De-marketing Obesity

Was readin this journal in the library, although i'm supposed to be working on another take-home test. It's called the Californian Management Review. And i really like the physical layout of the journal. it's not like Time or Economist kind of thin paper. But it's like a book. A colourful one at that. With very readable font.

So it's about fast food companies facing public pressure because they sell unhealthy food that people choose to eat. But this article takes on a very neutral stand rather than engaging in the over-argued argument of 'u sell fat food that makes me fat' versus the 'but u can choose not to eat it', it hopes that food companies can take a step that is both responsible and marketable.

it begins by explaining the theories of Food Aquisition and Consumption.

The Law of Least Effort (which i would term 'laziness'): humans innovate to make life in general easier. The motivation to conserve effort will always be there. And this explains why people rather drive than walk, find the nearest parking lot, etc.

The Taste-Nutrition Tradeoff (reasons why we never crave celery, but rather roast beef, chocolate, etc.): 3 strong tastes persevere: fat, sweet and salty. But it's biological and for survival purposes. Fat for insulation and famine periods, salt to guard against dehydration, and sweet for energy and identification of non-poisonous fruits.

The former theory will later be weighed against the cost of it. And the latter will now be weighed against how much we now know about the food. (nutritional value, etc)

Knowing this, companies may attempt to be more responsible and still entice consumers by:

1) Making their food more convenient w/o increasing price too much.
2) Make food portions smaller but with a slight price premium.
3) Inform consumers of nutritional value.
4) change the recipe of the food by making it healthier, but keep it tasting good.

One of the challenges will be having the the consumers perceiving the food as not so 'value-for-money'. and it seems that size plays a big part in value perception. So to overcome that, companies can attempt to increase the size of foods by adding air/water/fibre. this way, they can look bigger but the calorie increase is not so big.




interesting eh.