Comment by magicalist | Hacker News Reader

Comment by magicalist | Hacker News Reader

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Go read the article linked to in the post:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary...

It doesn't take a conspiracy, or especially evil actors, or even the population acting unnaturally (WTF would that even mean?). All it takes is millions of local optimizations to get us into the state we're in now: optimize a marketing campaign for profitability, optimize a snack for deliciousness, optimize what you stock based on what sells and what takes the longest to spoil, optimize what you eat based on price and healthiness judged on limited and flawed information ("low in fat! just ignore the rest of the ingredients...").

Lots and lots of evidence out there for you on the malleability of the human appetite, from people changing the portions that they eat based on the size of the plate they have in front of them, to the absurd effectiveness of rearranging grocery stores to sell snack food, children's food, etc on top of what people would already buy. We are complicated creatures, and you only need a few percentage points from each of these things to justify doing them.

And again, there is nothing evil in saying "I will make a packaged children's lunch that kids will actually love", and there's nothing wrong with a parent deciding to get that lunchable for their kid. We could try to demonize both parties there (good luck with that), or we could try to change the fitness landscape and figure out ways to at least better stack the odds in favor of healthier eating.

Marketing at kids might not be the best lever, but it is one of the easiest, as it is extremely effective (again, see that article), children are already acknowledged as a protected class when it comes to some types of speech (definitely when regulated by the FCC, and narrowly-defined laws like COPA have been upheld by the supreme court, for better or worse), and there's precedent that the public will accept this (parents are already harried enough by requests for specific brands, and the cigarette ad bans in the 90s have shown that there could easily be support for this sort of thing).

> It doesn't take a conspiracy, or especially evil actors... All it takes is millions of local optimizations to get us into the state we're in now

This is so true, not just in this situation, but in many others.

I can't categorically prove that is wholly false, but I also think it is naive to think that many involved in making numerous such "optimizations" didn't do so knowing fully that they were increasing their own welfare at the vastly greater expense of numerous others. I have no need to classify them as "evil", but extremely selfish, greedy, misanthropic, or sociopathic would suffice.

>optimize a snack for deliciousness

Oh noh!, that snack is so delicious that I cannot stop eating it.

It really puzzles me that, in America, the 'vote with your wallet' place, people who care to be healthier doesn't just start buying healthier foods.

After all, the USA is characterized for a strong free market no? as soon as demand for healthier food increases, companies surely would start selling this kind of food I think.

The truth is that people don't care (and not only Americans... in Mexico we have the same problems).

They care. They care very much. But, they want the fix to be easy and convenient. Therefore, what we get are foods that people _think_ are healthier, but actually aren't. Why do they think they are healthier? Because producers and advertisers convince them of such. (Think whole-wheat/grain pasta.) The reality is that the truly healthiest food options are also the least-processed. But that reality doesn't sell because it requires too much effort and "sacrifice" on the part of the consumer.

Why is this the top response? That's exactly the point, there is nothing wrong with delicious snacks. The problem is that have a mountain of evolution distorting your "free market" of food choices, and snacks optimized for deliciousness flipping biological triggers that want to make you eat more of those snacks.

And yes, you can overpower those triggers, but we're talking about over a nation's population. Plenty of people care and still end up gaining 2-3 pounds per year, which is really not that much (20-30 calories over your expenditure per day, on average), but 3 pounds a year really adds up over a decade or two or three.

As for increases in the demand for healthier food, I urge you to read that article for how that demand is met, often in ways that are not substantially healthier (if at all).

Why do you think they don't care? You can't blame individuals for a culture that completely eschews skepticism and critical thinking skills in children. I'll bet you that every time an educational program is proposed for nutrition in grade schools (at the local, state, or national levels), the junk food lobby steps in and uses its money to quash education. Our educational system is shaped by moneyed interests, just like everything else in government. Our children are taught what doesn't hurt the industries with the paid lobbyists or the status quo in general

Really ? I find this article blames the usual culprits :

> “C.E.O.’s in the food industry are typically not technical guys, and they’re uncomfortable going to meetings where technical people talk in technical terms about technical things,” Behnke said. “They don’t want to be embarrassed. They don’t want to make commitments. They want to maintain their aloofness and autonomy.”

I'm not claiming this true or false. However, if this isn't blaming, then what is ?

From the article in Scientific American:

> According to the General Mills letter, if everyone in the US started eating healthfully, it would cost us $503 billion per year! That might affect our ability to pay CEOs like General Mills’ Ken Powell annual compensations of more than $12 million.

Same.

My beefs here: 1) this guys' job is not to keep America thin or healthy. That's the job of Americans. I especially do not want government to dictate what is acceptable food (beyond verifying it is safe - as in not poison or rotten) 2) that $503 billion has to come from somewhere. Given the margins on food companies, that money is not coming from their profits, because it just isn't there. So this is another tax on the poor.

This is nothing but another case of rich people "wondering" why everyone doesn't eat according to the very latest trends that they currently consider in vogue. I know why. So does everyone else. The question is not more interesting than why everyone seems to prefer non-Ferrari cars.

From the same article: > Of course, we don’t necessarily want you to be unhealthy. It’s just that it’s so much more profitable to provide foods that happen to be unhealthy. We’ve been able to industrialize the food system so that we can produce massive amounts of the cheapest ingredients available, in the cheapest, most efficient way possible.

I wonder why we have industrialized the food system ... It happened at the same time starvation disappeared in America, probably just a coincidence.

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