Unhealthy Apocalypse

Chocolate, cake, cupcakes, cookies, so delicious! It’s not going to kill you right? No it won’t but a lot of unhealthy food over a long enough period of time can do more damage than you think. In the food industry, companies will sometimes take shortcuts or simply lie about the quality of their foods to make their products more profitable. And the ones that don’t lie or cheat still make food that’s bad for us, but consumers still buy them. There are a number of reasons for this: it’s cheaper to buy so-called “unhealthy” food, and a lot of people can’t actually understand food labels well enough to comprehend something as healthy or unhealthy. Overall, I believe that the systems in place make people eat more unhealthy food as opposed to healthier food. This has led to an increase of people with obesity and a number of other diseases.

With the system that we have in place right now, people will lean more towards unhealthy food because it is just more cost effective. In the article, “Economic constraints on taste formation and the true cost of healthy eating” (2015), author Caitlin Daniel, winner of the 2020 postdoctoral award from the Interdisciplinary Association of Population Health Science, proposes that “the cost of providing children a healthy diet may include the possible cost of foods that children waste as they acquire new tastes”. She supports her claims by making use of 80 interviews , 41 grocery-shopping observations, and 73 primary caregivers to show that many low-income respondents base food decisions on their children’s preferences in order to minimize the waste that results when children reject unfamiliar items. Daniel states that “many low-income

respondents minimize economic risk by purchasing what their children like—often calorie-dense, nutrient-poor foods. After seeing her children repeatedly throw out leftovers, [survey participant] Tracey resorted to buying Hot Pockets, frozen chicken nuggets, and microwavable beef-and-bean burritos” (Part 4.2). Families with lower incomes choose not to buy healthier foods because their kids usually don’t have an appetite for them. This is due to low exposure, which occurs because the parents can’t afford to consistently buy them. The low exposure and lack of appetite of healthy foods is also linked to disproportionately less advertising which I will delve into later. But why is organic/healthy food more expensive than it ideally should be? Part of the reason is lack of government support for farmers. We get some more insight on this from the book Organic Agriculture Sustainability Markets And Policies (2003), authored by The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a forum where 37 different governments collaborate to develop policy standards to promote sustainable economic growth. The OECD affirms that “organic agriculture is disadvantaged by current agricultural support policies, and the proliferation of standards and labels has sometimes confused consumers and impeded trade”. The government doesn’t help out farmers with money. This would mean that farmers have to use more money out of their own pockets, which would drive up the cost of healthy foods. This shows that in all parts of the process, from production to the option to buying, the odds are against healthy foods because the lack of government subsidies drives up the cost, ultimately making it less attractive to low income families.

On top of all of that, the majority of foods that are advertised are unhealthy. In the website, UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy And Health (2017) founded in 2005 by Kelly Brownell, PhD, at Yale University, the researchers found that food marketing negatively affects children’s and teens’ diets and health, increases calories consumed, preferences for unhealthy product categories, and perceptions of product healthfulness. They found that there’s an astonishing $14 billion spent on marketing by food, beverage, and restaurant companies. What’s more alarming is that a whopping 80% of this budget is being used to advertise fast food, sugary drinks, candy, and unhealthy snacks. Now, this wouldn’t be a problem in and of itself if there were proper countermeasures in place, and this is where there is a discrepancy. There is only a “$1 billion budget for all chronic disease prevention and health promotion at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Furthermore, food companies target children, teens and communities of color with marketing for their least healthy products.” (section: Food Marketing). Not only is there disproportionately more marketing for unhealthy foods compared to the advertising for disease prevention, this marketing also aims the advertisements for the unhealthiest products at children specifically. And it’s working extremely well, as supported by the paper “Food advertising and eating behavior in children” (2015). Author Frans Folkvord, associate professor at Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences, proposes that “The ubiquitous advertising for these unhealthy foods stimulates the intake of energy-dense foods and undermines international and national recommendations for healthy eating behaviors and guidelines for disease prevention”. This is corroborated by the Rudd Center’s study where they found that disease prevention only has a $1 billion budget compared to the $14 billion spent by food companies. Folkvord supports his claims by making use of new findings to show the effects of food advertising on children’s eating behavior. Folkvod writes that “increased activation in the striatum in response to food commercials was positively associated with BMI one year later. These findings support the assumption raised by scholars that some children have a greater tendency than others to consume unhealthy and rewarding snacks after exposure to food advertisements.” (Section: An integrated model for processing food cues in advertising). So after watching advertisements, studies found that children would rather eat unhealthy foods which makes sense once you account for the marketing disparity mentioned previously. But children aren’t the only ones vulnerable to this, teens and adults are victims as well.

All of this unhealthy eating has taken a toll on the general population in not just the US, but also many other countries. In the paper, “Tackling of unhealthy diets, physical inactivity, and obesity: health effects and cost-effectiveness” (2010), author Michele Cecchini, previous temporary advisor to a number of governments and international agencies, including WHO, IARC, EC and the World Bank, asserts that the obesity epidemic is spreading to low-income and middle-income countries as a result of new dietary habits and sedentary ways of life. He reinforces his claims by making use of WHO plans and other papers to show that the obesity epidemic is rapidly becoming a worldwide problem. The book declares that “distal risk factors such as low intake of fruit and vegetables, high fat intake, and insufficient physical activity have an indirect effect on chronic diseases, which was modeled on the basis of the existing empirical evidence”. (Section: Model of the health effects of diet, physical activity, and obesity). Clearly, a healthy diet is important because you are risking your own wellbeing by choosing to indulge in unhealthy foods. This decrease in overall well being is made apparent in this graph by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, whose mission is to “conduct and support medical research and research training and to disseminate science-based information on diabetes and other endocrine and metabolic diseases”.

This graph shows trends in obesity among children and adolescents ages 2–19 years in the United States from 1963–1965 through 2017–2018. Here, 1% means 1% of the population for the specific age range are clinically obese. Just looking at the 12-19 years line, there’s an astounding increase from 5% in 1966 to over 20% in 2018. That means one in 5 adolescents are obese. What’s even scarier is that children ages 2-5 aren’t safe from this trend either. In 2018, nearly 15% of those children are obese even though they should be eating as healthy as possible. This just goes to show that a lot of our food is made by companies that don’t even have our best interests in mind.

Now, of course it can be argued that nutrition labels exist to allow consumers to make more informed decisions when buying food. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the nation’s leading organization focused on protecting the public’s health, assures that “The label breaks down the amount of calories, carbs, fat, fiber, protein, and vitamins per serving of the food, making it easier to compare the nutrition of similar products. Be sure to look at different brands of the same foods—nutrition information can differ a lot” (Section: Eat Well).

So in reality, people really do have everything they need to be smart about shopping. All they have to do is read the nutrition label and make sure the numbers are okay. But the truth is that consumers still make bad choices despite the addition of food labels. In the paper, “A Meta-Analysis of Food Labeling Effects on Consumer Diet Behaviors and Industry Practices” (2018), author Siyi Shangguan, a hospitalist physician at Massachusetts General Hospital with an MPH at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, proposes that the influence of food labeling on consumer behaviors and health outcomes is not even well established. She writes that “Currently, a growing number of studies have investigated the effects of food labeling on consumer behaviors. Yet, the results of the individual studies have been inconsistent and effectiveness of food labeling remains unclear” (section: Context). Even though there are nutrition labels being used on virtually everything, there is still no sound scientific research done that shows an impactful change in behavior when reading nutrition labels. But that seems implausible, especially when considering that nutrition labels have all the information you could need. We can get an answer from the article, “Food labels too complicated for most shoppers to understand – new research” (2019), by Dawn Liu, a researcher at the University of Essex who studies the psychology of communication in words. Liu argues that Shoppers struggle to make sense of food labels – and aren’t always sure what they’re eating. She writes that “While most people are aware a healthy diet involves eating a variety of nutrients in differing quantities, it’s less well known what these nutrients should be, and how much a person should be consuming” (Paragraph 2). The general populace isn’t well educated on the subject of nutrition, so, unfortunately, they couldn’t help themselves by looking at the labels even if they wanted to.

All in all, the over consumption of unhealthy food has led to a significant decline in the health of the general population. Unfortunately, some people have no choice but to resort to unhealthy food since it’s all they can afford. And on top of that, only a small fraction of the population is well educated on how to make informed decisions when shopping. As a consumer, we need to take the time to learn how to read nutrition labels, the importance of different vitamins, and what quantity of each nutrient we should be consuming. We should also be wary of labels that companies slap onto their products to make them seem more attractive to us. If we don’t stay educated on the food that we eat, which is the very sustenance that keeps us alive, then we will undoubtedly find ourselves in an unhealthy apocalypse.

Works Cited

Cecchini, Michele, et al. “Tackling of Unhealthy Diets, Physical Inactivity, and Obesity: Health Effects and Cost-Effectiveness.” ScienceDirect, 10 Nov. 2010, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673610615140. Accessed 18 Nov. 2023.

Daniel, Caitlin. “Economic Constraints on Taste Formation and the True Cost of Healthy Eating.” ScienceDirect, 25 Nov. 2015, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953615302331#tbl2. Accessed 18 Nov. 2023.

Folkvord, Frans, et al. “Food Advertising and Eating Behavior in Children.” ScienceDirect, 8 Dec. 2015, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352154615001564#:~:text=Systematic%20research%20reviews%20have%20repeatedly,to%20the%20current%20obesity%20epidemic. Accessed 18 Nov. 2023.

“Food Labels.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 20 Sept. 2022, www.cdc.gov/diabetes/managing/eat-well/food-labels.html#:~:text=Understanding%20the%20Nutrition%20Facts%20label,the%20nutrition%20of%20similar%20products.

Ha, Emily. “Food Marketing.” UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health, 20 Apr. 2020, uconnruddcenter.org/research/food-marketing/.

Liu, Dawn. “Food Labels Too Complicated for Most Shoppers to Understand – New Research.” The Conversation, 9 Aug. 2023, theconversation.com/food-labels-too-complicated-for-most-shoppers-to-understand-new-research-121837.

OECD. Organic Agriculture: Sustainability, Markets, and Policies. CABI Pub., 2003.

Shangguan, Siyi. “A Meta-Analysis of Food Labeling Effects on Consumer Diet Behaviors and Industry Practices.” ScienceDirect, 17 Dec. 2018, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749379718323572. Accessed 18 Nov. 2023.