Staying near Fast Food outlets can turn you impatient, says new study
Much has been said about the ill effects fast food can have on human health including obesity and enhancing risk for many ailments. However, the findings of a new study say even staying near a fast food joints can prove to harmful for you. The researchers think when you stay near a fast food outlet, you tend to lose your ability to remain satisfied in small things. This can also make you impatient over time, as per their study.
University of Toronto’s associate professor Sanford DeVoe said on this, ‘'If you want to raise kids where they’re less impatient, they’re able to smell the roses, they’re able to delay gratification, then you should choose to live in a neighbourhood where there is a lower concentration of fast food restaurants.’’ The professor is a part of the university’s organizational behavior and human resource management section. He was assisted in this study by Julian House, PhD student as well as another associate professor, Chen-Bo Zhong.
The study involved analyzing mindset and behavior of few hundred candidates in the USA. The researchers saw their ability to enjoy various types of enjoyable experiences that are a part of human life. The study authors noted zip codes of the participants and then evaluated their feedbacks keeping in mind proximity of fast-food restaurants in their locations. They reached the conclusion that people staying in fast food chain infested zones respond less favorably and spontaneously to pleasurable activities. They took into account economic factors of those individuals and neighborhood.
The researchers think that fast food can make people less patient and it can eventually take a toll on their ability to show restraint in general and fid pleasure in small aspects of life. They carried out a couple of experiments to evaluate if fast food association can affect people’s ability to smell roses and feel good. Even pictorial representations of ready to be served fast food were shown to influence people’s impatience.
Professor DeVoe said, 'We think about fast food as saving us time and freeing us up to do the things that we want to do. But because it instigates this sense of impatience, there are a whole set of activities where it becomes a barrier to our enjoyment of them.” He added the study findings hint at the need to think deeply about aspects of daily life, including professional life and how those affect thought process.
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