For richer or poorer, we all eat fast food.

• Position: YOUR LIFE

Whether rich or poor, one thing unites Americans of all economic classes: our love for fast food, according to a nationwide study of "young" Baby Boomers that contradicts the popular belief that fast-food consumption is concentrated among the poor. Results showed that middle-income Americans were most likely to eat fast food, although the differences from other groups was relatively small. Even the richest people only were slightly less likely to report fast food consumption than others.

"It's not mostly poor people eating fast food in America. Rich people may have more eating options, but that's not stopping them from going to places like McDonald's or KFC," notes study coauthor Jay Zagorsky of the Center for Human Resource Research.

Zagorsky, who also has an appointment with the Ohio Education Research Center, conducted the study with Patricia Smith, professor of economics at the University of Michigan, Dearborn. It is to be published in the journal Economics and Human Biology.

The researchers used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, which has questioned the same group of randomly selected Americans since 1979.

Overall, 79% of respondents ate fast food at least once and 23% ate three or more meals during any one of the weeks recorded in the study. The researchers divided the participants into 10 groups based on income. About 80% of those in the lowest 10% of income ate at least once at a fast-food restaurant, compared to about 85% of those who were ranked near the middle (40% to 50%) in terms of income. Of the richest 10%, about 75% reported eating at least one fast-food meal.

The number of fast-food meals eaten during the three weeks of the study showed a similar pattern. The lowest 10% in terms of income ate about 3.6 fast-food...