Fast Food is Fun!

In 2001, the National Health Interview Survey in Taiwan examined the level of happiness of more than 2300 children ages 2-12, then correlated this data with the amount of junk food the children ate.  The kids ate french fries, pizza and hamburgers, washed down by plenty of soda and other sugary drinks, and, unsurprisingly, got fat as a result: 25% of the kids in the survey sample were overweight or obese.

What was a surprise was how little the extra weight mattered to them. Only 19% of the children surveyed reported feeling unhappy, sad or depressed.

The survey was the subject of a recent study led by doctors at National Taiwan University and the University of Arkansas. The results of their study, which were published in the Journal of Happiness Studies found that children who ate fast-food and drank soft drinks were more likely to be overweight, but they were also less likely to be miserable about it.

Although the authors of the study offered no opinion on why a Happy Meal really can make kids happy, they did opine that programs aimed at tackling childhood obesity are more likely to work if they aim to replace the fun of eating tasty junk food with other kinds of fun.