Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
In 2008 Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies and public health, and her co-author David Ludwig published a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association directly questioning whether the western food industry could play a constructive role in solving the obesity epidemic. Long-time foes of the junk food merchants, Nestle and Ludwig accepted that the food producers' priority was "to make financial returns to stockholders".
However, they calculated that the US food market was then supplying a staggering 3,900 calories per head/per day to the American public ? nearly twice their energy needs. To keep (and increase) their own market share, fast food outlets soon hit on the obvious: they launched a "supersizing" war ? outbidding each other to offer customers ever bigger portions first for their dollar, and not much later, for their pound sterling.
This was apparently the perfect way to get those excess calories down people's throats because, for fast food companies (and their franchisees), the big costs are in monthly leases and wages ? not cheap chips and fizzy drinks. And guess what? Their customers loved the bonanza. In September 2012, the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, took a first step to halt the torrent by imposing a ban on sweet fizzy drinks larger than 16 ounces, but his first fightback against "supersizing" is being challenged in court by the American Beverage Association.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/18/supersize-undersize-food-portions-obesity
However, they calculated that the US food market was then supplying a staggering 3,900 calories per head/per day to the American public ? nearly twice their energy needs. To keep (and increase) their own market share, fast food outlets soon hit on the obvious: they launched a "supersizing" war ? outbidding each other to offer customers ever bigger portions first for their dollar, and not much later, for their pound sterling.
This was apparently the perfect way to get those excess calories down people's throats because, for fast food companies (and their franchisees), the big costs are in monthly leases and wages ? not cheap chips and fizzy drinks. And guess what? Their customers loved the bonanza. In September 2012, the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, took a first step to halt the torrent by imposing a ban on sweet fizzy drinks larger than 16 ounces, but his first fightback against "supersizing" is being challenged in court by the American Beverage Association.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/18/supersize-undersize-food-portions-obesity