Obesity is defined as an excess amount of fat or weight. Currently, obesity is a major public health crisis. In the past decade or so obesity has been declared an epidemic. This puts the food industry under fire. In order to avoid taking responsibility for obesity, the food industry blames American citizens for it, when in actuality corporate America is at fault. Obesity has been an issue for decades and the interference of the sugar industry has not helped anyone or the situation. “The sugar industry paid scientists in the 1960’s to play down the link between sugar and disease” (O’Connor). By paying scientists to de-emphasize the effects of sugar and misinform experts, as well as the public, the sugar industry successfully shifted the blame from themselves to other aspects of food. They had scientists cherry-picking the results of their experiments to “promote saturated fat as the culprit” (O’Connor) as opposed to sugar. When the food industry took the scientists’ results as reliable, they changed the market to appeal to those who wanted to lose weight. They started advertising low-fat products that contained less fat and more sugar. …show more content…
Not only is the market mislead by the sugar industry and by misconceptions regarding obesity, the market itself is misleading. Many companies provide false advertising with commercials that claim to be one thing and are another or slogans and campaigns that are stretching the truth. The Kellogg company, like many others, has been hit with a lawsuit for making false claims. “They used the slogan ‘Eat better all day,’ because of the calcium and whole grains . . . argue that their claims are invalid due to the existence of trans-fats which contribute to diabetes and heart disease” (Stanish). This goes to prove how some companies are willing to creatively tell the truth in order to profit. (Conclusion