Chain fast food places attempt to provide quality food quickly at a price point that is below that of normal restaurants. The ones that perform the best in that duty will be the ones that remain for the next years. The quality of food at these places has without a doubt gone up since I was a child. It's obviously still shit compared to what you could prepare at home, and I still only eat at these places a couple of times a year, but its not gourmet home cooking that they're trying to compete with. There's a separate market for that sort of food.
People are going to have bad habits and addictions and they're going to make mistakes with their money no matter what you mandate from the top down. There's just a very fine line where you go from acting in the best interests of people to legislating your own good taste on them. I tend to lean toward the "more freedom" option in these exchanges.
edit: also it's a huge matter of opinion whether the food served at these restaurants is unhealthy. If you're an extremely poor person eating one meal a day, I'd rather that meal were an super calorie dense big mac loaded with fat, carbs, and protein than if the alternative were a fruit smoothie with flaxseed oil. People are unhealthy from eating fast food because they eat entirely too much of it for their activity level. So if you want to prevent the latter thing from happening, you're going to have to take away some freedoms, much of which will be from legitimate and capable people who don't need a government to hold their hand as they drive through the mild temptations of a McDonald's parking lot.
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