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Marketing Foods and Obesity

Do you curse at yourself when you step on the scale? Well, maybe you’re not all to blame. You might want to point a finger at the food industry, which is marketing huge portion sizes and foods full of fat.

But there’s a push now to reverse this trend, and solutions that are being implemented to help you shed the pounds or even stay trim.

As part of a food and obesity conference presented by Yale University, industry experts announced they believe the food business can make a big difference in many different ways-- including sneaking in healthier lower calorie ingredients that won’t change the taste--as far as you’ll know.

It’s the essence of fast food; we’re a lazy sort, here in America and what’s most convenient wins out.

But this could be a good thing because it’s a target for treating the obesity problem.

Take menu choices: for every 100 whoppers sold, just one veggie burger is sold. Part of the reason is a need for a more aggressive approach at improving the taste of the healthier food.

Dr. Brian Wansink of Cornell University says, “Companies think that taste is nonnegotiable. And that is almost dead wrong.”

This means companies can do more to alter the product. Studies have shown that calorie content can be changed as much as twenty percent without being detected by adding things like air, water, fiber, and vegetables.

So maybe, for instance, make that whopper a 70 percent beef, 30 percent veggie burger.

It can be done; Kraft has started an aggressive line of lower fat and whole grain foods, which are providing profits…
Its South Beach Diet line has already sold 150 million dollars in revenue since only this past April.

“Consumers are increasingly concerned with health and wellness. And our better for you products are growing at a rate that are three to four times faster than our traditional portfolio,” says Mark Berlind, Executive Vice President of Global Affairs for Kraft Foods.

Then there’s food volume, and serving size; 57 percent of the population is willing to pay for solutions that will help them eat less. That’s because we know we overeat when we have larger packages.

Many of us will pay for smaller serving size packages which control the amount a person will eat and force a person to give pause before reaching for a second package.

But why do these smaller packages cost more per ounce of product? “There is the added cost of packaging. If you package things up in a smaller way compared to a giant bulk carton there is more package per unit,” says Berlind.

It might be worth the cost to save on the cost of obesity to our society.

“The 21st century I categorize this as a century of behavior change. The big thing that are going to take us from a 77.8 year lifespan up to 80 or 85…it’s not going to be hygiene or medicine, it’s going to be behavior: exercising more, and eating better,” says Dr. Wansink.

And it’s going to take those who make, and sell the food we eat, to play a significant role.

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