When
walking around downtown Denver, anyone is privy to their choice of fast food
meals of their picking. In the nation of origin for 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 McDonalds and Burger King are
simply suppliers of food that is cheap, but no one said that it has to be
healthy. Of course, it doesn’t help that these multibillion-dollar fast food
chains invest millions of dollars in advertisements to keep the public hooked
to the fake ideals of a healthy meal in their restaurant. It also doesn’t help
that fast food restaurants have made food something that you do not need to
move for, but instead go through the drive through. But can this all be blamed
on massive fast food companies? Or are they just the enablers? Could it be that
American’s have kept this convenience because, even though we know that healthy
is better, we have some attachment to this food? These ideas affect our
cultural beliefs. These are things that we have been taught to do since we were
young and starting 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, we see a lot of this health conscious advertising come
into play. The first add talks about many things 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 a healthy choice. There is also the
tagline “That’s our Naked truth” at the end of the ad (Naked Juice Co). This
tells 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 values, we continue to be a culture that values fast food. 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 being lazier will not help to achieve that need. 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 in to your car” (Murray). This decline in
physical activities and the increase in high calorie food are helping to create
an obese America. Our food choices as a country are ones that are unhealthy,
while continually understanding that we should choose better.
One of the
easiest settings to see the choices people make about food is in a food court.
Lets 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. The style in the food court is to order what you would like, then wait
for it to be prepared and handed to you. It is similar to a cafeteria line,
where you get your food on paper plates and then find a table. 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. 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 and how
they do not want to eat their vegetables, yet they want to grow up to be
strong. The yearning for health is powerful, but American culture shows that we
are more likely to stick with our high sugar, memory related foods then the
broccoli on the plate.
In a
culture full of double standards for both children and adults, America
continues to want health without any of the work. This sounds like a bleak
picture, 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 the call for humanely treated
animals to become part of the market. The need for bigger portions has gone
down and one of the biggest things is that the “super-size” at McDonalds has
been taken off of the menu. We may still be a society of double standards and
of higher expectations then possible, but when we want, we can be prompted into
action. We can, as a people, continue to ask about our food and not use anymore
of the pink slime that the fast food companies continue to feed us because it
is cheap. A healthier America is still in sight if we continue to 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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