In the 70’s 47% of Americans were overweight. In 2002, more than 65% of Americans are overweight including 31% who were clinically obese. An article this year in the Journal of the American Medical Association said that about 112,000 premature deaths in 2000 attributed to obesity. The blame for obesity is mainly the fleet of fast food chains, whose Americans sales went from $6 million in 1970 to $134 million in 2005. (EBSCOhost) Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation says that “Americans spend more on fast food than they do on higher education, PCs or new cars.” Nearly 400,000 Americans die each year in the United States of poor diet and not exercising that is an increase of 33 percent since 1990.
Researchers from the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity examined the nutritional quality and advertising of more than 100 brands and nearly 300 varieties of cereals. They found an overall improvement in the nutrition of the cereals in recent years, but the products are still much worse than those sold to adults. In general, they have 56 per cent more sugar, half as much fiber and 50 per cent more sodium. Increasingly, breakfast cereal makers are offering more nutritious low-sugar options. The trick is trying to find them amidst the Cocoa Puffs, Frosted Flakes, Lucky Charms and all the other sugary concoctions on grocery store shelves.
Keurig Marketing Strategy Target Market While Keurig decided whether or not to launch their product into the at-home market, they did some market research to and looked at the statistics for the United States retail at-home coffee market. The 12 found represented an enormous opportunity for Keurig. In 1996, gourmet coffee sales were at $2,200 million. Four years later, in 2000, the gourmet coffee sales had increased by 40 percent to $3,100 million. Also, in 2000, approximately 320 million pounds of gourmet coffee were sold in the United States, a 25.5 percent increase in pound consumption by volume from 1996.
• Non-traditional retail stores increased their share of consumers food-at-home from 1 7.7% to 30.8 in 2003. • According to the USDA traditional retailers market share declined from 82.3% to 69.2%. • Wal-Mart was both a driver and a beneficiary of this change, as its share of U.S supermarket sales reached 15.2% by 2003. • In 2004, Wal-Mart opened its first California supercenter. • By 2007, the number of Wal-Mart supercenters nationwide were forecasted to reach 2000, translating to 35% share of food store industry.
According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, childhood obesity rates in America have tripled since 1980, and today nearly one in three children are obese. The numbers are even higher in ethnic communities, where nearly 40% of the kids are obese. This is astonishing. What happened? Where did all these extra pounds come from?
All told, however, consumption of HFCS in the United States increased by more than 1,000 percent between 1970 and 1990, and a study published in the April 2004 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, concluded that Americans over the age of two consume more than 300 calories daily from caloric sweeteners, one-sixth of their average daily calories. HCFS may also promote weight gain because it behaves in the body more like fat than glucose, the blood sugar derived from other sweet foods. Some evidence suggests that fructose may disturb liver function, and unlike glucose, doesn't appear to trigger
In 2008, the souring economy hit Whole Foods rather hard. Sales increases at Whole Foods stores open at least one year rose only 0.8 percent in 2008 versus 8.2 percent in the previous year. In August of 2008, Whole Foods announced that planned new store openings for 2009 would be reduced. Whole Foods had to back out of signed leases or revise the lease terms of 70 new stores that had been scheduled to open in 2009 and 2010. Whole Foods recently arranges to sell $425 million of preferred stock to private equity investors, which equated to an ownership interest of 17 percent in the event the private equity investors exercised rights to convert their preferred stock into common
Instead most people blame the fast food companies. In the article “Its Portion Distortion” by Shannon Brownlee it is portion sizes and the lack of nutritional guides that are the cause of obesity. While some people may believe that is true I have no idea how to read a nutritional guide and I was taught as I was growing up that fast food is bad for your health. For example the movie “Super Size me” was made to warn people about the dangers of eating nothing but fast food. My family eats out only once or twice a week and the other days we eat home cooked meals.
‘Research indicates an annual increase of this figure of 1-1.5%, a trend that suggests half of all young Australians will be overweight by the year 2025’ (Tipping the scales: Intervention and management of childhood obesity 2007). In developed countries, obesity is the most common child health problem
besity “The percentage of obese children has nearly doubled in the past 20 years; today's generation of children is the fattest in history” (Oliver, Killer Facts, para. 2). This is the launching pad for our future and what is to come if we do not change. School lunches are a staple in some children’s diets and if you include breakfast school meals can make up over half of a child’s food for one day. School teaches our children math and science so why not teach them how to take care of themselves and eat healthfully.