The Center for Disease Control reported yesterday that obesity rates in 9 states is now 30%.  30%??  That is INSANE.  That means that means that 72.5 million Americans are unhealthily overweight.  Why?  Um.  DUH.  Eating more and exercising less.  Even more scary is the fact that 17% of all children and adolescents are obese.  But honestly folks, the CDC really is blaming US, the food industry for making Americans fat:  "America has become obesogenic characterized by environments that promote increased food intake, non healthful foods and increased inactivity".  I think obesogenic is a made up word because spell check doesn't recognize it yet, but you get the drift.  Meanwhile, is this true?  Are we as a culture so weak that we have to respond to every McDonald's ad we see?  Personally, I blame blogging and Facebook for the lack of activity, but WHATEVER, we are FATTIES!  (I am struggling to lose 10 pounds for 5 years now--well it was 5, now ten, next year?  Who knows. At any rate, do I want to be considered obese in another 5 years?)  Obesity has created $147 billion in medical costs to insurance companies, and frankly the impact that we as an industry can make on promoted healthy weight could very possibly outweigh (no pun intended) anything Obama will accomplish with insurance programs.  $147 BILLION! 

So, I guess by now, you are wondering what can you do as a food marketer? Whether you are low calorie, high calorie or not, we recommend doing what the alcohol industry has been doing for years.  Promote moderation. And healthy living.  Via lifestyle articles (30 minutes of walking will burn your serving of chips AND help your heart) Might not help in terms of increasing sales, (after all full bags of delicious chips, are a hell of a lot better than 1/2) but  if more people ate a little, rather than a complete cold turkey of your product as they tried to lose weight, we could keep sales up, and calories down.

Just a little food for thought.