When
walking around downtown Denver, anyone is privy to the overabundance of fast
food options available. In the first nation to introduce fast food, it is
completely normal that fast food joints would be found along every corner, but
does that make it a good thing? Fast food chains like McDonald's and Burger King
are simply suppliers of cheap food, but no one said that it has to be healthy. These
multibillion-dollar fast food chains invest millions of dollars in
advertisements to keep the public hooked on the idea that they can find a lot
of healthy options in their restaurant. While in reality, the majority of their
options are high calorie options. Also, eating at a fast food restaurant require
no movement to get a meal, while instead people can go through the drive
through. But can laziness and unhealthy habits all be blamed on massive fast
food companies? We as American’s have kept this convenience because, even
though we know that healthy is better, we have some attachment to this style of
eating. All of these different ideas about nutrition affect our cultural
beliefs and the ways we act. These encompass much of what we have been taught
to do since we were young and started to eat our vegetables. In America, we
champion the idea of healthy food, yet we continue to surround ourselves and choose
for ourselves these unhealthy food choices when eating.
One
of the biggest ways we can see that America wants to promote healthy choices is
by looking at the advertising of companies. In the first Naked ad, on the left
side of the picture below, we see a lot of this health conscious advertising
come into play. The first add procures its health conscious advertising in its
design and rhetorical strategies. The main focus in the ad is the runner, running
behind the bottle of Naked juice located on the bottom right of the ad. This
focus conveys to the viewers that people who drink Naked juice are able to
receive the energy they need in order to run and maintain their energy. This
sells the idea that, with Naked juice, people can keep a healthy lifestyle and
be motivated to workout. The tagline on this ad also illustrates how
advertising companies are playing to the healthy ideals in the American
mentality. “Our machines don’t run on added sugar or preservatives and neither
will you,” conveys to the viewer that by choosing Naked juice to drink, instead
of something like soda, they will be healthier already (Naked Juice Co). By buying
Naked juice, the viewer does not put preservatives in their body, making the
healthy choice. There is also the tagline “That’s our Naked truth” at the end of
the ad (Naked Juice Co). This expresses to the viewer that everything communicated
on the advertisement is the complete truth from the company’s mouth. Telling
the viewer that the ad is completely true makes the viewer trust the ad more
and makes them feel at ease with their choice. The advertising companies are a
good example of showing how the public views health because they do many
studies to show what is popular in public opinion. Healthy choices are what
people want so food-advertising companies conform to that demand. Viewing an ad
like the Naked ad, we see that, in America, we hold the idea of health high in
our minds.
While
still having high fitness and health values, we continue to be a culture that
values fast food, making the unhealthy choices instead of the healthy ones. Fast
food companies “saturate the airwaves, newspapers, and magazines” according to
Bridget Murray’s article “Fast food culture serves up super-size American’s”
(Murray). While the Naked advertisement is an example of something that could
be considered healthy, fast food is something that is not. According to Murray,
the food is “high-fat [and] high-sugar” in its content (Murray). The advertisements
from these companies may seem like they sell healthy choices in their chains,
but the real fact is that the food is not healthy in the slightest. All of the
chain fast food restaurants have led to an unhealthy America. In a report about
obesity in 2011, the results found that “twelve states now have obesity rates
over thirty percent” where “four years ago, only one state was above thirty
percent” (Trust for America’s Health). This exponential increase in obesity
across America is due to the ease and accessibility from the fast food chains
that can now be found all across the world. The fact that there is a food chain
at almost every street corner shows that it is not usually the healthy food
choices that we go for, but instead the convenient choice.
Not
only do food companies assail us with ads, but they also take convenience to a
new level. According to Murray, most American’s are getting “less exercise than
ever” and are “walking less and driving more” (Murray). This idea of
convenience is contradicting what Americans hold as a need in society. As the
Naked ad shows, the need for a petite figure is very important in society, yet
walking less and making unhealthy choices will not help to achieve that ideal.
By indulging in the fatty foods of the food industry, it does nothing to help
the wanted image of American’s. Kelly Brownell, a Yale University psychology
professor, shows convenience and how America has become lazier as a country.
Brownell explains that when pumping gas you can “punch in the Fritos, the
Twinkie, and the Coke, and somebody brings it to your car” (qtd. Murray). This
decline in physical activities and the increase in high calorie food are
creating an obese America. Our food choices as a country are ones that are
unhealthy, while we continue to understand that we should choose better to look
better.
One
of the easiest settings to see the choices people make about food is in a food
court. Let us take the food court in Park Meadows for instance. In Park
Meadows, there are many fast food chains like Panda Express, Taco Bell, Sbarro,
Chick-fil-a, and Dairy Queen. Being located so conveniently in the middle of a
shopping mall, it can provide any shopper with any choice of fast food that
they could want, along with the carbohydrates to keep them fueled to shop. The
style in the food court is to order whatever food item is on one of the
multiple menus, then wait for it to be prepared, pay, then get the prepared
food and find a table. It is similar to a cafeteria line, where food is put on
paper plates, and then we have to find a table wherever we can. While part of
the process requires some physical exertion, the theme of an unhealthy diet
continues to remain the same in this sub-setting of society. Almost every item
on these menus has at least one healthy choice in it, but the majority of food
on people’s plates is the same greasy, high calorie food that can be served
anywhere else. Shopping can be seen as a way to burn off some of the calories,
but there is not enough physical exertion to counteract the amount of calories
that are consumed. Furthermore, even when we face the choice of having healthy
food, we are more prone to select the unhealthy item, because we know it from
the bombardment of TV ads that we see every time we turn on a TV.
If
an American was told to name one thing that would be the food of American’s
they would come up with an interesting list of things like apple pie,
hamburgers, hot dogs, and maybe even macaroni and cheese. Almost all of the
symbolic food items of American culture can be summed up into heavily
processed, high calorie food. For many American’s, it is the item that strikes
the fondest of memories in each persons heart. Geoff Nicholson in his article
“Eating White” talks about eating a “cheese sandwich” that consists of “white
Cheshire cheese on white bread” with a “glass of cold milk” (Nicholson 21).
This meal is something that invokes a memory of Nicholson’s mother and her need
for white in every meal she ate. The sensation that Nicholson has is similar to
the American people and their memories of hamburgers, hot dogs, and macaroni
and cheese. This fondness is one of the strongest reasons as to why Americans
continue with their high fat diets. An example of contradictory views can be
found in children. They always complain about not wanting to eat their
vegetables, yet they want to grow up to be strong. This contradiction is much
like the American mindset where we would like to be skinny without any of the
work. The yearning for health is powerful, but American culture shows that we
are more likely to stick with our high sugar, iconic foods then the broccoli on
the plate.
In
a culture full of double standards, America continues to want a healthy living
without any of the work. We are a nation that chooses the Big Mac over the
salad. We are a nation that makes us think that we need to be healthy, while personifying
the complete opposite. This may sound like it is a bleak picture for the future,
but we cannot count out America just yet. In the past few years, there has been
a rise of organic food on the market and a call for healthier choices to be
made readily available. The need for bigger portions has gone down, and there
is no more “Super-Size” option at McDonald’s to reflect this change. While we
may still be a society of double standards and of higher expectations than are possible
to achieve, when we want we can be prompted into action. We can, as a people,
continue to ask about our food and how healthy it is. We can step away from the
artificial food the fast food companies continue to feed us. A healthier
America is in sight if we stay active, get healthy, and make the right choices
with our food.
Works Cited
"F as in Fat: How
Obesity Threatens America's Future 2011." Trust for America's Health.
July 2011. Web. 24 Apr. 2012.
<http://www.healthyamericans.org/report/88/>.
Murray, Bridget.
"Fast-Food Culture Serves Up Super-Size Americans." American
Psychological Association (APA). Dec. 2001. Web. 24 Apr. 2012.
<http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec01/fastfood.aspx>.
Nicholson, Geoff. “Eating
White.” Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture 10.1 (2010): 21-23. Print
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