6/09/2004

Atkins does it have something to do with economics

The first or second day of class Mr.Tufte showed us different Blog sights to give us an idea of what it was we were in for and one of the blogs had a lady who had been doing the Atkins diet. A comment was made about "what dose the Atkins diet have to do with economics?"

I have been unable to find the sight since. I wish I had the link so others could see it.

I may be wrong because the idea of microeconomics is very new to me and I may not clearly understand the definition or meaning of what microeconomics really is all about. But I do believe that the Atkins diet does have to do with economics in a much bigger way then others may realize.

The fast food industry has come out with new items on their menus (I personally wouldn't call a hamburger without a bun a new item but they seem to think it makes it one) which allows those, I being one of them, to still enjoy eating out at some of our favorite places.

Candy manufactures are jumping on the bandwagon also. It does cost more then your regular Snickers, M&M's or Hershey bars but I do have to say carb free candy does taste pretty good. There is a demand for carb free candy and those who are supplying it are definitely able to charge a pretty penny for it because the suppliers are so few.

I personally have lost over 30 lbs doing the Atkins diet and have enjoyed my smaller size in clothing once again. Atkins has economically affected my life because it allowed me to fit back into my old clothes so I didn't have to buy new ones in a bigger size which allowed me to spend the money on other things I wanted more.

2 comments:

Dr. Tufte said...

I think the site that mentioned Atkins was J.M.P. Passey's site (listed by her name to the left). She is still losing weight. She is also an undergraduate economics major at Seattle University who writes about her classes, and how she applies what she learns there.

I have actually seen some stuff about business profiting from the Atkins fad. But, I don't recall them specifically, so I put some keywords into Google, where I found this article from the online news magazine Slate entitled "The Bull About the Beef". It discusses some of the changes in demand possibly attributable to Atkins related purchases.

We will be discussing (around Chapter 11 or so) how a business could make profits in the short-run by exploiting this sort of fad. The sort of industrial organization that encourages that is called monopolistic competition.

Dr. Tufte said...

Kamm:

I'm not sure I can give you credit for this post. Could you add some content that is relevant to microeconomics?