Obesity and the United States Food System - Essay Example

If the problems in the food system are not managed or redesigned, obesity will continue to rise annually, negatively impacting all stakeholders in society.

Advances in technology and processes in the last decade for transforming healthy food (e.g. corn and potatoes) have improved output in food manufacturing. One critical author identifies the manufacturing processes of infusing unnatural flavors into the common potato as a means of enhancing taste for customers. Schlosser offers, “taste is a method of differentiating food which is good for us from foods that are not” (Schlosser, 122). Thus, the food manufacturing industries recognize that their products are more likely to sell if different artificial flavors are infused into relatively common health agriculture. With more efficiency in these design and process systems, companies are able to add these flavors, consisting of unhealthy artificial ingredients and added fats, at a much cheaper price with faster distribution to retail shelves and fast-food restaurants.

Such changes in cheaper and more efficient product modification are a marketing tactic that creates a perceived better quality of food over the unmodified health agriculture, such as with the potato processing example. Businesses have learned that such additions of flavor and added fats provide much better profit margins and, in the process, longer shelf and freezer life of these enhanced products over the original agricultural output. It is because of the cheaper production processes and the higher profit by essentially fooling consumers into believing modified foods are a better alternative than enhanced and unhealthy products that continue to flood many different food markets.

There is also a significant over-reliance on economic models in the food system that leads to obesity problems in the United States. Food producers and agricultural industries do not have the ability to perform their systems autonomous of broader macro-economic conditions. Rising gasoline prices, higher increases in base salaries for manufacturing workers, rising costs of insurance, and other economic circumstances continue to raise the price of healthy agricultural output. The Consumer Price Index, a measure of consumer incomes as compared to product pricing, estimates that food inflation will continue at a pace of approximately 2.5 to 3.5 percent through the end of 2012 (Bloomberg, 1). In 2011, it was estimated that food inflation increased by 0.4 percent each month, representing total food inflation in 2011 at 4.8 percent (Hauser, 1). In total, this represents an increase of approximately 8.3 percent in just two years. These inflationary costs are dictated by all of the aforementioned economic conditions that do not allow businesses to create healthy agricultural output without the influence of multiple economic situations.

What happens in this over-reliance is that fast food and other processed foods that are able to be distributed at a lower cost actually become more appealing to the strapped consumer in terms of price (Stacey, 1). As one example, the McDonald’s Extra Value Menu priced at $1 significantly outperforms the pricing of healthy grocery store substitutes by nearly 300 percent (or more). The costs of producing a home-cooked meal using health products, such as starches, proteins and vitamin-rich vegetables are highly superior to the cheaper and much less healthy fast food alternative. This is why McDonald’s, as the most appropriate example, continues to expand at a rate of approximately five restaurants, globally, each day (Schlosser, 229), as the majority of this business’ profits are derived from the Extra Value Menu and other discounted foods.

If left in their current condition, the current manufacturing processes that continue to get cheaper and more efficient in relation to flavor and fats enhancement will further make unhealthy and processed food alternatives much more attractive to customers. Consumers are getting used to the processed flavors of food and, thus, reject healthy and natural alternatives as their pallets become accustomed to modified foods. Growth in discounted fast food additionally compounds this problem, providing considerable competition to healthy agriculturalists and associated healthy foods producers who are already struggling with their inter-dependencies in the economic system. Government should intervene to provide more autonomous production systems for agriculture and provide funding to allow for more autonomous activities to reduce pricing on healthy foods. Such intervention would also make unhealthy products less competitive with healthy foods to promote more consumption of healthy foods. Read More