Is Big Food Profiting at the Expense of Our Health?
By Jacob Inman, Revive Your Life Executive Editor
Photo by rcoder
The health of America is failing dramatically. On average, adults are gaining weight at an alarming rate. Children are now being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes -a disease previously reserved for middle-aged, overweight adults. We’re all aware that the poor nutritional-quality food we eat each day lends itself to these disturbing trends. Considering this fact, should we rely on the food producers and our government health agencies to change the detrimental products and policies that they’re pushing, or are we on our own?
Unfortunately, the largest food producers and related organizations, often referred to as “Big Food”, play a critical role in the cost, quality, and amount of the foods eaten in the U.S. each day. Even more unsettling is the fact that Big Food uses its strong lobbying power to influence food legislation that is meant to protect the health and welfare of the general public. Food industry lobbying groups are asked to participate in professional nutrition conferences, attend Agriculture Department meetings, and provide insight into recent legislation surrounding childhood obesity and the responsibility of schools. Big Food also uses their heavy hand to influence the outcome of nutritional research and to control more localized policy setting efforts such as those taking place in our schools.
Those products that you and I consider “junk food” represent pure gold for the food producers - high profit margin products which can be sold en masse. The organizations that comprise Big Food have mastered the art of pitching junk food to a very specific consumer demographic - children and teenagers - in much the same way Big Tobacco has in the past. It’s been estimated that the food industry spends in excess of $10 billion per year to influence the eating behavior of children. On average, children see thousands of food advertisements per year with the vast majority (95%) marketing candy, fast food, soft drinks, and sugary cereal.
Big Food argues that not enough research has been done to prove that the childhood obesity epidemic is a direct result of the increased consumption of junk food. Instead, they suggest that the most likely cause of childhood obesity is the lack of physical activity. While research indicates that children have become more sedentary over the years, this blame shifting tactic would be akin to Big Tobacco blaming the rise in lung cancer deaths on air pollution. Junk food is an obvious contributing factor to the ill health of our children in America today.
The food producers also downplay the destructive nature of their junk products with a ploy which claims that there are no “good” or “bad” foods, but rather it’s the dietary balance of all foods that matters. Clearly, balance matters, but pretending that sugar-filled soda, candy, and trans-fat laden fast foods are “good” is just ludicrous. If Big Food really believes their claim, why don’t they “balance” their advertising toward children to include healthy food items? Have you ever seen a frozen spinach commercial during Saturday morning cartoons? Instead, Big Food lines the pockets of the health organizations and agencies that are meant to educate and protect consumers as a way to keep the pressure off of themselves.
So what steps can you take to help in the fight against Big Food?
1. Educate yourself. Start reading food labels which list the ingredients to understand exactly what it is you’re eating.
2. Make wise nutrition choices for you and your family by steering clear of processed, low-quality foods.
3. Get involved. Support the Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act. This bill is meant to limit or eliminate the power of Big Food in our local school systems.We all have the freedom to choose the amount and types of food we eat. Let’s make sure that future generations have the education necessary to choose wisely. This starts by wresting the control away from Big Food and giving back to ourselves.
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Excellent article. I always love when people bring these sorts of topics to the greater attention that they deserve.
So to answer your first question, yes I think we are very much on our own. There is just way, and I mean way too much corruption going on behind closed doors. Junk food doesn’t cause obesity, just like cigarettes don’t cause cancer.(sureeee…)
You know this stuff is getting so old and it is wonderful that more and more people are seeing through it.
I understand that targeting teens is huge and most parents wave up their hands in desperation at what their teens are eating, but healthy food choices start at home.
We can turn this around if we want to. We can eat healthy all the time and every day, if we want to. The question isn’t so much in if we can do it, but in what are our priorities.
It is thus a pleasure to help and teach people in how they can turn their lives around for the healthier. We need to start taking health into our own hands or else, we are not going to enjoy our lives much, especially in the future to come.