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Executive
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2007
Book Reviews |
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Microtrends:
The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes by Mark Penn |
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Rating: |
*** |
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(Recommended) |
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Click on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Nichy Burson-Marsteller CEO Mark Penn’s new
book, Microtrends:
The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes, dices and slices America
to uncover about 75 relatively unseen groups, any few of which, though they
are small, could end up driving big societal changes. Devoting just a few
pages to each group, Penn provides a concise summary of the group, and
encourages readers to think about the impact that such a group could have.
Here’s an excerpt, all of the chapter
titled, “Vegan Children,” pp. 177-179: In
the old days, the classic American family dinner was meat and potatoes. Mom
cooked. Dad praised, and had seconds. Kids cleaned their plates or could have
no dessert. Fido got the scraps. These days, Dad might have
cooked, or maybe Mom ordered out. The kids may have barely stopped IMing to
come to the table. Maybe Fido's wearing a bib and sitting on a dining room
chair. But of all the changes in the American dinner table since the 1950s,
the starkest one of all may be that what's on the kids' plates is meatless. ` About 1.5 million children in
the U.S. between the ages of 8 and 18 are vegetarians, up from virtually zero
fifty years ago. That's a million and a half kids who pass over all meat,
chicken, and fish. Nearly 3 million more pass up just meat, and
another 3 million pass up just chicken. Then there are also a smattering of
pescans (fish only), and vegans, who turn away all foods derived from animals
including eggs, milk, cheese, and sometimes honey. Many of them won't even
wear leather. Some of those kids are
vegetarian at the encouragement of their vegetarian parents—but more and
more, young people are rejecting fleshy food on their own. Especially girls.
A sizable 11 percent of girls aged 13-15 say they don't eat meat. While
Veggie Kids are fairly evenly distributed around the country, the Midwest
slightly edges out the rest of the country at 8 percent—which has got to be
disappointing to those meatpacking industry hubs of Chicago, Kansas City, and
Fort Worth. Why the veggie craze? Wasn't it
spinach that got all the bad press in 2006? Part of the reason for the rise
in Vegetarian Children is the rise of vegetarianism generally, and the
growing availability of meatless alternatives, not to mention increasing
social acceptance. There are now something like 11 million vegetarians in the
U.S. —one-third to one-half of whom are vegans, which is up from fewer than 5
percent in the early 1990s. Even Burger King, of all places, offers a veggie
patty. So these days, Veggie Kids can follow their impulses more easily than
youth of prior generations. Another factor in the rise of
Vegetarian Children is the rise of parental permissiveness in general —and
the premium on individuality, at every age, that permeates practically every
trend in this book. A child in the 1950s who told his parents he didn't want
to eat meat was probably lectured on nutrition, and conformity, and then
threatened with no dinner at all. These days, he will be celebrated for his
independence and probably his sensitivity to animals as well. Indeed, the
fact that children increasingly go vegetarian of their own accord probably
has less to do with practicality, or even parental tolerance, than it does
the remarkably steady stream of information that kids today receive regarding
the environment. Sure, we've had Earth Day since 1970, and every neighborhood
I've ever lived in has periodic Clean Up The Park days. But my 4-year-old
comes home from preschool singing "We Recycle, We Recycle" to the
tune of "Frere Jacques." She is growing up with a whole new sense
of what is politically correct—and kids can have some of the loudest and
most uninhibited voices around the household. I am not a smoker, but anyone
who is gets an earful from their children. I better darn well not put tin
cans or newspapers in the regular trash, or I will get looks. And the meat
industry is not faring too well in school, either. Fishing, hunting, and
chicken-farming are not some of the most favored activities in school. In
fact, if you think about it, what's really remarkable is not so much that
more and more kids are becoming vegan and vegetarian—but that kids today eat
as many animals as they do. Have you spent any time lately reading children's
books? There is barely a human being in them, until you get to at least Tween
Lit. And I'm not just talking about The Three Bears and The Three
Little Pigs, although those are good places to start. From the bears,
cats, and worms in Richard Scarry's books to Curious George the monkey
to the pig family in Olivia, there is practically no object of kids'
love that isn't an animal. And TV and movies are no better. From
2006's Wonder Pets on Nick Jr. to that year's hit movie Happy Feet (with
the singing penguins), how is it, frankly, that children are ever persuaded
— even by the most nutrition-conscious parents— to let animals pass their
lips? Alas, increasingly, they're
not. And nutrition experts increasingly say that a vegetarian diet can be
just as good for kids, if not better. So schools, camps, families,
and every type of restaurant will be getting ready to provide vegetarian options,
and the quality and variety will expand dramatically. Salads have ,,.become
the fastest-growing fast foods. Don't be surprised if the next fast food
events are tofu-based. And maybe some tempura broccoli, or Cajun cauliflower.
The industry has done a great deal with different forms of chicken, but they
have yet to really run through what can be done with zucchini fries. As from
the salads, the industry appears stuck in the meat and potatoes syndrome,
believing that vegetables are something that kids will eat only under extreme
duress. They are missing the trend — a lot of kids now genuinely like
vegetable-based foods. The
meat industry is so concerned about what is happening that, in 2003, it
launched a counteroffensive. Targeting those teenage girls who have been
driving the trend, the Natural Beef Council launched a carefully tailored
pro-meat education campaign, with the basic underlying message, "Real
Girls Eat Beef." If the Veggie Child trend is sustained through
adulthood, the industry's future could be at risk. It
could mean a healthier America, too. Vegetarian men have been shown to have
a 37 percent lower risk of heart disease than nonvegetarian men —and
vegetarians of both genders are half
as likely to develop dementia — even when other differences in
lifestyle are controlled for. Of
course, vegetables can be dangerous, too, as we saw in the Taco Bell debacle
of 2006. Since there is no "kill point" in vegetable preparation—unlike
in meat preparation—producers, parents, and the Vegan Children alike have to
stay vigilant, even in their healthier lifestyles. So far there has been
little appetite for food irradiation, even though it is the sure way to
extend shelf life and eliminate the potential for disease from veggies. But
faced with billions of new portions of vegetables, the industry might turn to
irradiation As the
only way to serve spinach and sleep at night. The battle for the stomachs of our children
will be a hard-fought one. The ranchers and the farmers are going to hang in
there. And the vegetarian toddlers may well have a counterreaction as
teenagers, believing that they have been repressed from enjoying meat, and switch
back in record numbers. But more likely, this trend will continue, and more
kids, especially girls, will reject the carnivore culture and combine a
desire for dieting with new demands for designer veggies. Given, in addition,
the move to ethanol and growing demand for corn and cellulose, don't be
surprised if soybean futures turn out to be a great investment in the coming
years. Penn
is the one who got a lot of attention in political circles when he called
attention to the power of the group he called “Soccer Moms.” He is currently
an advisor to Senator Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Each chapter
in Microtrends
reads like an executive summary. Whichever niche you feel like scratching,
chances are you’ll find it here. Steve
Hopkins, October 25, 2007 |
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Go to Executive
Times Archives |
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The recommendation rating for this book appeared in the November
2007 issue
of Executive Times URL for this review: ttp://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Microtrends.htm For Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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