Fast Food Consumption Behavior among Young Parents: A Qualitative Study with Special Reference to Selected Franchised Fast Food Restaurants Within the Colombo City in Sri Lanka.

Abstract

Fast food consumption has been a growing trend mainly in the western world for nearly three decades. Families with young children are a major consumer segment of this industry. The purpose of this research was to improve our understanding of family behavior in restaurants by utilizing an ethnographic study of young parents (having children of 2 to 12 years of age) dining in selected fast food restaurants. The problem area being reflected through this research paper is to identify the constructs influencing the role of young parents in this rapidly growing fast-food industry. This research adopted a direct unobtrusive observation to gather qualitative data of a sample of 50 young parents, sampled with the use of purposive sampling technique and thematic analysis to analyze the observations. Food ordering process took around 4-5 min and technoference was not visible to be significant. Minimum personal technology usage by children and moderate usage of restaurant play areas were identified. The kids’ meal were recognized to be not imposing a great influence towards restaurant selection. An emergent model is introduced with four independent variables, family decision making, family interactions, technology usage and the usage of play area and the restaurant provided toy affecting the young parents’ dining behavior.