Week 7, Food Glorious Food

Titled Popular Culture and the Dark Side of Food, this week's reading from "Tooning In" (White and Walker) offered an excellent overview of some ugly truths about how media and popular culture have twisted our relationship to food.

I was particularly struck by how the authors present the entanglement of female identity and food. That the creation of processed, packaged foods, fashion trends, war, economic forces and feminism seemed to form a perfect storm that served to both empower women and ruin their relationship with a powerful part of our identity: food.

Naturally, this discussion, like many of those presented in this class (feminist salute to Prof!) is personal and political because of my own participation and perceptions – as a woman, as a feminist foodie who shares most American women’s weight issues, as a marketing communications professional turned adolescent health advocate.

During election madness my favorite blogs just weren’t cutting it for me and I started reading female and race oriented blogs.

Feminste
Feministing
Racialicious

My fascination with reading comments has been well-served in these places! But more importantly I appreciate the different lens through which they view the media and popular culture. As such, the feminist blogs inevitably draw attention to media coverage perceived to be “fat-hating” or “fat shaming.” Examples include a recent PETA ad and, more recently and topically: Media criticism over the body size of Dr. Regina Benjamin for the US Surgeon General position.

Here’s a short bio of the woman being discussed in the video below.

Regina M. Benjamin, M.D., M.B.A., is founder and CEO of the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic in Bayou La Batre, Ala. She is the immediate past-chair of the Federation of State Medical Boards of the United States, and previously served as associate dean for Rural Health at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine. In 2002, she became president of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama, making her the first African American woman to be president of a state medical society in the United States.
(Reuters, 10/30/09)

Not surprisingly, this was from FOX news (My path to this video: feministing, picked up by TPM, then pamshouseblend, who seemed to have found it at TPM (Talking Points Memo).) (To the world: this crappy commercial in front of the video—this is where we are going. it’s the only way they can pay for this stuff unless they start charging us.)



But – wow! I really couldn’t even watch the entire thing, so I offer it as an illustration of the authors’ point that for women “education and ability are less important that physical appearance (p. 134, referencing Manton).

In fact one of the “comments” flame wars was very hot and heavy about the poster’s similar assertion, except that she stated it that women pretty much exclusively get judged on appearance (case in point: Dr. Benjamin) and men never. This overstatement was deemed inappropriate (and sexist, I’d add for myself.) But then the criticiz-er was challenged for inserting a “it happens to us menz, too” (I discovered this was now a name for the phenomena), back and forth, largely over tone and ettiquette and, frankly, stubbornness.

But what a unique example! Not only in reference to gender, but race, as well. The authors discuss a finding often included in public health discussions about girls and body image – that many women of color have healthier body images and are therefore less prone to eating disorders. Culture can be protective, it is argued. I had not heard the finding that increases in eating disorders tracks to the increase of women of color competing in the professional job market (p. 137). Scary.

I was surprised that the authors focused mostly on the not-eating side of the equation because “Healthy Weight (previously: obesity)” is hot, hot, hot in the public health world, adolescent health particularly. In fact, right here at the University of Minnesota are some of the foremost researchers on adolescents (largely girls) and food. Project Eat includes a lot of researchers, Mary Story and Dianne Neumark-Sztainer are frequently cited in the news. They’ve looked at family meals, eating breakfast, weight teasing, body image connection to unhealthy behaviors and lots of quantifying the problem.
http://www.epi.umn.edu/research/eat/index.shtm

There’s a lot of interest in the school system’s role in addressing this problem. More and more schools are giving up their Coke machines, at the same time tax payers are less and less willing to fund them adequately. Public health systems continue to discourage the vending machines and a la carte offerings, but never seem to realize they are fighting a battle that can’t be won. Food to be desired is as portrayed in popular culture through the media – snack foods, processed foods, fast foods and soda.

Given my own background, food marketing’s role in the problem fascinates me. My formative “assignment” at the advertising agency was on a packaged-goods account – the Blue Diamond Almond Growers. I had gotten some insight on this world from even earlier days (as a secretary at Y&R) from multiple Clorox account: Hidden Valley Ranch Salad Dressing, KC Masterpiece Barbeque Sauce and Fresh Step Kitty Litter (nice combo, huh!).

Packaged goods marketers have it down to a science. Talk about evaluation – with the way their distribution venues (grocery stores) track data, these folks know exactly what kind of media weight it will take to increase sales in a given market. They know exactly when to start working on brand or line extensions, new flavors, new market segments.

They will never change their product or their marketing practices – until their customers demand it. Today’s “green” trend makes the point. The 2003 Dove "Real Beauty" campaign is another. (Teachers, check it out -- great teaching materials.)

So for me, the question of the week is: how do you turn the ship? What does it take to shift popular culture’s perspectives? Priorities? Sure, marketing can play a role, but when promoting pro-social interests, we’ve got to consider the competition. We’ll never compete, on TV, with Coke.

For tobacco prevention, the law suits, regulations and policies turned the tide. Arguably, alcohol prevention has attempted the same strategies, but with less success. But when it comes to food marketing, and its relationship to obesity, folks are having a harder time finding high-impact policy solutions. Getting coke machines out of schools is one thing. But mandating alternatives to bad fats? (San Francisco does it) Requiring a per unit calorie labeling on fast food products? (DC does it) Labeling attentive for high fructose corn syrup? Or, taken further, withdrawing subsidies that with ultimate limit its production? Again, the corn syrup people have lots and lots of resources (but so did the tobacco companies) -- I’ve already seen broadcast ads from their trade association advocating against these new policies.

There was also an ill-fated attempt to sue McDonalds for obesity/health related issues by two teen girls in Bronx. The case focused on “whether McDonald's is responsible for their obesity because it did not provide the necessary information about the health risks associated with its meals.” According to the NYT: “ If their lawyer, Samuel Hirsch, makes it to trial with the suit, he hopes to turn it into a class action on behalf of all New York children under age 18 who claim health problems they say resulted from eating at McDonald's.”

Does this defense sound familiar?

''Every responsible person understands what is in products such as hamburgers and fries, as well as the consequences to one's waistline, and potentially to one's health, of excessively eating those foods over a prolonged period of time,'' the lawyers wrote in their motion to have the case dismissed.

And of course, what web ad was placed next to this article? Again, compliments of the new advertising environment on-line and more evidence to support our authors' observations.

While big picture, I think it comes down to social change – demonstrated through our policies, regulation and funding, for young people, the answer is fairly straightforward. As this entire course (and “Tooning In”) proposes, young people need developmental support – whether that’s through “social efficacy” or “social and emotional learning” or any of the other buzz words -- we need to make meeting these needs a priority.

To develop their cognitive skills, cope with body changes, process their sexual feelings and awareness, try out and form their own identity adolescents must be able to critically evaluate popular culture and the media. At the same, time, we should empower them to participate in and create it – in new, positive and productive ways.