Obesity Prevention Conference: Marketing and Obesity

Hey, how it's going? I know I haven't been on here in a while, but let me give you a little update. I'm in San Diego at the Childhood Obesity Conference.
I attended a session on a major topic that I feel passionately about: Marketing and Its Impact on Childhood Obesity. This topic addresses how media is marketing unhealthy food that affects our communities' health.

In this session I learned the sneaky process of marketing. How the marketers work is that they identify attractive marketing segments, then channel resources into getting those segments to purchase their products, so they can make a profit. See on their end, they're saying "If it doesn't make money in this segment, then it doesn't sense to sell here." African American and Mexican/Latinos young people have a higher obesity rate than all other racial groups.
This is the answer to why these populations are specifically marketed to. product companies make their money! In general, American children spend nearly 30billion of their own money annually on fast and highly processed food; companies design products to tap this market. African American responses more effectively to buy, so that's why McDonald targets African Americans. For example, they add themes of basketball and hip-hop music in their commercials. Initially, these products target African-American youth, but eventually it expands many other populations.

1. Products-The marketers have to come up with something sell.
2. Price-Increase price over time,
3. Place-They go for urban areas
   
4. Promotion-Youth of color are trend starters

It's crazy how they use people has brand marketers, and then use the image kids to attract and sell to other kids. This is not right! They are tricking us into buying their bad products. The Praxis Project quoted "They're talking dollars, we're talking lives". They see us as dollars signs instead of human beings. So people what can we do to try to stop the problem. Make some noise, follow the money, know the rules, and remix those rules.

Jowana George