Pretty much everything @ChaosEngine said, and as pointed out in the Humans Need Not Apply video. There are far more factors going into this than the economists are willing to look at.

Shelf checkouts might result in slightly higher theft rates, and each person might be at the register than they would be with a properly trained cashier, but you now have one minimum wage employee watching 6 or 12 registers, rather than 6 or 12 people... that is a huge savings. That's 5 to 11 jobs lost, and at the low end, where people can least afford to lose job opportunities. It's just a matter of time until McDonald's, Wendy's and the like all add app-based ordering, or ordering at a kiosk, and that saves a couple employees there (Chick-fil-a already has that in their app, order, notify when you are there, they process the order)... and it wouldn't be too difficult to automate the McDonald's cooking line either... the burgers aren't flipped, the grill cooks both sides at the same time, drop them in place, grill down, cook, up, then put them in the stream tray, easy for a cheap bot to do. Portion control would be far easier with a bot too... there are huge incentives for them to move to automate...

The only real incentive not to automate as fully as everyone can is the fact it would cause a huge disruption to the economy if a Universal Basic Income isn't in place. I'd expect the biggest push for a UBI to eventually come from the various industries that want to automate, who'd gladly pay an automation tax to help pay the UBI in order to greatly increase their bottom lines, because we are very close to where a UBI, even based on an automation tax, is still cheaper than employing people.

@Trancecoach

I never said people don't have self control, but if it were as simple as "eat less and exercise," no one would be unhealthy or obese. Instead, we're looking at a majority of the population that's overweight.

http://www.nourishinteractive.com/system/assets/general/images/nutrition-facts/portion-control-larger-portions.png

I'm not saying that it's the only reason for weight problems, but as the original article I posted points out "No one eats one and one quarter of an apple." Portion size increases provide correlative data that coincide with weight problems in developed countries. I've yet to see any data that suggests that people in the world, collectively, suddenly have less self control.

I'm no dietician, but I'd say that the low-fat food crazes of the 1980s and 90s played a role as well: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/low-fat/

Typical low-fat options replace the fat (and protein in some cases) with sugar which is burned quicker by the body.

I could go on and on, but I stand on the position that it's NOT just a simple matter of self control. AND even if it is, people have varying levels of self control that need to be accounted for: http://cess.nyu.edu/caplin/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Measuring-Self-Control-Problems.pdf

Surely, you don't think everyone has the same level of self control as you?


Edit: One last thing, sometimes people rely on food labels to restrict their diet and come up short because nutrition facts are often unreliable: http://nutritionovereasy.com/2011/04/can-you-trust-the-nutrition-facts/ Self control without good information is a bad mix.

@budzos
@lucky760
@Truckchase

It wasn't a clinical study, I think the point was merely to show that it was possible for a overweight, borderline obese man to eat only MCD menu items, be satiated and maintain the calorific deficit needed to gradually lose weight, provided basic exercise was maintained.

I don't think the point was to stress that changing to MCD made his diet better (in that case adding exercise is obviously cheating), just to show that it is possible to lose weight and eat MCD.

Taking this as a reference for calorie burned:

http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/Calories-burned-in-30-minutes-of-leisure-and-routine-activities.htm

45 mins walking is about 300 calories burned. Considering that teaching is primarily a pretty sedentary job (outside of class), that's only freeing up an extra 15% of your roughly daily intake needs of 2000 calories.

Not huge. I think the main takeaway here is, junk food or not, if your goal is losing weight (ignoring long term health complications), then it's all about portion control.

@JiggaJonson

As above, I think this is the main issue. I usually want half the portion that take away food outlets offer. Pricing structure then distorts the cost of the smallest size to make the larger 'value meal' much more attractive. One reason why I tend to prefer sashimi eat outs.

Leaving tough cuts of meat for the idiots that order steak well done is one thing, this is beyond disgusting - it's criminal. Not double-parking/jaywalking/littering criminal either - hate crime/serial killer/war crimes criminal. Crime against humanity criminal.

If I ever saw somebody deliberately sabotage a customer's food in any kitchen I worked in, I would see to it that they never worked at any restaurant ever again. I can understand some animosity towards customers, particularly obnoxious biotches and/or late diners, and I have been known (on rare occasion) to be less than meticulous or passionate about plate presentation or even portion control when a customer really deserved it, but this is absolutely disgusting.

This movie had its moments, but this scene is DEFINITELY not one of them. People's comments here supporting this kind of behaviour (or even just acknowledging that it exists) make me die a little inside.

I wish I could downvote more strongly. Fuck.