Social Engineering

Social engineering is defined as the ability to change a person's beliefs and behaviors related to a problem. Some social engineering approaches have been to educate people about eating healthier and having a more active lifestyle. One example to educate people was the move Supersize Me. This movie documented a man who ate McDonald's fast food for all of his meals for a month. This man who began as a healthy individual, slowly found himself gaining weight at a rapid pace. This also ultimately began to deteriorate his health throughout the process. This is a dramatic way of showing society the effects of excessive and unhealthy eating. Through such documentary's such as this one new laws were introduced which required fast food restaurants to include nutritional facts (if you could consider it that) on the food products themselves. This allows the individuals to make smarter choices when eating out. Although the government can not win all of the battles they are working on and pursuing various issues such as: implementing school nutrition standards, taxing unhealthy foods, physical education requirements in public schools, funding for walking and biking trails, and mandated coverage on weight loss treatments and health plans. Other avenues have included limiting vending machines, increasing nutritional education, and outreach to parents. The government is also working towards requiring equal television air time for commercials that support healthy living. Some other social engineering techniques included the 1994 FDA requirement for nutritional facts which can help consumers make smart choices. As a way to address the obesity problem, in 2006 the FDA has now required the trans fat content to be listed on the food product as well. (This information was taken from: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/354/24/2601 )