Personally, I think it's basically hopeless to attack this type of thing directly. Eating that way is now deeply woven into the culture and the structure of life. It's probably a form of self-medication for male dysthymia -- the macho form of eating disorder. The guys I know who eat that way have crummy jobs and are already significantly overweight. If you know you're far from the male ideal of six-pack abs and yuppie spending, why not eat something you like? And, of course, men can't cook, so healthy food seems pretty awful. To reverse all this, I think, will take a very large social transformation.
Meanwhile, here's a snip from my "Autos-über-Alles" book project, with something I found about another root of the problem:
∙How many ordinary Americans have heard anybody connect cars to our worsening national obesity epidemic? The connection is real and deep. As a Georgia Institute of Technology study reports, by 1995, the United States ranked last in the world in the percentage of trips taken by foot or bicycle, with walking accounting for less than 1 percent of all miles traveled by Americans. This reality, the study’s authors observed, was a result of the fact that the “private vehicle has been increasing its share of personal transportation over time.” The near-total reign of car travel, the study observed, was a central reason why “improper diet and inactivity patterns [were] the root cause of some 300,000 deaths in the United States in 1990, second only to tobacco.” And, of course, the numbers who merely suffer, but do not die, from lack of exercise are obviously many times greater than this.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
> On Behalf Of Liza Featherstone
> Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 7:39 AM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: [lbo-talk] obesity niche-marketing
>
> 3/29/05
> Health Concerns: BK Says Fuhgetaboutit!
>
> By George Anderson
>
> In a place in time when many manufacturers, retailers and restaurant
> operators are falling over themselves to introduce consumers to the latest
> and greatest in healthful food innovations, Burger King has said, at least
> in one instance, "fuhgetaboutit."