Originally Posted by Marion Nestle

Yes. The food industry is in trouble, in the sense that it is in a hugely competitive environment. Our country has available in the food supply 3,900 calories a day for every man, woman, and child in the country. That's roughly twice the actual population need. Food companies are beholden to stockholders. They have to grow in order to maintain their stock prices. We already have 3,900 calories a day and 320,000 different food products in the American marketplace. They can't all keep growing in that situation. So all they can do is to try to get consumers to eat their products instead of somebody else's, or to eat more in general, and they're just terrific at doing that.

And they do that not only through advertising and marketing, but also by enormous efforts to change the social environment, so that it is now socially acceptable for children to drink soft drinks in school and all day long, for babies to have soft drinks in baby bottles, and for people to snack all day long and to eat food in larger and larger portions, all of which are strategies to encourage people to eat more.