Mega Marketing : The Extraordinary Science Of Addictive Junk Food

Michael Moss a investigative reporter for New York Times also the author. The Extraordinary Science of Junk Food was first appeared in the New York Times Magazine on February 24, 2013. On April 8, 1999, C.E.O from Nestle, Kraft and Nabisco, General Mills, Procter and Gamble, Coca-Cola, and Mars gathered to talk on the obesity epidemic. The vice president of kraft named Michael Mudd. Mudd gave a presentation about obesity, he told them to cut the use of sugar, salt, and fats. Also to change the manner they advertise their products. After the presentation was over the C.E.O of General Mills rose and said that people chose freely that if they wanted a healthy product then there it was.

Throughout the articles, each one discussed the author’s perspective on food industries. Two articles argued whether the food companies should be blamed for the health epidemics or it should be a personal responsibility for consumers. While others discussed how food industries manipulate consumers into buying more of their food. Along the same lines, all the articles mentioned how the health epidemic is increasing and who must be fault for the growth. As well as finding a solution and who should help. Although the articles emphasize how obesity rate has grown, the public seems to blame food companies for manipulating consumers and others insist it is a consumer’s personal responsibility.

In the article “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food”, the writer Michael Moss mentioned that growing weight problem happened in America has become a major health crisis issue. While people are talking about obesity, they care more about how much sugar, salt and fat they consume during a day, which kind of processed food does harm to their body. It seems that food companies have an inalienable relationship with consumers’ health conditions, because they provide us with what we eat. These companies made their food taste better (putting sugar, salt and fat in product) for attracting more customers, and also tried to protect their individual customers from the “obesity epidemic”, which is named by Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Moss, 260), without losing market share. It put them a moral judgment of creating food that customers like or be good to customers’ health. However, another writer Ethan Watters describe a story in his article “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan” that in the market of the depressant drug in Japan, pharmaceutical companies faced a dilemma. They found it so hard to construct a Western-view concept of “depression” among a large-scale demographic of Japanese people, to contribute to their mental health problem, and to make a profit for sure. In the former case, food companies applied multiple marketing strategies to collective demographics to create more individuals’ desire of consumption, while they were striving to protect

Ideas are able to take hold, manipulate, and influence people in both positive and negative aspects. In a way, outside influences give society different perspectives that the world uses to have a broad horizon. Michael Moss’s “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food” introduces the manipulative powers behind ideas in the food industry leading to the obesity epidemic. The psychological science behind the food industries ideas may seem positive to the consumer, but also proves how promoting the product is the main tactic in the corporation world. Ethan Watters argues against pharmaceutical companies in “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan”. Watters critiques the manipulation strategies used in the drugs

In this rapidly globalizing world, the jobs of the advertisers and marketers are to make sure we, the general public, have no control over our wants and desires. However, it is impossible for them to gain full control, but they do a good job of restricting what freedoms we do have. Big companies want us to believe that we have control by changing cultural norms without us realizing they did. Ethan Watters discusses how marketers plan to redesign Japanese culture for their benefit in his narrative titled “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan.” Watters makes it clear big companies, such as the drug company GlaxoSmithKline, are reshaping Japanese culture to market a pill that supposedly cures depression. Society is constantly changing and companies are able to take advantage of that by prompting the route in which society chooses to take. Large companies practice this style of marketing everywhere in the world and they are successful in influencing us, the general public. Big companies are considered big because consumers continuously buy their products, a lot of which are unnecessary. Their success brings light to the fact that we may believe that we have control, but it is just an illusion.

In order for the products of the companies in both essays to be truly impactful to the general public, companies must first understand their potential customers, although the evident intentions for understanding the customers doesn’t shed a positive light on the companies’ products. In Watters’ essay, he notes that a conference of brilliant minds was assembled to help the drug company GlaxoSmithKline understand why Japanese people don’t regularly take antidepressants for depression and how to sell their specific drug. The main point of the conference is presented as, “GlaxoSmithKline needed help solving a cultural puzzle that might be worth billions of dollars” (Watters 516). The fact that Watters mentioned that it “might be worth billions of dollars” signals that Watters believes that money is the company’s main goal. If Watters believed that

In “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan,” Ethan Watters reveals how a community can be manipulated by marketing because of culture barriers. The author discloses the intentions of a western pharmaceutical company, which is to “make Paxil a hit in Japan.”(516). Paxil, a drug said to cure depression, has led people on because of the remarkable advertising that was used. Ultimately, the advertising turned out to not match up with what they were trying to sell and their idea of depression. To convince the Japanese to buy their drug, they first had to change Japan's views of depression. Like Kirmayer said, “Cultures shape the illness experience,”(Watters 515) saying that the Japanese had a

This claim is supported by expert opinion from a study by Deakin University, which validates that the junk food industry, in particular, is ‘highly political,’ and utilises ‘carefully designed strategies’ which tend to overpower efforts to prevent obesity. This causes the audience to feel distant, and reminds them that the junk food industries are more profit-based than they seem to be. To extend the reliability of the data, the author states that it has been derived from interviews with ‘former politicians.’ This strengthens the claim and credibility of the argument, it also urges the audience to believe in the statement, as it has been ‘well established by a mountain of credible research.’ It further targets the audience’s sense of logic, compelling them to also oppose junk food industries because they ‘undermine efforts to…control obesity…’ Furthermore, sarcasm has been applied to emphasise on the absurdity of the food industries’ efforts to fool the public, suggesting that food industries ‘cherry-pick’ the information they choose to disclose to the public, which targets the audience’s emotions, causing them to feel deceived and precarious of the industries’ intentions. Moreover, ‘corporate political activity’ works as a euphemism, playing on the existing negative connotations that are associated with politics, to evoke a sense of distrust and doubt. Evidently, expert opinion, sarcasm, emotional appeal, logic and reasoning, and euphemism have been used to provoke the audience to accept the view that the food industry is not as genuine as they are led to

Direct to consumer advertising has been going on for decades to be able to push different products and drugs onto people. Americans see thousands of commercials every day and a larger chunk of them are for antidepressants. After watching many antidepressant ads, I began to see a pattern. They all start off with a very sad looking person but once they introduce the drug into the ad the person’s life has changed and they have the hugest smile on their face. One may think that it is just an ad and means nothing but believe it or not every image, person, and word said is carefully thought of to be able to manipulate the viewer. These ads use every emotion to be able to toll with a person’s mind. In the essay “Jesus Is a Brand of Jeans,” Jean says

In today’s high tech world, companies use fictional characters and vibrant colors in their advertisements which although is a successful marketing technique unfortunately causes various health problems and unnecessary sales. Marketers are causing chaos most everywhere and there is nothing we can do to stop.

This commercial essentially claims that, as victims of constant temptation, people of today’s culture and society cannot easily overcome the urge to eat unhealthily. According to the advertisement, this is due in part to the persuasive ability of the food industry, which instills an entitled, reward-seeking mindset into consumers through advertising techniques—for example, “It’s a special occasion,” or, “If you buy more, I’ll cut you a deal.” It also points out that the absence of eating control can be attributed to social influence: “I just want you to have a good time.” Even further, it shows the addictive, drug-like effect food can have on people by portraying the excessive availability of high-calorie snacks and meals and saying, “You’re in control. You can stop whenever you want—well, sorta—I mean, you gotta eat, right?” (“All You Can Eat,” 2015).

One of the groups to blame for the epidemic in America is the food industries itself. The food industry is primarily interested in profit and would do anything to achieve it, not caring about our health. Shannon Brownlee a nationally known writer and essayist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, New York Times Magazine said, “Fast food marketing strategies, which make perfect sense from a business perspective, succeed only when they induce a substantial number of us to overeat” (Brownlee, Shannon. "It’s Portions Distortions That Make America Fat." Sacrament Bee, 5 Jan. 2003. Web). In Ms.Brownlee’s opinion fast food industries trick people to eat fast food by providing extraordinary deals, in order to make more profit. This worked because

21), they claim that children compared with adults might not evaluate the true intentions for junk food commercials. And this is the reason that the type of junk food advertising should not be encouraged in order to prevent obesity epidemic. An increasingly number of parents are anxious about the mass media, such as advertising and internet, providing demonstration to encourage children to choose junk food. Linn (2004, p. 367) consider that children have become the primary target of advertising, because they are often exposed to advertising environment, for individual, for a long time. Children obtain information from the commercials, and then, those could influence their buying behavior and demanding trends which is the main reason to result in their overweight. Therefore, reducing junk food commercials on the prevention and treatment of children can play a role in the excessive intake of

Hence, children are deceptively conned into becoming lifelong consumers of these fast foods which increases the probability that many of them will become obese before they become adults. The indoctrination of regularly subscribing to advertised content encourages a sedentary lifestyle comprised of easily acquired fast food delivered to people’s homes.

It has been noticed that obesity has become more of an epidemic in the American country. One has to see a fast food restaurant everywhere they look. Advertisements on fast foods can be heard everywhere, be it on the televisions, on radio, on billboards, as well as in magazines. Anyone can very easily identify with and relate to McDonald’s, including children who are of age. As a result of selecting foods from such restaurants, Americans have become overweight. They have been totally consumed by advertisements from such restaurants. In America, obesity has taken the second place in in the causes of preventable deaths. As a result, over the last few decades, obesity has been a topic that has been researched on and discussed even more. Are those Americans that take home cooked meals healthier than those that eat fast foods? Can there be found other contributors to fast foods eating which entice those that choose to eat fast foods? Throughout this paper, we shall aim to conclude that indeed obesity is as a result of fast foods consumption.