Why Ads Make You Fat
Written by Nash Trout on November 19th, 2007 in Exercise.
Here’s an interesting (but scary) food fact - “The food industry spends $25 billion a year marketing their products, the government spends just $1 million advertising its new food guidelines of five servings of fruits and vegetables a day.” No wonder, we’re getting fatter. Oh well, it’s just another excuse for being fat.
The choice of what, how much, and how often, to eat is not controlled entirely by rational thought. If it were, most people would die of starvation. Evolution has hardwired us with a compulsion to eat, with a bias towards over-eating and against under-eating. Fast food marketing affects us on that primal, sub-conscious, non-rational level, and is *definitely* *directly* responsible for some percentage of the excess weight in our country.
That’s not to say the overeaters themselves are blameless, but for many of them, a world sans fast food ads, even with everything else remaining the same, would be a world where they are thinner than they are now.
What, do you think they’d make the ads if they didn’t work?
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January 9th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Ads can make people believe whatever the advertisers want them to. It’s especially easy for us to be deceived by food ads since we are all weak to it. That’s why all sorts of diet fads make lots of money..
January 10th, 2008 at 3:30 am
I don’t like to place blame, personally. Eating at a fast food joint now and than doesn’t really hurt. Moderation is the key. A lot of people have no idea how to control themselves. Eat at McDonalds for lunch everyday.
Anyone that is overweight and doesn’t like it should stop blaming everyone and everything for their problem, accept responsibility for the way they are, and make the effort to change it.