There is a great piece on the Washington Post website by David Zinczenko, editor of Men’s Health, in which he notes that a recent study on obesity determined that overweight people tend to share a number of characteristics:
• They use larger plates.
• They like to look at food while they eat, and prefer restaurant seats overlooking the buffet table to seats looking out a window.
• They choose efficiency when picking utensils – preferring, for example, forks and spoons over chopsticks.
• They clean their plates.
• They chew faster than skinny people.
• And they skip breakfast, which Zinczenko says increases the likelihood of obesity by 450 percent.
• They use larger plates.
• They like to look at food while they eat, and prefer restaurant seats overlooking the buffet table to seats looking out a window.
• They choose efficiency when picking utensils – preferring, for example, forks and spoons over chopsticks.
• They clean their plates.
• They chew faster than skinny people.
• And they skip breakfast, which Zinczenko says increases the likelihood of obesity by 450 percent.
- KC's View:
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One of the points that Zinczenko makes is that to a great degree, the restaurant industry has studied consumer eating habits to such a meticulous degree that it understands how to get people to eat more. Which results in a national obesity problem.
(Based on some of the emails I’ve been getting this week, I feel like I should add, not that there’s anything wrong with that!)
The point here is that this could give supermarket retailers a point of differentiation, if they choose to use it: In the battle against obesity, we’re on your side. This may not be the most elegant marketing construction…but you get my point.
