Fast Food Chains Are Exporting Obesity and Diabetes as They Expand Abroad
Skift Take
New international markets are providing huge growth opportunities for American fast food chains. As these companies change the fundamentals of the food landscapes abroad, they have a responsibility to those they feed — and they should act as such.
American fast food chains are growing in emerging local markets. While the opportunities can be healthy for business, that may not be true for local consumers.
Take India, which has become a popular destination for American fast-food chains. Subway and Domino’s, among many others, have hundreds of outlets on the subcontinent. The chains sell a brand of Western cool that appeals to an upwardly mobile middle class. But the items fast-food chains tend to sell — high in calories, fat, carbohydrates, sodium and sugar – are also associated with obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
“When this Western diet gets exported to places where it hasn’t previously been, all the health problems associated with it follow,” Julia Wolfson, assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, t
