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January 11, 2011
In his Fight against fat: when advertising goes bad at the ABC's Unleashed Paul Harrison makes two good points about attempts to address the obesity problem in Australia. The cost of obesity in Australia is estimated at $8.3 billion a year and will be a major cause of rising health expenditure in the next 20 years. This means less for schools, education, transport and welfare.
A major proportion of the current generation may not live as long as their parents. And while they survive, they will create a heavier cost burden on society through medications, surgery, consultations and lost productivity.
Gary Sauer-Thompson, Hungry Jack's, 2010
Harrison's first point is that we are eating nearly 25 per cent more processed food (high fat, high sugar, and high salt) but have not really changed our activity levels. The second point relates to the advertising designed to shock Australians into giving up junk food and sugary soft drinks. The strategy is is to:
Frighten the masses. Give 'em the facts. Change their behaviour...But shock advertising, on its own, is unlikely to have the desired effect of getting people to stop eating junk food and eating more healthily... ads that were designed to trigger guilt amongst the target market actually triggered a defensive processing mechanism ... However, the bigger problem in relation to obesity, and the more difficult one to counter, has been the growing sophistication of all facets of marketing to create an environment where highly processed and energy dense food is easily available to those living in developed countries.
Shock advertising can work, but it has to be more than a couple of scary images, followed by an educational message. What is required is a change in our behavior.
Harrison adds that:
Over the past 30 years, consumers have been encouraged to eat more through highly sophisticated marketing activities, which includes supply chain management allowing easy access to convenience and processed food, lower pricing, including better "value" and longer perishability of processed foods, as well as integrated marketing campaigns that encourage consumers to purchase and consume foods that provide a high fat, high sugar, and high salt "hit".
I guess that people kinda know the problem and they are uncomfortable with being overweight and obese, but they find it difficult to address the problem through changing their diet and increasing their exercise. Radical changes are required in everyday life. It is at this point that people need help.
There is a lot of content buried in "policy interventions" and "change programs". What does that mean over and above industry self-regulation on big food issues such as trans fats and labelling? Does it mean subsidizing fitness memberships should be seriously because diet alone will provide limited results? Medicalizing the problem may seem counterproductive to public health officials; but it it forces us to realize the complexity of obesity and appreciate that it is not solely based on individual behavior.
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The libertarian assumption is that we should all be free to do what we want, as far as possible, and if some people’s lifestyle choices involve snacking on deep-fried Mars bars and triple-processed cheeseburgers, other people have no business interfering, still less the government.
Libertarians believe individuals should be allowed to pursue their own interests unless their behaviour negatively impacts on others. So individuals should be allowed to buy the food they want but drunk drivers should be constrained because they harm others.
Do individuals have enough information to effectively pursue their interests as distinct from their desires? Or are they always able to act on their interests when they know them?