Over the last 18 months I’ve come to realize a fundamental truth holding us back from making greater progress toward a healthy food system: we’re fighting each other instead of the food industry.
An extension of its personal-choice propaganda, the food industry is exceptional at deflecting responsibility and convincing us we’re the ones to blame for the current state of public health. Instead of taking an iota of responsibility for the stores full of junk food, lunch trays piled high with processed meats, and heart-attack causing hospital menus, these companies have engaged in decades-long misinformation campaigns aimed at making us believe obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and even cancer are the results of personal failure.
Explicit in those misinformation campaigns is the idea that if we truly cared about public health, we would focus on improving our willpower or decision-making abilities. Dangerous in and of itself, an unfortunate byproduct of that messaging is we've come to believe it's not only true for ourselves, but that it should be true for everyone around us also. Regardless of circumstance.
I see it every day on our social media pages and various other newsfeeds. The bickering. The prescriptive “my way is the right way” posts. The anger, confusion, and despair. All directed at one another.
And while we’re fighting each other, the food industry – the very corporations designing our grocery stores, our school lunch lines, our hospital menus, and our restaurants – gets away with serving known disease-causing foods to our loved ones. Let me repeat that. Companies serve KNOWN (scientifically proven, evidence backed, unequivocally true) disease-causing foods to our families and then blame us for the poor health outcomes linked to those products.
These companies depend on our collective inaction in order to profit. As long as we stay quiet, or direct our anger at one another, their bottom line is safe. Imagine if we turned our outrage toward the companies poisoning our children and destroying public health instead of against one another.
Imagine the power we'd have if we took a stand together. It gives me chills just thinking about it!
We will not succeed in creating a healthier food system by fighting each other. Our children won’t be freed from the burden of diet-related disease if our battles stay Us vs. Us. Until we’re united in our fight against the food industry, we’re wasting our time.
The food industry fights unfairly. They lobby. They misinform. They pit us against one another. And they have to, because they know the real fight – the one they lose - is Us vs. Them.
Unfortunately, right now they’re winning.
So, let’s stop fighting each other. Let’s save the arguments about who is right and who is wrong until after we’ve leveled the playing field for everyone and our food system supports healthier choices everywhere. Battling each other doesn’t help the collective fight for a better food system. It just slows us down and plays into what the food industry wants and already expects from consumers: zero accountability.
We’ve got too much passion and too much energy to waste it on the wrong target.
It's time to turn our attention to the real enemy and hold more food companies accountable for fixing a system that is literally killing the people we love. It's time for a balanced food system.
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