Fast Food Consumption and Health Outcomes: Scoping Review with ☸️SAIMSARA

Name: SAIMSARA Evidence Object longevity::FAST_FOOD_PM
Creator: SAIMSARA
License: https://saimsara.com/license/

SAIMSARA

doi:10.62487/saimsara8f9909ae

SAIMSARA Journal

Machine-Readable Science • ISSN 3054-3991

Fast Food Consumption and Health Outcomes: Scoping Review with ☸️SAIMSARA

Longevity & Public Health

Issue 2, Volume 1, 2026

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DOI: 10.62487/saimsara8f9909ae

Editorial note

• Last update: 2026-06-25 09:19:19

What is this paper about

Fast food is more than a convenient meal—it is a recurring marker of poorer diet quality, obesity, cardiometabolic risk, mental-health symptoms, sleep disruption, and environmental exposure across diverse populations. Drawing on 735 references and 1,469 original studies, the full review reveals where the evidence is strongest, which risks are most consistent, and which interventions may offer the greatest real-world impact.

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Abstract: To synthesize original research on “fast food” and health, identifying the dominant health domains, recurrent associations, evidence gaps, and practical implications for clinical, public health, and real-world decision-making. The review uses 735 references and builds its evidence map from 1469 original studies with 26921973 total participants/sample observations (topic-deduplicated ΣN). This scoping review indicates that frequent fast food consumption is most consistently a marker of poorer overall health, with the strongest and most recurrent signals linking it to lower diet quality, higher energy and adverse nutrient intake, and obesity or adiposity across children, adolescents, adults, and pregnant populations. Representative evidence showed higher total energy intake among child consumers and associations with greater weight, waist circumference, and adverse lipid profiles over time, alongside elevated cardiometabolic risk. Beyond metabolic outcomes, fast food was repeatedly associated with mental health symptoms, sleep disturbance, and environmental exposures, though these domains were more heterogeneous in definition and certainty. These patterns support treating fast food intake as a practical behavioral marker for cardiometabolic and dietary risk stratification rather than an isolated causal exposure. Future longitudinal studies using standardized fast food metrics are needed to clarify temporal pathways and disentangle individual behavior from environmental drivers.

Keywords: Fast food; Health outcomes; Dietary behavior; Obesity; Mental health; Depression; Adolescents; Food environment; Health literacy; Chronic disease

Review Stats

Final search date and database lock: 2026-06-08 22:28:37 CEST
Plan: Pro (expanded craft tokens; source: PubMed)
Source: PubMed
Total Abstracts/Papers: 4105
Downloaded Abstracts/Papers: 4105
Included original and non-original Abstracts/Papers (all): 1718
Included original Abstracts/Papers (Vote counting by direction of effect): 1469
Reference Index (links used in paper): 736
Total participants/sample observations (topic deduplicated ΣN): 26921973

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Reference Index (735)

[1] Neighbourhood food environments: food choice, foodscapes and planning for health. — https://doi.org/10.1017/s0029665118000022
[2] Fast food consumption and its relationship with oral health among US adults: A cross-sectional NHANES-based study. — https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sdentj.2024.02.021
[3] Fast Food Pattern and Cardiometabolic Disorders: A Review of Current Studies. — https://doi.org/10.15171/hpp.2015.028
[4] Fast food consumption and suicide attempts among adolescents aged 12-15 years from 32 countries. — https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.01.130
[5] Neighborhood fast food availability and fast food consumption. — https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2015.05.030
[6] Association of Fast-Food Intake with Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms among Young Adults: A Pilot Study. — https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16193317
[7] Young women's food consumption and mental health: the role of employment. — https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-022-01675-4
[8] The association between fast-food consumption and job-related factors among Russian adults. — https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2022.101147

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