To begin this rant where I left off, let me reiterate the theme of this blog: In a time of food excess (and who would deny that assertion) with intense daily pressure to consume foods and beverages, we have become a contemporary population of over eaters. While most examinations of obesity focus on what we eat as individuals and as a society, this blog analyzes why we eat. It will address the impact of pervasive food and beverage marketing presented alongside diet and weight loss marketing. When Pizza Hut advertises a two for one deal with bread sticks followed by LA Weight Loss offering up a 10 pound weight loss in two short weeks, the public assimilates confusing and mixed messages. How do we begin to reconcile those mixed messages and the relatively low number of Americans losing weight? In spite of years of marketing perfectly written diet books with impeccable grammar and cadence, why are Americans growing ever larger? And remarkably, the book industry view of diet and weight loss insists on hooks to attract readers, not facts to inform them. Thus a hook might look like the following: “The Ascaris Diet: Lose Belly Fat in Ten Days” or “The Compton Diet” (get shot in the right place and you won’t gain nearly as much weight) or other pre-morbid classics that might add clutter to shelves. The answer to this entire dilemma is based upon a simple observation: all popular diets are failures waiting to happen and any real paradigm shift will require rethinking how we approach food. Granted, maybe that’s not such a simple observation.
Losing weight has no benchmark for success. Dieting involves changing an eating pattern over some brief defined period of time, followed by a return to the pre-diet eating pattern. A small weight loss, usually much less than expected might have occurred, but within three to six months the weight is back. Naturally, the currency of said diet is the amount of weight lost. Big weight loss equates to big currency; a little weight loss, pocket change. At that we close the book on the diet, place the diet book up on the shelf, and resume life as usual. The only real loss in the entire venture, is your wallet/purse got a little lighter due to the cost of the book. Was it a success?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
A Point of View
Modern Western society is awash in a sea of food affluence. For many of us, from the moment we arise in the morning to the time we fall asleep at night, the one rhythmic pattern occurring daily with anticipated consistency is food intake—and in many cases very high quality food intake. Even the smallest of excess calories consumed daily translates over time to excess energy being stored as fat in adipose tissue.
______________________________________
Overeating has become the symptom of a cultural disease associated with conditioned food intake, not a mystical physiologic process involving genes gone wild. From one diet manual to the next, the book offerings to navigate this mess are fancied up versions of the same old thing, eventually returning the dieter to a conditioned system of eating behavior. The contention of this blog, is it's time to get off the merry-go-round of dieting and learn the ABC's of basic nutritional science. Teach your children what they need to know to navigate the gauntlet of foods in the 21st century. We encourage any experts in the field to contribute.
2 comments:
I think this blog concept is really interesting. An examination of why we overeat is something I haven't seen much of. You might want to consider doing something like profiling the latest stupid diet fads and showing images of bizarre marketing techniques. Also, remember to link to other blogs, articles, and literature you find online that helps support your points.
Thank you for bringing such nice posts.
Post a Comment