MARCH 29, 2010

The End of the Big Gulp Era?

In the 1930’s Eleanor Roosevelt traveled across the country as the eyes and ears for FDR. She was stunned by the depth of poverty she saw and determined to act. The faces of gaunt men, hungry children, panicked mothers stuck with her as she lobbied the President to provide greater assistance to needy families. She promoted WPA programs, created a furniture company at Hyde Park and helped sponsor government funded communities such as Eleanor West Virginia where my mother grew up with her 11 brothers and sisters.

Today, one lifetime removed from that era, another motivated and engaged first lady is likewise engaged in confronting a major societal threat - childhood obesity. How remarkable that we have from gone from a nation where one third was, as FDR said, “ill housed, ill clothed and ill fed” to a nation where nearly every family is touched by obesity and diabetes.

This is but another example of a world that has become saturated. With credit cards, calories, ads, noise, pollution, choices and demands. For most people in developed countries today the greatest threat they face is abundance. Managing this challenge is one of the great dramas of our day. Can we transition from “the age of more” which has existed since WWII to an age where quality not quantity is the new model for success. A drama that we will all be watching in the years to come.