Photo credit: Mike Mozart licensed under CC BY 2.0
by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition
My wife and I don’t eat in restaurants much anymore–the vast majority are just too noisy to enjoy both the meal and the conversation–and we don’t patronize fast food or chain restaurants. Burgers and fries and sodas are just not healthy food, and I try to stay healthy.
But for those who do, according to Culture Cheat Sheet noise is a major problem, joining a list of complaints that includes dirty spaces, bad service, and bad food. Culture Cheat Sheet cobbled together survey results from Consumer Reports, the American Customer Satisfaction Index, and Temkin Experience Ratings to come up with their report on the most hated restaurant and fast food chains.
Most fast food and chain restaurants use a formula of tasty but unhealthy food with too much fat, too much sugar, too much salt, and too many calories at a relatively low price to lure customers.
Research shows a clear correlation between the density of fast food restaurants in neighborhoods–largely poor neighborhoods populated by African-American and Hispanic people–and obesity. The epidemic of obesity in the U.S. is related to changes in eating patterns–fast food, sugary sodas, bigger portions–and decreased exercise.
But now it appears that these restaurants also serve up a side order of hearing loss with their food. Because noise is causing an epidemic of noise-induced hearing loss, too.
And that’s another reason to avoid these restaurants.
