Kevin Roberts remembers when he could get a bacon cheeseburger, fries and a drink from Five Guys for $10. But that was years ago. When the Virginia high school teacher recently visited the fast-food chain, the food alone without a beverage cost double that amount.
Roberts, 38, now only gets fast food “as a rare treat,” he told CBS MoneyWatch. “Nothing has made me cook at home more than fast-food prices.”
Roberts is hardly alone. Many consumers are expressing frustration at the surge in fast-food prices, which are starting to scare off budget-conscious customers.
A January poll by consulting firm Revenue Management Solutions found that about 25% of people who make under $50,000 were cutting back on fast food, pointing to cost as a concern.
Whatever people like doing at 16 is likely going to persist to what they like at 32 or 64.
To the extent people should be discouraged from soda (and other added sugar drinks), it needs to pretty much be the case from the onset, not just a fact of “growing up”.
I’ve seen children raised on relatively healthy food and drink from the onset and it’s much less of an uphill battle for them to happily eat healthy as they grow up. They actually like the healthy stuff rather than forcing themselves to eat unhappily because they know it’s the right thing.