I've decided, after much careful consideration, that the reason for this is the existence, or rather, lack there of, or resealable snacks. That's right kids, it's not that we're overly obsessed with television and the sedentary lifestyle of the technology savvy computer culture. It's not that our idea of exercise walking from our car to the store to pick up a Wii Fit.
It's not the our food is packed with preservatives, that we buy and eat in bulk, or that fast food is the sodium-packed solution to those who are too busy to cook, too bothered to cook and every penny-pinching student in the country. Ohh, no. We owe our blatant obesity to a tiny, adhesive strip of plastic that, until recently, was absent from every family size pack M&M's, Doritos and other assorted sweet and salties in the States.During my semester in London, I came across the junk food revelation: when European's buy an ultra-large-king-size-jumbo bag of sugar sweets, they devour not in one sitting, but across a number of days, perhaps even weeks. This is thanks to the clever indulgence inhibiting intention of the resealable snack sticker:
[Here I tried to find a picture, but apparently Google Images is partial to the resealable zipper packaging readily available in every American store, ever.]
Like I said, we unhealthy American's have seen the resealable zipper. We are far too familiar with it. We laugh at it as it taunts us with the prospect of saving some for later. But the snack sticker is a whole other story. It involves folding and affixing an adhesive tab. It taunts us if it goes unused, and takes more skill to utilize, thus discouraging us from reopening the package once we've finally closed it. It intimidates us. It must be used, otherwise it is an entirely purposeless package appendage. It psychologically tricks us into taking our time with our snacks.
So there you go – the key to a healthy junk food attitude, sticker-latent packaging.
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