Most processed food sales, such as Hostess Twinkies, Orea Cookies, and McDonald's Happy Meals, are governed by what those in the business call the "potato chip marketing equation." According to this law, more than 90% or product sales are made to less than 10 percent of their customers. In the case of processed foods, that coveted 10 percent consists largely of people weighing more than 200 pounds and earning less than $35,000 per year. The targeting of overweight customers is especially lucrative since these unfortunate individuals typically consume twice the amount per serving as a person of normal weight.
Each company studies its 10 percent, known as the target market, like rats in a laboratory. Customer surveys reveal their likes, dislikes, hopes, dreams, hero's, and desires. High-consumption customers are recruited to take part in focus groups, where they are asked to sample new products, view advertising, and offer opinions.
No expense is spared to hit every psychological button that matters to the target market. If people in that market like a particular actor or singer, that very celebrity will soon appear on radio or television, praising the product. If a certain look, feel, or lifestyle appeals to people in that market, legions of stylists and designers will descend on the studio to simulate it. Like a deer in the scope of a hunter at close range, the target never has a chance.
These companies do something even worse than targeting lower-income, unhealthy, overweight consumers for their products. Once the target actually tries the product and becomes a customer, company chemists ensure that they will never be satisfied with eating just a healthy amount of it.
Say, for example, I give you an apple, a banana, a stalk of asparagus, or almost any food in its natural state. After eating two or three apples or bananas, your body begins craving a different kind of food, as the pleasure you feel in your taste buds lessens with each bite. But if I give you a chocolate bar, a McDonald's french fry, a can of cola, or almost any other item of processed food, you almost always crave more and more of the same item, because the chemical flavorings have been altered to ensure that "nobody can eat just one" of them. This chemical alteration causes great over consumption, promoting obesity and destroying the natural tendency of our taste buds to seek variety in what we eat.
The human body requires a daily intake of 13 essential vitamins, most of which the body cannot manufacture on its own. These vitamins, along with certain minerals, are necessary to sustain the millions of chemical reactions our bodies perform each day. Eating a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables throughout the day gives us all of what we need. But the majority of Americans are not getting the minimum amount of these vitamins and minerals that their bodies require because of the chemical alteration of the processed and fast foods that they consume.
Over the short term, these vitamin and mineral deficiencies manifest themselves as mood swings, lack of energy, joint pain, failing eyesight, hearing loss, and thousands of other ailments that medical science tells us to accept with advancing age. Over the long term, these deficiencies cause major illness like cancer and heart disease.
The above information was taken from The New Wellness Revolution - Paul Zane Pilzer
In my opinion its not just the over overweight, economically challenged consumer who is the only target. Everyone who has a busy lifestyle is a target!
The mother who works full time, comes home tired, has to feed the family, clean up the mess, perhaps help with homework, do laundry...etc. The last thing she feels like doing is spending an hour in the kitchen preparing dinner...so what's quick? Something from a package or take out!
The business person who doesn't have time to go out to lunch...grabs whatever they can on the fly.
Have you seen what's in the school lunch programs and vending machines?
I often wonder how I managed to make meals almost every night while working full time back when my kids were growing up. The one key thing that sticks in my memory is pre-planning as much as possible...on Sunday afternoon I would make myself a cup of coffee and go thru cookbooks and plan my menu's for the week...that also helped to keep the grocery bill down. My husband would love to have those days back...minus teenagers...I now find myself in the same trap as the majority of the population too much to do and too little time to do it! However, the same principals apply...if you desire to live a healthy lifestyle, and keep the weight off, you have to take the time to plan ahead...if that means chopping veggies and having fresh fruit ready to grab and go... or buying protein shakes so that you can have one at work when you don't have time for a break...it boils down to how bad do you desire to be healthy and fit.
Being over weight once was enough incentive for me to make the effort not to let that happen again!
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