Dear Dad,
You’re business savvy so this should make sense.
(Sales Revenue) – (Operating Expenses) = Net Profits
This rudimentary equation demonstrates how businesses across any industry make money. It follows that increasing sales and minimizing expenses is the quickest way to increase company profits, a main objective of any CEO. (A legal objective of publicly traded companies who are bound by law to maximize shareholders profits). So what does this have to do with health?
Obviously, yet economically interesting, eating food is necessary. Everyone must eat to survive which allows food companies to operate in an industry that no one can opt out of. No matter what—during times of war and peace, worldwide pandemics, whether in a desert, in a jungle, or in a stocked supermarket—if you sell food then there are customers all around.
As a businessman, imagine selling in a sector where the demand for your product is recession proof and guaranteed! Though, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows for food companies because while everyone must eat, there is a finite amount of food that people can eat. Notice the word can instead of should. Therein lies the problem and why the above formula has a lot to do with your health. There is a ceiling on food company profits that is capped by the amount of calories the population is willing to eat.
For the sake of argument let’s pretend that the world consists of 100 people and that a 2,500 calorie diet correctly balances their needs and energy expenditures. Let’s further contend that every 100 calories costs each customer $1 dollar, making each person spend $25 per day for their food and $2,500 per day across the whole population.
In this scenario, the formula looks like this for the entire food industry.
$2,500 – Operating Expenses = Net Profits
Leaving operating expenses alone for now, let’s look at the sales revenue portion of the equation, $2,500. Food companies meet in board rooms, produce food-like products, and design advertising campaigns to increase their own sales and grab a share of the available revenue. With many companies competing for a share of the available revenue there isn’t enough to go around…if, of course, everyone eats the proper amount. To address this issue the food companies have solved for a different equation.
More food eaten = more sales = more profits!
$2,500 per day can easily increase to $3,000 if the population eats 3,000 calories a day instead of 2,500. Just an extra donut or pop-tart and OJ. At the real population level, accounting only for the United States with a population of about 333 million people, the potential increase in sales revenue is quite dramatic. The graph below shows the average amount of consumed calories per person over the last 50 years.
Have people changed so much over the last fifty years that we need to eat that many more calories? Our health statistics have certainly changed. The graph below tracks the percentage of obese Americans over roughly the same time period.
The more we eat the more profits that are available to food companies (same with health care providers…but that’s a whole other rabbit hole). Ever wonder why health, nutrition, and proper diet information seems so confusing. Because a lot of companies pay a lot of money to make it confusing. Wonder why not overeating is so hard? Because a lot of companies pay a lot of money to make it hard.
Comedic song writer, Bo Burnham, phrases the conundrum using this admittedly heinous analogy.
Imagine being the “owner of the company that makes rape whistles,
Even though you started the company with good intentions trying to reduce the rate of rape,
Now you don’t want to reduce it all cause if the rape rate declines then you’ll see an equal decline in whistle sales…”
Sadly, there are very few people in the world incentivized to promote your health and well-being. But the people who want you to be healthy are the most important ones. Do it for them.
With Love,
JSR
