January 2, 2025 — Will savings from reduced food and beverage spending be sufficient to cover the cost of obesity medicines? Will these medicines transform the patterns of a whole range of consumer purchases? Speculation about GLP-1s, consumers, and economics is rampant right now. It’s popping up in both serious economic reporting and academic journals. The speculation is only […]
December 22, 2024 — For the first time in 30 years, FDA has handed the food industry a better tool for marketing their products as “healthy.” But that’s not all. The agency is also working on a seal – an FDA-approved symbol – food marketers can put on their products if they meet the agency’s definition for healthy food. […]
September 10, 2024 — Consumer spending is by far the biggest driver of U.S. economic growth. So you can be sure that businesses are paying close attention to the disruption in longstanding consumer behavior patterns that GLP-1 medicines are bringing. People are buying new clothes, better food, spending less on weight watching, and more on health. Make no mistake. […]
August 15, 2024 — A sea change in what people want to buy. This is what food companies that depend on making money from chips and other snacks are seeing. Some brush it off as consumers becoming more “value-conscious” in the face of economic uncertainty. But others are getting to work on figuring out how to cope as they […]
July 19, 2024 — “If we were just to get a fraction [of potential members] to engage in the way that we do things differently with GLP-1s – it’s an insane opportunity for the company.” These words come from the Life Time chain of fitness clubs about the “Miora” wellness clinics they are now putting inside their facilities. It […]
June 16, 2024 — All-you-can-eat is a trap. In repeated case studies, it drives restaurants to lose money, sometimes to the point of bankruptcy. The latest poster child is Red Lobster and its Endless Shrimp deal that brought the chain financial misery and a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. How did this happen? Why did management seemingly have no clue […]
May 27, 2024 — The top dishes for this Memorial Day in the U.S. are hamburgers, hot dogs, barbecue ribs, grilled chicken, corn on the cob, coleslaw, and potato salad. Homemade, none of it (except maybe the hot dogs) belongs to the current boogeyman category of ultra-processed food. Nor does it qualify as the bedrock of a healthy diet. […]
November 10, 2023 — The pandemic has wrought a stark change in how Americans get around – 36% less walking and 37% more cycling. Meanwhile, pedestrian deaths hit a 40-year high last year. Active transportation in the U.S. has both risks and rewards. A Universal Decline The drop in walking trips was uniform across the country. Emily Adler, the […]
September 30, 2023 — We hate to be the bearer of bad news. But those pumpkin spice lattes that define the pleasure of fall are both ultra-processed and hyper-palatable. In other words, they spell doom for our dietary health. That is, they do if we accept the current presumption that UPF and HPF explain all that is increasingly unhealthy […]
June 3, 2023 — In case you missed it, the framework for obesity care is in the midst of great change. The availability of medicines that actually work to an extent never seen before is causing everyone to question presumptions that researchers and specialists have known to be false for some time. But these great changes are giving rise […]
