Philip Morris Companies, the tobacco giant behind Marlboro, owned Lunchables for 23 years and used cigarette research strategies to shape the brand.
- Internal documents show Philip Morris shared scientists, technology, and product development methods across its tobacco, food, and alcohol divisions, with Lunchables serving as a model example of that strategy.
- Lunchables was engineered to appeal to kids’ desire for autonomy and to ease mothers’ guilt, using the same consumer psychology approach Philip Morris developed for cigarettes.
- Researchers say tobacco-style regulations, including warning labels, taxes, and restrictions on child-focused marketing, may be worth applying to ultraprocessed foods like Lunchables.
as a non-american stuff like lunchables fucking baffles me, just give the kids some clementines?
Lunchables was engineered to appeal to kids’ desire for autonomy and to ease mothers’ guilt, using the same consumer psychology approach Philip Morris developed for cigarettes.
I loved lunchables. FUCK!
They were quick easy meals to pack for your kid but the nutritional value was suspect.
It’s crucially important to raise kids with an understanding of whole food and its importance. You can’t keep them from processed food, but you can make it clear it’s a sometimes choice. Once they’re an adult and start to care about their health, they can build on the whole food foundation you gave them.
But God, so many of us were just raised on whatever came out of a box or packet or tube.
You can squeeze shit into a food shape and some sumbitch will eat it that’s for ding dang sure!
I ran across “tender shaped chicken” from Walmart’s “Better Goods” brand recently. 😩
so… long nuggets?
Yeah, it’s really sad.
There are scientists who make their careers peddling shady results for big companies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt
Its tragic
And the system rewards them
Guess it was a good thing we were always too poor to afford lunchables?
pbj on wonder bread brought to school in a wonder bread bag.
So glad I sold my kid on the idea of “homemade Lunchables” years and years ago.
Capitalism was a mistake.
Should’ve never come down from the trees.
out of the ocean!* you dry bastard!
What’s that? Glub glub glub? Can’t hear you in all that water, fish boy.
They could have used all that research and knowledge to make something of good quality that would ease a mothers busy work day,and be healthy and nice for kids
But of course we just went with the “fuck the kids, we found a way to earn a few more cents by feeding those critters some toxic shit”
Anybody else nocticing an increase in ‘cigarette content/advertising’ these days?
Seriously? No. I don’t think I have seen a cigarette ad in 20+yrs. Haven’t seen a vape one in a probably decade either.
Well I’m not really talking about traditional advertising either. More of the viral and algorithmic kind.
