Comment on Australians are choosing foods that contribute to leading causes of disease. Why?
thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Marketing definitely plays a part, don’t get me wrong - but unhealthy food is cheap, and we are still in a cost of living crisis here in Australia.
These foods are pumped to the gills with simple starches, sugars and fats to make them hyper-palatable - short-circuiting our brain impulses, leading to addiction - and play havoc with our leptin/ghrelin hormones levels leaving us hungry shortly thereafter, leading to over-eating.
naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Sure but the idea that humans are silly automatons that follow price exclusively dies in first year econ classrooms. Canned beans are extremely cheap and much closer to a food you can sustain yourself on, yet marketing promotes the idea that fish fingers and a side of chips is a more reasonable meal than baked potato and a side of beans with sauce, which doesn’t feel reasonable. Palatability is also not the most significant factor because people also aren’t serving fish fingers and a side of gummy worms despite gummy worms being extremely cheap per calorie and hyper palatable.
We’re a long way from being able to restrict the sale of junk food legislatively but not that far from being able to prevent things like showing hot chips on a dinner plate as something reasonable to serve.
thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Hyper-palatability, and convenience are the two factors that fill in the blanks.
An individual person can be a rational, thinking actor - but when we are discussing macro-modelling, we begin to fall towards the mean/median of whatever takes the least amount of work to trick our brains to release the most happy chemicals.
Again, I say this as someone who has been on a ketogenic diet for over 7 years now - because I know I am someone hyper-susceptible to sugar addiction, it only took the slightest nudge (tired, tipsy, stressed) to push me towards the lazier, less healthy option - even knowing the long-term implications.
naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Sigh, read what I wrote re gummy worms.
Also sugar isn’t addictive, not in any meaningful way. It is pleasureable but labelling it as an addiction is a health crank position.
BadlyDrawnRhino@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
But you can’t just pair two entirely unrelated hyper-palatable things as some kind of gotcha. No one pairs fish fingers with gummy worms because that’s an absurd idea, but plenty of people will pair fish fingers with potato gems, because they’re delicious separately as well as together.
No one is saying that marketing isn’t a factor here. But to ignore the combination of cheap, easy, and tasty misses a big part of the puzzle, and if we’re going to fix the problem, you need to consider all aspects.