Food Vendor Beware! On Ordinary Morality and Unhealthy Marketing
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Food Vendor Beware! On Ordinary Morality and Unhealthy Marketing Running Head: Food Vendor Beware! Tjidde Tempels 1,2,3 & Vincent Blok 3 & Marcel Verweij 3 Accepted: 16 December 2019/ # The Author(s) 2019
Abstract
Food and beverage firms are frequently criticised for their impact on the spread of noncommunicable diseases like obesity and diabetes type 2. In this article we explore under what conditions the sales and marketing of unhealthy food and beverage products is irresponsible. Starting from the notion of ordinary morality we argue that firms have a duty to respect people’s autonomy and adhere to the principle of non-maleficence in both market and nonmarket environments. We show how these considerations are relevant when thinking about immoral behaviour in the food and beverage industry, and identify under what conditions sales and marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to adults and children is wrong. Based on this analysis we argue that firms should take into account: whether consumers are able to identify manipulative marketing, the degree of manipulation, as well as the negative impact a product has on health. We hold that for the food industry to act responsible it should re-evaluate the marketing of unhealthy products to adults and refrain from marketing to children. We conclude this study by making several recommendations on how the food industry should interact with consumers and highlight what changes need to be made in corporate practice. Keywords Food industry . Manipulation . Marketing . Public health . Corporate responsibility
* Tjidde Tempels [email protected] Vincent Blok [email protected] Marcel Verweij [email protected]
1
Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, Post Box 9108, 6500 HK Nijmegen, The Netherlands
2
Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies, Post Box 9103, 6500 HK Nijmegen, The Netherlands
3
School of Social Sciences, Wageningen University, Hollandseweg 1, 6707 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands
3
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Food Ethics
(2020) 5:3
Introduction In the debate on corporate responsibility there is ongoing discussion on the legitimate impact of businesses on public issues. One of the sectors where firms are increasingly attributed responsibility is in the food and beverage industry1, where firms are criticised and held responsible for the rise of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes (Dorfman et al. 2012; Nestle 2018; Stuckler and Nestle 2012). While NCDs occur as the result of a variety of behavioural, genetic and environmental factors, they are frequently associated with unhealthy diets. Dietary choices affect our health as (over)consumption of unhealthy food products2 foster metabolic risk factors like obesity and high blood pressure, which can lead to NCDs (WHO 2018). Recent empirical studies show how the consumption of unhealthy food products like soft drinks, red meat and ultra-processed foods has steadily grown over the past years (cf. Afshin et al. 2019; Imamura et al. 2015; Mi
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