But Our Parents Would Be Proud


Generations of Lies: But Our Parent's Would Be Proud 

Exploring why we believe things we know we shouldn't believe. 

by Zanthia Dwight


Summary:
As we saw in the first Michael Pollen movie "In Defense of Food", companies changed their branding and advertising to look like health food, even if it wasn't actually healthy. This change dug into the minds of consumers looking for health food but with no understanding of what that really was. The advertising created by companies like Kellogg, Nature's Promise, Blue Bonnet, and many other brands that still exist today, reinforced their food products with vitamins and invisible "nutrients" that were supposed to make them healthier. It sort of tricked consumers into believing that the thing that mattered was the invisible ingredients, and these nutrients would solve their health problems when really in the same product the added sugar and fats were killing them, and no vitamins or magic nutrients could cancel that out. Thanks to the companies who started the fads about nutritionism and dieting, consumers have been losing out big time. "In 2015, 30.3 million Americans, or 9.4% of the population, had diabetes"(American Diabetes Association) If you know that 1% of the population has naturally red hair and you see a bunch of them every day, imagine if 9.4% of the population were gingers, and feel the enormity. Micheal Pollen connects this back to bad eating habits in the United States because of false advertising and little public knowledge of good health choices. (I would include that a healthy body relies on healthy lifestyle choices, and not just food, but since he is focusing on food, I guess we will let this one slip.) This type of advertising is still enormously practiced, and you probably are eating something right now that has a label on it promising some type of health benefit, I know I am. My favorite false advertising labels are ones that say in big letters: "ONLY 10 GRAMS OF SUGAR" and then in tiny, tiny, letters underneath say: "per serving" and the bottle contains at least 2 servings. Advertising on labels and added nutrients aren't actually making our food better, sometimes they make it worse, and mostly, we are falling further away from what our bodies really need us to be eating: fresh fruit, veggies, and smaller amounts of grains and meats.

Backgrounding: As long as I can remember, my family has been living the "American Dream" insomuch as my dad's family has been super entrepreneurial (like everyone and their cousin's golden-doodle-dog has their own very successful business its honestly gotta be some kind of gag).  This message has always been told to me: the ends justify the means when it comes to feeding your family and giving to the church. It seems that even before the depression era, old American families like mine have been doing everything they could to make money, and that includes advertising lies upon lies upon lies in the most believable fashion to other Americans. Thanks to that go-getting grind that I've been taught, here I am, getting a communication degree to continue the same tradition. I don't want to make those same mistakes the PR people in the 1930s made, which, according to Mr. Pollen, gave everyone diabetes, heart disease, colon cancer, and other fun stuff to fuel the pharmaceutical companies. As someone who might end up in an advertising field, I don't want to lie to the masses and cause them illness.

My Question: Looking at this tradition that spans back miles into the past, why do we keep believing these lies about our food? Why haven't we learned to evolve past believing the labels we know to be questionable advertising?

Why don't we listen to our doctors when they say, "Eat at least three servings of veggies every day! And way less candy." Yet, we still go home and do the same thing: look at the nutrition facts and find ways around eating veggies. Then after we've shelved our guilty pleasures in greater quantities than the fruits and veggies, we look at other people with all their organic food from Trader Joe's or where-ever being all pretentious and go "Ugh, health nuts are weird". NO! They are going to outlive us! They are going to have toned abs at 45 and 60 years later die a nice peaceful Seventh-day Adventist death with rosy cheeks.

Advertising and convenience is the kicker, especially in combination! If there was a product that promised to give all the proper daily servings of fruits, veggies, vitamins, proteins, and tasted good, for only $4, you'd buy it. I mean I would, I don't have time to make my own tasty smoothie, never mind it actually being tasty. I'm not a great cook, but I can promise to be the worst smoothie maker ever. Even with the Vitamix on my counter, I'm still going to fail.  So, with the knowledge that these products are only half true, we still buy them!

We still believe in the advertising we see because we like to consume. The way companies market to us is from so many angles, all the time, constantly. We take in information even when tuned out of situations. Passively being advertised to in the movies we watch with product placement, in the magazines we read, new sites we peruse, stores we shop in, and the friends we meet. Every activity is a place for advertisement. Do you ever wonder how much money Toshiba paid the city of New York to have their name in red lights above the new years eve count-down clock? I certainly do, because now I've started my new year staring at Toshiba passively taking in that word in glowing lights.

 But also, if we stopped believing everything the industry pumped out and they had zero results, that would be a rebellion. Anarchy. Capitalism would have failed, but we're the ones keeping it afloat.

A good example of a product that's been marketed to look healthy and also be that veggie loophole for us convenience eaters, Naked Juice by Pepsico.  Their marketing video looked like this.



Apparently, the problem arose with the word "natural" since it doesn't actually contain all natural ingredients. An ABC reporter in another video voiced that since the FDA didn't actually have a strict definition of natural many semantic issues were being discussed, but hopefully the FDA has a definition for natural now and "Naked" smoothies can slither back to the PepsiCo blender they came from. 



















Summary of my discussion: From generation to generation, we've been conditioned to do what we can to provide for our families, and its lead to companies cheating Americans into obesity, diabetes, heart disease, colon cancer, and more. We continue being advertised to and accept it as a norm because without that norm our economy might crash. We suffer health problems because of the status quo,  but refuse to change the status quo because the consequences seem more harsh. We like consuming and we like consuming conveniently even more. Advertising companies know this, so if they can cater to our supposed needs while making it super easier to buy and consume, then we will hop on to it fast. If you're complaining about capitalism right now, you are probably benefiting or participating in it now, just by going to a cafe with your friend or online shopping at Tom's. It's inescapable. But, Michael Pollen suggested-- through the interviews he did across America-- that individuals should start to support local farmers and businesses to get healthy fresh foods, the less processing the better. By supporting the local economy instead of big fortune 500 companies, a consumer can feel like they have more responsibility with their food, and be healthier because of it!

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