Unhealthy by Default

I may not always present it this way, but my focus for obesity prevention policy is to make the healthy choice the default choice (more people desire to make it the easy choice).  In other words, I think it should be hard to eat unhealthy - not the other way around.

So, imagine my chagrin when my friends and I went to the movies last week (war horse) and were ushered over to the concession stand to BUY OUR TICKETS.

I can think of four reasons why a theater/cinema would close the ticket counter.  They could all easily be true.

• It was a slow time of day and the ticket window employees had not yet arrived
• The ticket window employees all called "off" sick
• The company does not want to pay that many people so they are having the concession clerks do two jobs, AND
• By having people buy their tickets at the candy and popcorn display, they are more likely to buy popcorn and candy. [my work is never done!]

And a funny story about that - one of my friends ordered a (diet)soda at that concession stand when she bought her ticket.  Another friend remarked how the movie price really wasn't so bad - only a little over 5 bucks.  My soda friend said,"really?"  as she looked at her receipt more closely, and then, "oh my gosh, did that soda cost 5 dollars!?"  Indeed it did -  the regular soda probably costs less.