Nov. 9

I never realized how the media influences our decisions to eat bad food. I always figured it was the parents who determined how their children ate. I want to have a child and not introduce them to junk food at all, and I want to see what happens! Steinheimer’s book talks about ads that influence children to eat these foods, but what if you don’t let them eat those foods. I have always wanted to try this theory…. if the child never has junk food until they say, go buy it on their own later in their life.. will they be grossed out because they have been taught to like food that is better for you or will they fall in love and become addicted. I hadn’t had a burger in two years and I had one two weeks ago, and was so grossed out, I immediately regretted my decision. Once you stop eating a certain food and you have a reason for it, once you eat it again, 9 times out of 10, you will be disgusted. What happens if we teach our children this!

The article says, “Nutrition appears to be a secondary factor in food preference”. People do not care if certain foods are good for you or not they will still eat. The textbook clearly states this when talking about how sugary cereals came about. Knowing this now though will parents buy cereal without sugar? NO, because they too want their children to finish breakfast.  As an adult you KNOW Mcdonalds (or insert your hearts desire here: mine is Jack in the Box) but you still go through the drive through once in a while and indulge knowing it is bad. As a child you may have been told it is bad for you, but you dont have your own theory as to why and this makes you not care. This is why kids eat so much junk food because they dont care. There has to be a way to make them care, but each child is different. It might be the fact that they are torturing animals everyday or that the chicken is slime or that calories make you fat, or someone found a foot in their burger, whatever.

I find it very interesting that TV dictates what we crave/ eat. Think about this though, the fun loving Mcdonalds commercials appeal to children and the nasty carls jr ads appeal to adults! They’re both doing the same thing! I never thought of this before, the ad makes you feel happy and therefor later when driving by you want that food. This ad made me FINALLY get why Carls jR does what they do.

The article talks about it promoting the tastiness of healthy foods and not just its nutritional value, which is genius, we need to promote its taste, because obviously most don’t care about nutritional value. We also need more healthy and tasteful options out there.

I like how the textbook doesn’t blame media for obesity, she blames the lack of a safe place to play. Which is true, children have no place to play and they are stuck watching tv, because there is nothing else to do.

Anorexia and Bulimia

I will let anorexia and bulimia be the byproduct of media consumption. If people did not have these perfect images bombarded in their face everyday they would feel no desire to change who they are. I like when Sternheimer says, “Even if very few people develop eating disorders, the fashion industry seems to employ many of them” (204). The United States will never do something like have a minimum body mass index such as Australia and Spain. Sternheimer also talks about how we can put regulations on models but we still hate on whatever the celebrities are doing. Thats another great point, we need to stop criticizing what they are doing as well.