"Frito-Lay had a formidable research complex near Dallas, where nearly 500 chemists, psychologists and technicians conducted research that cost up to $30 million a year, and the science corps focused intense amounts of resources on questions of crunch, mouth feel and aroma for each of these items. Their tools included a $40,000 device that simulated a chewing mouth to test and perfect the chips, discovering things like the perfect break point: people like a chip that snaps with about four pounds of pressure per square inch" (3).
Two thirds of U.S. adults are now overweight or obese & 32% of children and adolescents are overweight or obese, a number that has more than doubled since the 80's (4).
If you think you are in 100% control of what you eat and this obesity epidemic is a matter of personal responsibility, you are mistaken. At the end of the day, you use your own hand to put the junk food into your mouth, but it is MORE than just your lack of dedication to healthy food. I feel it is imperative that if we are to battle obesity and chronic disease in this country, the food environment needs to change. Health education & physical activity promotion are extremely beneficial tools that I am sure are making a positive impact in many communities. Yet on a national level, nutritional education or activity promotion does not reach everyone. The food companies and unregulated food advertisements are waiting outside your home, in schools, at the store, on the internet, and on TV, ready and prepared to assault your taste buds, fears, and unconscious beliefs in order to generate huge profits.
This alarming international obesity epidemic is the result of people responding normally to the obesogenic environments they live in. As stated in an article from one of the most well respected medical journals, The Lancet, "Support for individuals to counteract obesogenic environments will continue to be important, but the priority should be for policies to reverse the obesogenic nature of these environments" (2).
Furthermore, to expand this franchise, the next logical step was to add more sugar, and soon M&Ms, snickers, and sugary drinks were included. I want you to notice that the disapointments of mothers were viewed as a gold mine to Oscar Mayer, and the company's target group of busy moms and vunerable children illuminates a much more generalizable concept of many food companies: children's health is an acceptable tradeoff.
Interventions that aim to reverse obesogenic drivers (and some of the environmental moderators) will almost all be policy-led—mainly government policy (eg, banning unhealthy food marketing to children, healthy public sector food service policies) but some could be food industry policies (eg, moving product formulation towards healthier compositions, self-regulation of marketing to children). Policy-led solutions that apply to environments and affect the whole population have several strengths compared with health education and promotion programs. They tend to be sustainable, affect the whole population (including those who are difficult to reach), become systemic (affect default behaviours), and reverse some of the environmental drivers. The degree of political difficulty for imple- mentation of policy and regulatory interventions is typically much higher than that for program-based and education-based interventions. Reasons for this reluctance to enact affordable and cost-effective policies include the powerful lobby force of the food (and allied) industries against government regulation of the food market and public reluctance to change environments to which they have become accustomed (2).
Millions are spent in advertising to adults and children, mainly on sugary breakfast cereals and soft drinks, and companies spend even more millions of dollars on developing up to 60 formulas to create a precise food that perfectly matches your "bliss point" or optimal level of sweetness. This is apparent in not just soft drinks and sugary snacks, but even in tomato sauce. A half cup of Prego tomato sauce has more than 2 teaspoons of sugar, and sugar is the 2nd ingredient after tomatoes. But a majority of the population does not think their tomato sauce is the equivalent of as much sugar in 2 Oreos, would they? Tricky, sneaky, & using your lack of awareness as ways to generate more sales.
Many studies have shown that young children have little understanding of the persuasive intent of advertising. "Because of their level of cognitive development, children under 8 years of age are viewed by many child development researchers as a population vulnerable to misleading advertising. The heavy marketing of high fat, high sugar foods to this age group can be viewed as exploitative..." (1). I agree. Adults are just as marketed too (i.e. companies track baby boomers food consumptions over time to see they skip meals more frequently & eat more salt in order to develop more specific snack foods for them). Adult marketing in combination with advertisements seen on TV and in schools since childhood that built a strong bond with certain foods all matters when we talk about someone's dietary preferences as an adult. Maybe its not so easy to stop drinking Coke or eating Twinkies after all. This sets up a further generation of individual (THEIR KIDS) who look at what their parents eat and who grows up with similar food habits. Do you see the vicious cycle I am trying to expose?
While I am aware that creativity and a free market driven by supply and demand are benefits of our society, our food environment has become obesogenic. Many technologies has made our lifestyles more sedentary, we spend more time in a cars than walking, and in chairs at work rather than moving around. On top of all these factors, food marketing is torpedoing our insecurities like belonging or being accepted, our emotions, and our subconscious processes in order to make us buy more of their products without being aware. Ever notice a beer, chip, or fast food commercial where everyone is having a terrible time, frowning, or sitting by themselves? Me neither.
I am very passionate about healthy eating and a physically active lifestyle, and rather than just telling you that you need to be as well in order to be healthy and live free of chronic disease, I know educating you can be an even more effective route. Remember, education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. If not the world, your own world and lifestyle. Use this as motivation to resist buying Doritos and a soda next time you are out. With this knowledge, you can think to yourself you will not be manipulated into buying junk food. I encourage you to read these articles, and if you would like them emailed to you please go to the Contact section of my blog and I would be more than willing to share them if you cannot find them on the internet.
Stay educated,
Leighann
References
2. The global obesity pandemic: shaped by global drivers and local environments, The Lancet, 2011; 387:804-14.
3. Moss, Michael. "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food." The New York Times 20 Feb. 2013.
4. Flegal, K. M., Carroll, M. D., Kit, B.K., & Ogden, C. L. (2012). Prevalence of obesity and trends in the distribution of body mass index among U.S. adults, 1999-2010. Journal of the American Medical Association, 307(5), 491-497.