Introduction: When the Unacceptable Becomes the Norm
At what point does something harmful become normal? Is it when enough people accept it? When it becomes too inconvenient to challenge? Or when the corporate interests behind it make questioning difficult?
From high sugar content in infant formula to ultra-processed foods, excessive screen time, and sedentary lifestyles, we live in a society that systematically normalizes unhealthy behaviors. These trends don’t just happen—they are gradually ingrained through marketing, cultural shifts, and regulatory loopholes until they become our new default.
Once something is normalized, it becomes invisible—no longer questioned, no longer challenged. But at what cost?
The Big Picture: How Unhealthy Becomes Acceptable
1. The Slow Creep of Acceptability
Unhealthy choices are rarely forced upon us overnight. Instead, they creep in subtly until they are woven into everyday life. Consider:
- Sugar in Infant Formula: Once an outrageous idea, now an accepted industry norm despite evidence linking early sugar consumption to metabolic disorders.
- Ultra-Processed Foods: What was once occasional convenience food is now the foundation of modern diets, marketed as safe, easy, and even nutritious.
- Screen Time and Sedentary Lifestyles: Once discouraged, now inescapable in daily life due to work-from-home culture and digital entertainment.
What all these examples have in common is that they were introduced as “exceptions”—temporary solutions that, over time, became permanent realities.
The Role of Food Marketing: Manufacturing Acceptance
Marketing doesn’t just sell products—it shapes cultural acceptance. Consider how corporations:
✔ Rebrand the unhealthy as “better” – Diet sodas, plant-based junk foods, and “low-fat” processed snacks are marketed as healthier alternatives while maintaining the same underlying problems.
✔ Exploit scientific ambiguity – Industry-funded studies often provide just enough contradictory information to confuse consumers and delay regulation.
✔ Normalize early adoption – Getting children hooked early ensures lifelong consumption habits, as seen with sugary cereals, processed baby food, and addictive digital content.
The result? Consumers believe it’s their own “choice” to engage in unhealthy behaviors, even when that choice has been engineered from the start.
The Difficulty of Reversing Harmful Norms
1. Psychological Resistance to Change
Once a behavior is normalized, undoing it becomes exponentially harder. People develop emotional, cultural, and even nostalgic connections to unhealthy habits:
- Comfort foods linked to childhood memories make people resistant to dietary change.
- Social norms discourage questioning behaviors that everyone else participates in.
- Cognitive dissonance makes people justify poor choices rather than acknowledge they were misled.
2. Industry Pushback and Misinformation
Companies heavily resist change that threatens their profits. When a harmful product is challenged:
- Regulatory delays and lobbying efforts keep it on the market longer.
- Misinformation campaigns create public confusion about the risks.
- “Choice” narratives shift responsibility onto individuals instead of corporate practices.
This is why it took decades to ban lead in gasoline, trans fats in food, and cigarette advertising—and why we still struggle with issues like sugar in infant formula, BPA in plastics, and ultra-processed food dependency.
A Critical Mindshift: How Do We Break the Cycle?
✔ Question the “Normal” – If something is universally accepted, ask who benefits from that acceptance.
✔ Recognize Engineered Behaviors – Many of our “choices” are carefully designed to serve corporate interests.
✔ Push for Systemic Change – Real change requires policy shifts, corporate accountability, and public awareness.
✔ Rebuild Consumer Awareness – Educating consumers about how normalization happens can help undo its influence.
Recommended Reading & Resources
How the Food Industry Pushes Unhealthy Food
Safefood
🔗 https://www.safefood.net/healthy-eating/food-environment/how-fooled
Habit Formation, and How It’s Used In Business
Perx Health
🔗 https://www.perxhealth.com/post/habit-formation-and-how-its-used-in-business
Is Food Addiction Making Us Fat?
Scientific America
🔗 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-food-addiction-making-us-fat/
Connecting the Dots: Sugar in Infant Formula and Beyond
One of the most striking examples of harmful normalization is the widespread use of added sugars in infant formula. Despite overwhelming evidence of negative health impacts, it has become so deeply embedded in the industry that few consumers even question its presence.
If we can normalize sugar consumption from infancy, what else have we unknowingly accepted as safe?
🔗 Continue reading: The Hidden Sugars in Infant Formula: A Sweet Start or a Bitter Beginning?
For further exploration, see how corporate influence in public health perpetuates these trends:
🔗 Read more: Corporate Influence in Public Health: When Profits Trump Well-Being
Image acknowledgment:
We’re grateful to the talented photographers and designers on Unsplash for providing beautiful, free-to-use images. The image on this page is by Getty Images. Check out their work here: https://unsplash.com/@gettyimages, edited with canva.com
