As I am sure almost everyone knows, obesity is a large problem in America. According to the Gallup poll of well being, 63.1% of Americans are overweight or obese. Since such a large percentage of the U.S. population is obese, it is not surprising that there are a lot of articles (and even whole magazines) devoted to weight loss. Today, when I walked by the magazine rack at the Dartmouth bookstore, I saw a bunch of different headlines about weight loss, from Jennifer Lopez's post-baby body to How to Lose 5 pounds in 7 days. I wondered how high exposure to weight loss tips and stories affects the U.S. population? Does it help people? Or could it potentially harm them? I also wondered if the dieting advice and stories offered healthy advice.
One of the magazines that caught my eye was The Atlantic. The cover story was " Fat Nation". The link to the story is: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/04/beating-obesity/8017/. Marc Ambinder, the author of the article writes about how America can beat obesity. He states that fighting obesity is a complex problem and would require multiple reforms. In one of the paragraphs, Ambinder talked about a study that a group of psychologists held at Yale University. There were two different groups of children; both watched the same cartoon. In one group, the children watched the cartoon with food commercials and in the other group, the children watched the cartoon with non-food commercials. They found that the kids who saw the cartoon with food commercials ate almost 50% more of the snack that the researchers offered them. The researchers found that, “Across diverse populations,food advertising that promoted snacking, fun, happiness, and excitement (i.e., the majority of children’s food advertisements) directly contributed to increased food intake.” Does this apply to adults? I looked at the study mentioned in Atlantic, "Priming Effects of Television Food Advertising on Eating Behavior. In the journal article, the researchers mentioned that adults also consume more snacks when they watch food commercials. These experiments demonstrated that food advertisements are a contributor to the obesity epidemic.
I wonder if this is true for food advertisements in magazines? Will unhealthy food advertisements in magazines cause people to snack on unhealthy foods or consume more food? I decided to pick one magazine, People, out of the rack to look at the food advertisements. Most of the celebrities featured in People are thin and it commonly has inspirational weight loss stories. So I was surprised to find McDonald's and Hot Dog advertisements in the magazine.If People promotes healthy food choices shouldn't it only contain healthy food advertisements? Do you think think that the government should place restrictions on food advertisements in magazines as part of "the fight against obesity"?
But its not only the food advertisments in magazines that contribute to unhealthy eating habits. Some researchers have also found that high exposure to dieting advice and stories in magazines can be harmful. The link to the study I looked at is:
http://www.pediatrics.org/cgi/content/full/119/1/e30. The researchers looked at 2516 middle school and high school students in Minnesota. They found that female teenagers who read magazine articles about dieting and weight loss were a lot more likely to try unhealthy and extreme diet measures. The author of the article suggested that magazines reduce the number of diet and weight loss stories. I definitley agree with the author. I think that magazines overemphasize weight and commonly highlight weight loss techniques that don't seem very healthy.
For example, in a lot of magazines there are articles about post-pregnancy weight loss. An article called, " The Post-Pregnancy Weight-Loss Obsession" ( http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-01-23/the-post-pregnancy-weight-loss-obsession/) provides some examples:
"Sarah Michelle Gellar is back in her “skinny jeans” just four weeks after giving birth to her daughter, reports Us Weekly. Ditto Ellen Pompeo, I read in People. Twice, Heidi Klum walked the Victoria Secret runway just six weeks after having a baby. Natalia Vodianova topped them all, taking to the catwalk a mere two weeks after giving birth."
" Contrast this information with Us Weekly celebrating Ashlee Simpson-Wentz for sticking to her 1,500-calorie-a-day post-pregnancy diet, People discussing Liv Tyler’s postpartum fasting and colonics, or Ok magazine’s “Baby Weight Secrets,” which advise women to stick to fat- and carb-free diets and spend hours exercising daily."
The examples of post-pregnancy weight loss that these magazines provide are incredibly unhealthy. It is not normal for a woman to lose all of her baby weight in a month. In fact, the Mayo Clinic, advices women to lose no more than a pound a week post-pregnancy. They say that it may take up to six months or more for a woman to lose all of her pregnancy weight. If women read the articles about celebrity's fast post-pregnancy weight loss, they may feel pressured to lose weight at an unhealthy rate.
Fascinating post, particularly the part about food advertisements. I remember reading my mom's Women's Day magazines as a little girl, and finding it odd that the front of the magazine contained articles like "Lose Fifty Pounds Overnight!" and the later pages contained recipes for "Superfudge Chocolate Chunk Brownies" and the like.
ReplyDeleteWhile I recognize that we do get a mixed message from the media about heath and obesity, I don't think that the solution is government control of food advertisements. The best obesity prevention occurs within the family itself -- when parents encourage kids to turn off the TV, get outside, and play.
It's interesting that you have observed how often articles about weight loss appears on magazines. If the psychological studies are true, won't articles about weight loss in some ways also encourage people to eat more? But it's also understandable that magazines will still choose to publish dieting-related articles. Although publishers are fully aware of the psychological effects as you mentioned, they also know that readers WANT such articles, just to feel better.
ReplyDeleteI read a LOT of magazines and am often stunned by how contradictory they can be: as nhmediablog notes, we get diet plans next to recipes for brownies and ads for mayonnaise. Sometimes the ads are designed to look like magazine content, so that a reader can be fooled into thinking that Kraft Mac&Cheese is good for you. Ethical? No. Profitable? Yes -- for the magazines and the food companies.
ReplyDeleteOne thing you don't mention is the role these magazines play in eating disorders. The switch from a fast food advertisement to a digitally skinnied post-diet actress is practically bulimic in itself.
ReplyDeleteWe're definitely a country caught up in image, and these magazines harm the way we see ourselves and cause us to harm ourselves in an effort to live up to the standards.
The trouble is, though, is that free speech case law makes it very difficult to outright ban advertisements. That's one reason why we're one of the only countries to allow drug companies to advertise prescription medication on TV. Any thoughts on how to combat all this negativity in ways that don't run into constitutional trouble?
I remember reading about how the photoshopped images affect women's perception of beauty. I really do not think that seeing "corrected" images of already unhealthily thin celebrities will do America (or any other country) any good: women will either try to starve themselves or will start eating even more (if you can't be like the celebrities, why not sweeten the pain with a huge piece of brownie topped with whipped cream)
ReplyDeleteAs to your question about the advertisements, I think they should be required by the government to state in HUGE LETTERS that the research has proven product X to cause obesity. Just like with cigarets, people will make their own choices, but at least they will be reminded of the consequences of these choices.
I don't see government intervention in televised commercials of food advertisement as the solution. I mean if you see a problem right now over controls on wall street and universal health care, can you just imagine the size of the uprising if the government then said, Americans we know better than you and we are controlling what you see. It wouldn't fly. I agree with nhmediablog, we need should instead work through the families. We should encourage families to act together outside, spending time together doing an activity is the key.
ReplyDeleteProvide assistance to YMCA athletic programs, invest in parks again, and maybe utilize technology such as facebook groups to bring kids together to go play ball in a park or something.
The problem though is if these families themselves have no desire to act, they will never leave their sofas and there is really nothing to be done. However I still believe the answer is not the government hiding food commercials from us, but our own personal choices and activities.
Although we always tend to blame media for what they publish and how they arrange any information that they present, I wonder if sometimes we should actually criticize the readers/audience? One could argue that magazines publish what the audience wants to see. Certainly, in this regard, people want to quench their sweet tooth, but at the same time be thin and beautiful. In other words, if you tell someone that even if you take this pill that I am advertising, it will still be a painful process to get thin, no one would buy such product. As a result, different companies have discovered different methods so that you can get thin while eating junk, apparently.
ReplyDeleteEven if such products are successful, one should still question whether we are, as a society, becoming healthy. We are not, actually. People will still continue to eat foods that contain transaturated fat or foods with high cholesterol levels. So, in the end, if one goes through such diet patterns advertised, thin turns out to be not necessarily healthy.
So, one policy response could be to regulate the food industry, rather than the advertisement industry.
It is ironic how Americans are constantly bombarded with images of ideal skinny models and celebrities and yet 63.1% of Americans are overweight or obese. We strive to become like these thin idols and learn their “secret tricks” for weight loss, but instead we proceed to binge eat and drink after starving ourselves. Instead, I believe that it would be beneficial for all Americans, male and female, to be educated about holistic ways to be fit and healthy. Our nation is overrun with people who have serious eating disorders that need to be addressed in a pragmatic and appealing way.
ReplyDelete@exploringmedia re:
ReplyDelete"Any thoughts on how to combat all this negativity in ways that don't run into constitutional trouble?"
This is an interesting question, one that we might answer by tightening fraud regulations. Commercial speech is not accorded full first amendment protection, and laws that restrict it to further a "substantial government interest" have been upheld. Cracking down on false advertising to protect the health of the general public would almost definitely be permissible, in my opinion.
If it were up to me, I would go after those "supplement" ads in the back of women's magazines: those of the "Lose 21 pounds in two weeks by taking this miracle supplement." The small print saying "results not typical" and "when combined with appropriate diet and exercise" currently cover these companies legally. I would tighten regulations on ads whose fine print totally contradicts the main message of the ad. It's kind of an acknowledgment of "nice try, guys, but we're onto you." The FTC was able to implement regulations that keep drug companies from hiring Mr. Super-Fast-Talking-Dude to say all the possible side effects of a drug in 5 seconds--they now have to be spelled out at the normal pace of the ad. I'd say fine print should have to be no less than half the size of the major print or something similar. This would stop companies from making ridiculous claims and giving people hugely inaccurate perceptions of achievable weight loss.
That's shocking that television commercials can impact the eating habits so dramatically. I wonder if commercials about different types of food lead to different eating habits, or if the amount of eating that happens in the commercials matters? The parallel with weight loss can continue here too. Would a different presentation of weight loss lead to different rates of unhealthy dieting? It's clear that reducing the focus on extreme weight loss would produce positive results, but there must be a reason that magazines write about this, so it would be easier to change the presentation rather than the story.
ReplyDeleteAdvertisements influence eating habits.
ReplyDeleteMedia Buying Agency
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