Big Food, the Diet Industrial Complex and now, miracle drugs?

Three-quarters of all Americans are overweight or obese. Despite the diet industry’s ballooning revenue at some $80 billion, whatever they are doing clearly is not working — which is a great business model but a pretty bad outcome for customers. With a whole new category of diabetes drugs being prescribed off-label for weight loss, what can we expect next?

Struggling with your weight? It’s because you are outmatched

As the Washington Post’s Tamar Haspel observes, “When three-quarters of humans can’t navigate the system successfully, the problem is the system, not the humans.” She notes that the food industry “developed product after product that was deliberately designed to be overeaten.” She uses the analogy of trying to play tennis with Serena Williams — no matter how much you practice, you’re unlikely to triumph.

That’s because the companies that you can think of as “big food” have gotten really good at helping us to consume more of it. The so-called “green revolution” of the 50’s and 60’s allowed for the application of industrial methods to farming. Earl Butz, the Nixon-era Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture, under a mandate from the President to combat rising food prices to a restive middle class told farmers to “get big or…