Having it Their Way
Just finished a recent article on trends in fast food marketing: Fat Profits, by Joe Keohane. An excerpt:
In an age when other chains have been forced to at least pretend that they care about the health of their customers and have started offering packets of apples and things sprinkled with walnuts and yogurt, Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. are purposely running in the opposite direction, unapologetically creating an arsenal of higher-priced, high-fat, high-calorie monstrosities—pioneering avant-garde concepts such as “meat as a condiment” and “fast-food porn”—and putting the message out to increasingly receptive consumers with ads that are often as controversial as the burgers themselves.
That message may be revolutionary or totally evil or maybe both, but in any case, it goes like this: Anyone can make Americans fat (hell, everyone already has), but only one fast-food company can make them fat and allow them to feel good about it, even get them to feel like they’re making a statement and striking a blow against the forces of political correctness. It’s downright Jeffersonian in its own weird way, and judging by the growth of both chains, it’s working extraordinarily well.
I’m speechless…
So let me get this straight: slavishly responding to advertising messages = rebellion. And health and fitness = “political correctness.” Ummm…ok, then.
There’s a certain kind of genius at work here, evidence of a well-thought-out defensive game. By not merely disclosing the fat and calorie content of its products but actively boasting about it, CKE effectively declaws the so-called food police, who act on the assumption that people eat fast food only because they don’t know it’s bad for them. This frankness makes CKE less vulnerable to the sort of social, political, and even legal pressure that its rivals—particularly McDonald’s, which offers pedometers with its Go Active Adult Happy Meal—feel so acutely. Far from shameful, it’s a point of manly pride to go to Hardee’s for lunch and scarf down a Monster Thickburger, a chocolate shake (made with real ice cream, it has three times the fat of the McDonald’s version), and a medium fries, which adds up to 170 grams of fat and 2,760 calories. And the more society’s nannies say you shouldn’t, the more you kind of want to.
Since I work within the bodybuilding/fitness community, I guess that makes me one of “society’s nannies.” Except I’m not chasing after people, nagging at them about what they put into their mouths. Instead, they come to me (and others like me), to help them out of the fast/junk/convenience food hole they’ve dug for themselves. “Food Police” my a**. Frankly, I couldn’t care less how people choose to live — or what they choose to eat, for that matter. If some people don’t like what I have to say, then they don’t have to listen (or read, as the case may be). But if they want to lose fat/add muscle/get fit, then they need to understand that “Monster Thickburgers,” fries and shakes should be eaten only as occasional treats (if they’re eaten at all). That’s not being “PC” — that’s reality, baby. Deal with it.
Nor do I get the “manly pride” angle. This is seriously obesegenic food: what’s so “manly” about having a gut composed of highly estrogenic fatty tissue? And obesity (especially abdominal obesity) exacerbates age-related declines in testosterone and contributes to erectile dysfunction. The man in this ad:
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGLHlvb8skQ]
may be lean…but that’s because he’s an actor, for crying out loud. I notice they didn’t have the cojones to cast someone who looks more like your average American male. And any guy who needs fast food to validate his manhood, has more problems than a “Texas Double Whopper” could possibly fix. Personally, I think the TV stations running that ad should have followed it with this one:
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFGpI8bfep0]
In short, toeing the corporate line isn’t the way to make a “statement.” Taking control of your own health and well-being, on the other hand, is.
June 10, 2008
Elissa,
You have the right attitude about it all. The last thing we need are food nannies running amuck telling us what to or not to eat. People should be allowed to make their choices and deal with the consequences. Sadly, most people eating this way do not have a clue in what they are doing to themselves. They do not get it that when you consume 1200 calories in the space of 20 mins that you will most likely put fat on your body. The shows on cable TV where you have obese people going through the surgery and just seeing the wards of unhealthy people sonambulistically existing is just sad.
dennis (bbr subscriber)
June 10, 2008
I’m going to play the devil’s advocate for a moment. In the U.S., there is no universal health care. So if your gross over-eating results in some sort of malady or medical situation, you are the one who pays for the insurance that covers it (or doesn’t, as the case may be).
In Canada, however, the situation is quite different. All Canadian tax payers are footing the bill for our healthcare system. As someone who is interested in maintaining a healthy body — and therefore likely to put less financial strain on the system — is it unreasonable for me to be less than enamoured with individuals who couldn’t care less about their health, and the companies that cater to their desires?
After all, it is my tax dollars that is supporting the system that is suffocating under the increases in heart disease, adult and childhood diabetes and other obesity-related diseases.
I’m not saying “food nannies” are a good thing. But when the cost of your neighbor’s bad eating habits come out of your own pocket, you might be less inclined to dimiss the idea outright.
I’m also a strong advocate of the food industry being accountable for their role in this. Seems unfair to me that they can continue to create and market “foods” that exacerbate the situation and get away free and clear. How about some sort of “nutritional” penalty in the form of a tax that is allocated directly to health care? Maybe a financial motive is what’s needed for companies to start taking a more active role in creating truly nutritious foods.
June 10, 2008
LOL – The problem with being a “food nanny” is that the current crop tend to look like this: http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/jacobson.jpg – whereas fast food imagery is a lot more compelling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SENgLw7l7kc
Sorry, I just don’t have it in me to become a glowering, tight lipped, overzealous killjoy. 😀
But seriously, the costs might not be borne by US taxpayers directly (at this point in time), but they hurt us indirectly, through lost productivity, increased premiums for those who do have insurance (either privately or through their employers), the drain on Medicare, etc. So, like you, I’m hardly sympathetic to either the purveyors or rabid consumers who are living in denial of the consequences. I don’t expect Dennis is, either.
IMHO, the situation is analogous to cigarettes w/regard to the health effects. But the situation is different w/respect to the attitude of the general public. There were/are a sufficient number of non-smokers to back increased taxes and regulation of smoking. Fast food is another story, and one that would likely generate a tremendous backlash. As pointed out in the article, many fast food restaurants already do provide healthy (or at least relatively acceptable) alternatives that customers claim they want in surveys…yet these simply don’t sell. Like it or not, they’re giving people what they want. Thus, the marketers will be able to count on a considerable amount of public support – enough to derail most regulatory initiatives.
Nonetheless, I don’t think a tax is a bad idea, although like ciggies and alcohol, it might be more advantageously applied on the consumer side, to create disincentives for purchasing, vs. manufacturing. Changes in ag policy to favor fresh fruits/veggies vs. cheap grains would also help to make healthy food more competitive with the junkier stuff. Ditto economic incentives to rehabilitate low-income “food deserts,” where fresh food is difficult to obtain, relative to fast food.
June 10, 2008
As a fellow igloo living, Hockey Night in Canada song loving Canadian, I find it extremely annoying that people who choose to abuse themselves have the “right” to medicare – at my expense! At least some doctors are beginning to turn away some of these individuals. Our Health Care system is in a downward spiral – and those that legitimately need help cannot get it do to a system that is completely overwhelmed.
I choose to live a healthy lifestyle and I’m sure all of you can attest – living healthy is EXPENSIVE. A 500ml bottle of a good 3-6-9 oil goes for $19, Fish oil $38, months’ worth of a good multi $35. So why don’t I get a tax credit on my “preventative” approach?? Instead the government wants to pass a Bill “C-51” which among other things classifies natural products , similarly to pharmaceuticals – a cash grab opportunity.
Funny that Health Canada has banned the ECA stack(due to the ephedra content) because of “potential” side effects, but cigarettes are not banned??? Ummm I wonder if its because of the immense taxes collected on smokes? Ya think??
People will always do what they want to do, no matter what the “food nannies” say. But when I have to pay for their health care and I cannot get a “nutritional tax credit” and also pay a premium to live a healthy lifestyle – It gets under my skin!
June 11, 2008
While there might be those who’d claim healthy living is its own reward, I’m all in favor of tax credits. Beyond acknowledging the efforts of people to live healthy lifestyles, it might serve to motivate others to get in shape: financial incentives appear to be more motivating than “food nannies” are.
Here in the US, for example, IBM has started giving employees cash bonuses for weight loss, and the results have been pretty encouraging so far (they’ve even started an obesity prevention program for the children of employees…see: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/22496.wss ). So $$$ definitely talks, when it comes to getting people to do something for themselves. And in the long run, it saves the company, or – by analogy, the government – money in the long run.
Unfortunately, these things rarely happen from the top down…this is the sort of thing that will likely require grassroots political action. But why not? There are “fat activists” and a burgeoning “fat acceptance” movement, after all. So why not a grassroots, “lean acceptance” movement? 😉