Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Is Food Marketing Making Us Fat? Fat Cats Vs Dogmatists., Stephen S. Holden

Stephen S Holden

For many, it seems obvious that food marketing is making us fat. The anger and outrage that was once evoked by tobacco companies is now being repackaged and aimed at ‘Big Food’ (Hennessy, 2014). But is it justified, is food marketing the cause of obesity? And in any case, does outrage and dogmatism help solve the problem? This paper suggests that blaming the marketers, both Big Food and "lazy leisure", is a disputable claim, and dangerously shifts responsibility from individuals to external agents.