Hungry for Change

"The problem is we are not eating food, we are eating food-like products. And they are adorned, they are made to look better... so that people are attracted to them."

This line is from a documentary I watched this past weekend called Hungry for Change. This movie focuses primarily on the side-effects of consuming too much sugar - relating the addictiveness of it to that of drugs, such as cocaine.

"You might as well be rolling up the kid's sleeve and putting in heroine, because it's the same thing." 

Although, this movie does not focus specifically on food advertising, it does touch upon it briefly. Advertising and marketing these boxed and packed foods to appear desirable to consumers leads to America's excessive consumption of sugar laden products. The packages are deceiving consumers by saying "more fiber" or "non-fat." Few buyers check the actual ingredients list to see that the fat has been replaced by sugar, and even fewer people know that that sugar is converted into fat in the body.

"The marketing essentially lies to you because it presents you with the promise that you are going to be sexy and popular and cool, but in reality you are going to be obese and miserable and sick." 

The food advertising world is even more dangerous than beauty products or clothing advertisements, because it is what we are putting into our bodies and essentially we are letting advertisers decide that for us. As well, sugary foods have been proven as being addictive. Further more, more and more sugar is being injected into products that didn't originally have sugar in them, such as bread. If you make bread at home, no sugar goes into it unless you are making a sweet bread, however, if you buy packaged white breads it contains sugar.

Advertisers must market the food so it seems healthy, however, it MUST not dare taste healthy. For example, Fiber One bars television ads are promoting the fact that it's fiber that also tastes good, so it must be good for. Right? Fiber is good, but not when it's accompanied by 10 g of sugar.

"If I was in the food industry, what am I looking to do? I want to sell you more food... they are into just selling and marketing!" 

Okay, so this obesity epidemic. Is it really the consumer's fault? Or are the food advertisers the problem?

Another (mostly rhetorical) question: when's the last time you've seen vegetables or the benefits of whole foods advertised?