Food and Credit Similarities

I recently observed how food and credit products are similar to each other as I was watching a paid weight loss program on TV. It also reminded me how lucrative it must be for companies to sell us more of both food and credit products and then come to our rescue by offering us other products like diet and debt consolidation programs to resolve the problems that resulted from over consuming their products in the fist place. Just pay more attention to the infomercials you see on TV and elsewhere, what categories of infomercials do you normally see the most? I normally see food and loan advertisings, then I also see diet, exercise and loan consolidation program offers. Some companies are even smarter and combine both categories into one like foods that help you lose weight or credit cards that come with a credit monitoring service to help you detect errors and identity theft. Well, if we consume a healthy dose of each, we won’t need to lose weight or consolidate debt. We need both food and credit to have a balanced and healthy life, but we as individuals have to define what that dose is for us because no one else will do that for us, especially those who make billions selling us these products. This reminds me of an old marketing system, which advocates creating problems and then offering help to fix the problem. The new marketing system goes one step further and advocates having consumers pay for creating the problems. I hope you get the idea but the immediate similarities that came to my mind as I was watching TV are listed below:

1. Excess food and credit are both bad for us because they lead to serious problems. Excess food kills people and excess debt destroys lives. There is no doubt that obesity, bankruptcies and identity theft are the results of excess food and credit consumption, and have reached dangerously high levels.

2. Both food and credit are big businesses. Again, by just looking at the number of infomercials, TV shows, and other advertisings, I can only guess that food and credit are big businesses. Individuals are encouraged to consume more of food and credit products and as they do that, face the serious consequences that come with their over consumption of these food and credit products.

3. They are both addictive because we tend to over consume both of them. Unless we are suicidal, I don’t think we will excessively consume products that kill us and/or destroy our lives unless these products were addictive in nature or were designed to be addictive. Some examples of addictive products are junk foods, alcohol, cigarettes and credit loans. I don’t need to define what constitutes junk food, as there are plenty of expert articles to help you identify them but they are usually man-made with high saturated fat and low vitamins and minerals. Although, we know that excess food and credit lead to excess weight, debt and identity theft, we continue to consume more of both. I would think, and it has been reported in numerous studies and news articles, that these products and their marketing systems are designed to do just that, make us consume more of them.

4. Food and credit products exist in abundance. They are some of the most competitive categories offered to consumers along with beauty and health products, although, I think the “health” category is closely aligned with our lifestyle and the kind of foods we eat. More specifically, as credit cards and other loans like mortgages have been sold to or rather pushed down the throat of consumers for many years, the consequences of such actions have been more apparent in recent years. They include identity theft, bankruptcies, foreclosures, and low credit scores for which there are solutions like, credit report monitoring, refinancing, debt consolidation, and credit score improvement programs. Did you know that some banks that send us credit cards, also sell credit-monitoring services to detect identity theft? Do you think the banks know that our risk of credit fraud increases with each additional credit card in our pockets? I leave it up to you to make your own conclusion.

5. Increased number of people is affected in both areas of food and credit consumption. Obesity, bankruptcies, foreclosures and identity theft exist in abundance and since we know that these are in part consequences of excess food or credit consumption, we can only conclude that more people consume more of these food and credit products.

6. Companies that sell food or personal credit products won’t tell you how much of each you really need, encourage you to consume more of their food or credit products and services, and won’t come to your rescue when you get in trouble after excessive consumption. These companies only think about quick increases in revenue and depend on people’s addiction to their products to achieve their goals. They don’t care about the loss of consumer confidence because they rely on their advertising, marketing and addictive aspects of their products to continue pushing sales upward. I think that if companies honestly educate consumers about the benefits and/or dangers of the food and credit products and their over consumption, they can ensure long term consumer confidence, loyalty, and revenue growth.

7. There are plenty of advertising and professional help to resolve consequences of excess credit and food consumption. Problems in both areas create billions in revenue for companies that come to our rescue. We are left alone to prevent and resolve our excess weight, huge debts and identity fraud. Do you think companies that sold us food or credit products, which created our weight or credit fraud problems, should help us cover part or all of the solution, even if we over consumed those products? I leave it up to the lawyers but the answer is probably yes if the companies fail to educate consumers about the risks of over consumption.

In conclusion, as individuals, we must make our own assessment of which food or credit products are in our best interest. We must also determine the maximum level of consumption beyond which we expose our health, credit worthiness and identity to risk.

Return from food and credit similarities to the identity theft overview section.