Fast food addiction ? The junk enslavement

Research question: What extent do we crave for fast foods? Background: Fast foods are consumed in larger quantities intended with persistent desire or futile efforts to minimise or to cease the intake of these items; hence it is called as “FAST FOOD ADDICTION”. Nowadays, there is an uncontrollable craving for excess of quick foods that has lead to significant life style modifications in the society regardless of the age group. In spite of quantum of this problem, there are very few studies from India investigating the addiction towards fast foods. Material and methods: This study was done as a community based cross sectional study at the outskirts of Chennai, India during November 2013 to January 2014 with the objectives of assessing the prevalence and its risk factors of the quick food addiction among adults. Individuals of adult age group were randomly selected and the data’s were collected using direct questionnaire method with proper informed consent. The data was entered in MS excel sheet and analysis was done using SPSS software. Results: Total 541 study participants were interviewed of which 58.8% were males with the mean age of 26 years. Among the study population 82.8% belonged to nuclear family and 65.1% were from class I socioeconomic status. The prevalence of quick food addiction was 30% (160). About 49.2% of people liked KFC as their favourite quick food place. Fast food addiction was significantly associated with male gender (p=0.02), professionals (p=0.000), unmarried (p=0.000), who enjoys quick food (p=0.014), KFC (p=0.003). Conclusion: The prevalence of fast food addiction among adult population in our study was moderately high and hence interventions should be made to create cognizance among the general population about the risk factors and consequences in consuming large amount of fast foods.