

Cars lined up on April 18, 2020 to receive groceries from the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank during the coronavirus pandemic. Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Many Americans take comfort in the routine of jumping into the car and grabbing a burger. They choose restaurants with familiar faces behind the counter. They even yearn for a favorite "greasy spoon" diner while having to cook for themselves at home during COVID-19.

People feel emotionally attached to food and the routines associated with it. These rituals provide a sense of comfort and belonging—even if the meal is from a fast-food restaurant and they stood in line for it.



The powerful relationship between people's attachment to fast-food restaurants and their inability to get creates a downward spiral. Corporate fast-food chains undermine by weakening local control over food production. In turn, diminished over food production perpetuates food insecurity. Now, when COVID-19 has changed routines so much, I see an opportunity to break the cycle.

Fast-food restaurants as 'third places'

People develop strong emotional bonds to places that they return to again and again.My research shows that these bonds can extend to gardening, agriculture and food preparation, like cooking or hunting.

People also form bonds with restaurants they frequent. Restaurants can function as "third places," a term coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg that describes safe spaces for conversation and community. Community gardens and cultural centers are often third places. Oldenburg built this idea off of "first places" and "second places" to describe where people find comfort or familiarity outside home or work.


Fast food is a staple for the food-insecure





Food insecurity in California's Central Valley

In fall 2019 and spring 2020, graduate research assistants and I surveyed at the University of California-Merced about food security and food-restaurant attachment. Many U.S. undergraduate students are consistently food insecure for a number of reasons, including resource and time constraints.


In preliminary results from our survey, 25% of students said that at least once a week they go all day without eating because they are too busy. 20% report that at least weekly they can't afford healthy or nutritious food. About 37% report lacking access to healthy food even when they know about supplemental food resources such as CalFresh.


Crowding out local control

Fast-food restaurants aren't only problematic because of their calorie-rich menus. They are heavily concentrated businesses. Ten companies own more than 50 of the biggest chains in the world. Many franchises have multiple owners, most of whom are unlikely to reside in the community. So local communities fail to control the food system.

Concentrated purchasing power controls how food is grown and traded across the world. A basic tenet of my discipline, agricultural economics, is that international trade can benefit all. But in fact, disproportionate corporate power over the food system has created "food deserts" where people can't get healthy food.

Building new routines

Food and restaurants forge emotional bonds. It's complicated. Fast-food habits have become a "normal part" of U.S. culture, and the most vulnerable populations often lack time and resources to break this routine.





Explore further

Coronavirus pandemic worsens food insecurity for low-income adults

Provided by The Conversation


Citation: Fast food is comforting, but in low-income areas it crowds out fresher options (2020, June 29) retrieved 14 May 2021 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-fast-food-comforting-low-income-areas.html

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