted businesses such as soft drink marketers to begin advertising within school buildings. Pop machines were added and fast food restaurants even began offering lunches in the cafeterias for students to purchase. These food industries were smart to target youth because they are “still establishing their tastes and habits” (Schlosser, 2001, p. 54). The youth really don’t stand a chance these days against fast food advertisement, which, by extension, means that their parents don’t either. Whether people want it or not, fast food advertisements are being pushed in their faces. As stated above, families have begun to eat out at fast food places rather than eat home-cooked food. This could potentially mean that families are spending less time together because they are not getting family table

Assembly lines were introduced into fast-food kitchens and these created a new type of work that had to be done within the kitchen. Because of the new technology a new division of labor was implicated and that “meant that a worker only had to be taught how to perform one task. Skilled and expensive short-order cooks were no longer necessary” (Schlosser, 2001, p. 20). This kind of technology has made its way into many different types of business. Because people aren’t needing as much training to work at these places, they are easier to replace and they don’t receive as big of a paycheck. Many of the people that work at fast-food restaurants are under the age of 18 and a lot of these workers split their time between working and going to school. They often have to work long shifts throughout the week and especially on weekends in order to help support their own families. Elisa, one of the high school students interviewed for this book, shared that she “spends about thirty to thirty-five hours a week at the restaurant. She earns the minimum wage” (Schlosser, 2001, p. 80). These jobs are nice for the youth that need the extra money to support their family’s needs or their own needs. However, the restaurants might be taking advantage of the youth just because they are so easily replaced. Many different businesses have begun targeting youth to work for them