Does This Ad Make Me Look Fat?
The Food Industry (remember when they used to be called farmers, bakers, butchers and grocers?) is a $1 trillion plus enterprise. It is comparable to the oil and tobacco industries in profits and (consequently) in marketing strategies and ruthlessness.
We consumers allow ourselves the illusion that corporations work in our interest. But, they don’t. They work to deliver the highest and best profits for their investors. That’s their job. It’s mandated in every charter of every corporation. When presented with the choice of doing what’s best for the consumer and what’s best for the investor… they have to chose profits over everything else.
When it became absolutely impossible to ignore or gloss over the fact that smoking killed in excess of 400,000 people annually, the tobacco industry was finally reigned in, principally through government restrictions and regulations related to marketing. And now, the number of people who smoke is at an all time low. The culture changed because the mechanisms of manipulation changed.
Advertising is the life-blood for corporations that rely on popular consumption. It does not exist to expand consumer awareness, but rather, to create consumer desire and even need.
Certainly, we all consider ourselves above the simplistic courting of advertisers. We are far too sophisticated to seriously believe that Cap’n Crunch is an important part of a balanced breakfast or that drinking Miller Lite will get us dates. So, who are these saps who are buying that line and why am I so fat?
Obesity related mortality ranks second behind smoking. Americans have been wooed into an addiction cycle of wolfing larger and larger portions of low nutritive, high fat, hyper-sweetened processed foods and the results are beyond disturbing.
MEF’s new film, “Feeding Frenzy” investigates the causes and the effects of the Food Industry run amok:
