In 2023 42 state attorneys general sued Meta to remove Instagram features that Meta’s own research showed this – as confirmed by independent research – are harmful to teenage girls.
That same yr, a report by the nonprofit Sandy Hook Promise found that gun manufacturers did targeted at the youth market with eye-catching promoting and product placement in video games.
And in the period preceding the Olympic Games in Paris the leading international health journal urged the International Olympic Committee to end its relationship with Coca-Cola due to increased obesity, diabetes, heart disease and hypertension related to the consumption of sugary drinks.
Social media, guns, sugar: these are all examples of what we call “market-driven epidemics.”
When people take into consideration epidemics, they might think that they’re only brought on by viruses or other germs. But as public health expertswe all know this is just a part of the story. Trade can also cause epidemics. That’s why our team coined this phrase in a recent study, since you can’t solve an issue without naming it.
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Market-driven epidemics follow a well-recognized scenario. First, firms start selling a sexy, often addictive product. As increasingly people start using it, the health damage becomes increasingly clear. But whilst evidence of harm increases and fatalities multiply, sales continue to soar as firms resist efforts by public health authorities, consumer groups and others to police them.
We see this pattern across many products, including social media platforms, firearms, sugar-sweetened beverages, ultra-processed foods, opioids, nicotine products, infant formula, and alcohol. Collectively, their damage contributes to over 1 million people die yearly in the US.
How to fight the trade epidemic
In our study, we asked two key questions: Can such epidemics be combated by changing the consumption patterns of hundreds of thousands of individuals? And in that case, what is required?
We found the answers by many years of efforts to reduce unhealthy consumption of three products: cigarettes, sugar and prescription opioids.
In each case, Americans consumed increasingly of those foods, even in the face of mounting health problems, until a tipping point was reached. Thereafter, there was a gradual decline in consumption.
The immediate reason behind each tipping point varied greatly. On cigarettes, he was the trusted, authoritative voice of the Surgeon General of the United States He stated unequivocally in 1964 that smoking causes cancer.
In the case of sugar, one in every of the key moments was the famous petition from 1999 entitled “America: Drowning in sugar” submitted by the Center for Science in the Public Interest and supported by 72 leading public health organizations and experts. The petition called on the Food and Drug Administration to require food labels to include the variety of added sugars and their percentage of the really helpful day by day intake.
Once in force, the policy helped consumers make healthier food decisions while highlighting what number of products on the market contain sugar.
However, in the case of prescription opioids in 2011, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared an opioid epidemicsignaling to doctors that they were overprescribing and to the pharmaceutical industry that they were being irresponsible.
In each case, success got here after years of sustained efforts by scientists, public health officials and advocates to sway public opinion, often against deliberate corporate efforts to undermine them.
Then got here the 1964 report on smoking a decade of confusion that the industry has sown to divert public attention from the scientific consensus on the dangers of tobacco. The report provided conclusive authority that modified the narrative. Almost overnight, smoking ceased to be perceived as a universally accepted social custom and have become a deadly addiction. Today, simply 1 in 9 American adults smokecompared to almost half of all adults in 1954.
Actions taken in 1999 by public health leaders connected the dots between rising obesity rates and sugary foods and beverages. People began to analyze their weight-reduction plan in detail, especially their sugar intake. As a result, annual sugar consumption has since fallen by greater than 15 kilos per person, eliminating half the amount of sugar Americans added to their diets between 1950 and 2000.
The CDC’s report on opioids effectively conveyed to physicians that they can’t simply depend on patients to avoid the misuse of highly addictive drugs, underscoring their responsibility to help control the epidemic by limiting prescription opioids like OxyContin. Since the report, opioids have been prescribed by prescription reduced by 60% – more consistent with actual medical needs.
Learning from the past
While there aren’t any easy solutions to today’s market epidemics, we can learn from history about steps that can effectively reduce the consumption of harmful products.
Changing attitudes towards smoking show that the authoritative voice of presidency can still be extremely useful in combating corporate resistance and the spread of corporate disinformation.
It could also be effective to provide clear guidance on products and their alternatives, as public health leaders have done in recommending that consumers limit their consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages.
What we can learn from opioids is that putting pressure on those making consumption decisions, who are usually not at all times the consumers themselves, can have a profound impact on changing patterns of use.
Despite the progress made on these three issues, the United States continues to grapple with ongoing and emerging unhealthy food epidemics. For example, although smoking has declined dramatically, the shift to vaping and other nicotine-delivering products is creating latest challenges, especially amongst teenagers.
Meanwhile, gun deaths continue to rise, and guns at the moment are the leading cause child killer under 18, and the gun industry continues to oppose public health measures to reduce gun violence.
Currently, ultra-processed food is answerable for this almost 60% diets of the average American, but latest evidence confirms their harmfulness and the food industry defends them.
But our research shows that these problems can be solved – that it’s, in fact, possible to change the behavior of hundreds of thousands of Americans. This is excellent news. This means that solid evidence and public health motion can turn around a few of the world’s biggest health challenges, potentially saving money hundreds of thousands of lives AND billions of dollars in health care costs.
