Fast food is food which is prepared and served at a fast-food restaurant or shop at low cost. Fast food is often processed and prepared in an industrial fashion (i.e., with standard ingredients and methodical cooking and production method). It is served usually in bags or cartoons in a manner in order to save costs. Fast food outlets often provide take-away food in addition to a dine-in service. Drive-through, could be found in some fast food restaurant, allow food to be ordered and delivered without leaving the car to speed up the service. Fast food is usually finger food that can be eaten quickly and without cutlery needed (using bare hand). Fast food often offers fish and chip, sandwiches, hamburger, french fries, chicken nuggets, pizza, and ice cream. Moreover, many fast food restaurants offer some other easily consumed choices like, mashed potato, or salads. Chinese cuisine, although the food could be served as take-away, is not always a fast food.

Because of its convenience, fast food is successfully popular in most modern society; however, it is often criticized for having alleged shortcoming, for example: It has poor nutritive value, It contributes to obesity, It uses exploitative advertising and marketing. The unhealtiness of fast food, pointing one, comes from cooking method. Fast food tends to be deep-fried which resulting high amount of fats and calories. To illustrate this complaints, the documentary film Super Size Me, had the director eat nothing but McDonald’s without exercise within 30days. Due to the combination of food and lack of exercise, his health was impacted. In order to overcome those health issues, some of the largest fast food chains are beginning to incorporate healthier alternatives, adding salads and fruits to their menus. However, some people are unbelieving about this, seeing it as tokenistic and commercial measure, rather than appropriate reaction about people’s health.

The rapid growth of the fast food industry during the last decade has added another dimension to the change in food consumption pattern of Malaysians. The Westernisation of global eating habits, make possible through food imports, fast food and rising consumption of sugars and animals fats, is often blamed for the rising epidemic of obesity and associated chronic disease (Gopalan C. 1992). The fast food industry in Malaysia had a sizzling growth throughout most of the 1990s. The total sales were RM1 billion (US$ 263million) in 1997 increasing to RM 1,3 billion (US$ 340 million) in 2000(The Edge, 2001). Some of the major fast food companies in Malaysia and their estimated sales for the year 2000 are shown in table 1.