MEGA-TREND #2: The Porking of America

MEGA-TREND #2: The Porking of America
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“There’s no such thing as too thin… or even kinda thin.”

Improvements in food production, combined with an increasingly sedentary lifestyle is rapidly creating a society where being grossly overweight is considered normal. There are now parts of the U.S. — mostly in the South — where thin people are almost non-existent. It’s like a plague of pudge, and it’s spreading faster than the waistbands at a fast-food chain.

There’s plenty of tut-tutting going on, particularly in government circles (e.g. Michelle Obama’s healthy eating program.) However, while the government gives ample lip service to healthy eating and exercising, they put their money where your mouth is by subsidizing the production of corn syrup, milk products, red meat, and so forth.

The truth is that food suppliers (and the government agencies that are in thrall to them) want the public to get fat, because then the public eat more, and thereby increase revenues. From the perspective of the entire food chain business, the fatter the populace, the more money they’ll make.

The healthcare industry, of course, also pays a lot of lip service to nutrition and exercising, but because healthcare is a for-profit enterprise, there’s really no incentive to keep people thin. Quite the contrary. From the perspective of a doctor, hospital or pharmaceutical firm, a fat customer is a good customer. Same thing for the dieting industry, which depends upon repeat business for continued revenue and growth.

Meanwhile, the entire country is undergoing a massive retooling of seating, bedding, and transportation in order to accommodate a world where the average person will takes up significantly more space than in previous years. And that is creating all sorts of business opportunities. For example, the world will need thousands of plus-sized clothes shops, ever more massive automobiles, large and comfortable commodes, reinforced ramps, and so forth.

http://www.bnet.com/blog/salesmachine/five-mega-trends-that-will-shape-the-next-decade/13129?pg=3