Reader Response: Fast Food Indulgence, Dirty Marketing Tricks and Personal Responsibility
In response to last month’s post about Carl Jr.’s fat fetish, conversation got going about occasional fast food indulgence (the temptations, the how-to’s, etc.) as well as whether we were placing too much blame on corporate marketing and not enough on individual immoderation. Reader Rachel offered this perspective:
I gotta say I don’t see anything wrong with indulging once in a while. I understand the popular opinion is that fast food is bad wrong and should be banished from the world. However, as Carla the first commenter stated “moderation”. We as individuals need to take responsibility for what we eat. The whole idea of “the companies made me eat it” is BS. We control our actions not the evil CKE empire. Yes it looks tasty, yes they market it that way- if they were to market cat food in the same way, would everyone eat that too? Come on now people, let’s start taking responsibility for ourselves and stop blaming the handsome fit young man enjoying the obscene mammoth burger for our lack of self control.
We’re all for taking control and responsibility for our own health (That’s what this blog is all about!), and we agree that innocent victim and evil corporate empire is an absurd representation of the situation. At the same time, we dislike shady, tricky, misleading, dishonest (did I miss anything?) marketing schemes. Carl Jr.’s ad campaign double-dog dares its target audience (which we’ll leave for others to dissect) to stick it to the “Man,” who is, by all estimation, a convenient amalgam of the medical establishment and every health advocate, representative and family physician they encounter. “Talk to the finger, doc! Real men don’t think about their health!” Gee, there’s an inspiring example.
We understand it’s free will at work here and that folks sometimes indulge for the sake of taste or lack of time, airport options, etc. But, let’s look at the real message. Clearly, the ad emphasis isn’t on enjoying their monstrosity burger as an occasional indulgence. Indulgence – the concept, even the very word screams “wuss” in this ad paradigm. “Indulgence (scoff)! This is lunch.”
Here’s the rub. These companies aren’t marketing their fare in the pattern of Baskin Robbins. We’re not talking “treat.” They’re out to sell their product as a “meal” and regular work day routine at that. There’s nothing random about the common image of workers riding together, grabbing their lunch through the drive through with hard hats still on. And the message translates. Life follows ads as much as the ads follow life, we’d argue. And it doesn’t bode well for those individuals down the road. But that part was missing, I believe, from the ad campaign.
Those guys’ choice? Ultimately, yes, but we tend to also find fault with the company that sold them on the daily habit and exploited the ignorance behind the choice. Selling self-destruction just doesn’t sit well with us. (And asking tax payers and/or insurance customers to pick up the tab later for these folks’ folly and these companies’ exploitive profit doesn’t exactly make our day either.)
And then there’s the issue of the seedlings. Happy meals, kids’ menus, cartoon contracts and Play Land (birthdays and play dates always welcome!). Start ‘em young. (Why does this strategy sound familiar?) Sure, blame the parents. We do. Yet, the same argument above holds. Only in this case, it’s the ruin of children’s health that brings in the profit. These kids see that it’s “their” restaurant, their colorfully boxed meal, their accompanying little toy prize, etc. Why, how generous of the corporation to be so thoughtful! Oh, and well-intentioned parents out there: be prepared for the guilt trips if you choose to blow off Ronald and his gang. The ads are careful to illustrate that loving, fun moms and dads take their kids to McDonalds. What’s wrong with you? (O.K., the seedling issue really brings out the fist-shaking curmudgeon in us. We’ll take a breath and back away from the soap box now.)
That all said, we get it that we all make our own choices. And we’re not about letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Avid apples know that we cherish our sensible vices. What constitutes a sensible vice differs from person to person based on what people truly enjoy, what enhances their subjective sense of quality of life. Sure, we aren’t about to advise anyone to make fast food one of those, but that’s our perspective.
Admittedly, it’s hard to find decent studies about the health effects of an occasional fast food indulgence. There are simply too many variables: what kind of fast food, how much, how often, what the rest of the diet is like, how much exercise, etc., etc. A few studies and more informal experiments (ala “Super Size Me”) have analyzed physiological changes related to fast food consumption over a month’s period, and they aren’t too pretty (increasing blood pressure increase, building insulin resistance, abdominal fat gain, etc.).
One big beef of ours (pardon the pun) is the carb load in these meals. The white bread bun, the acrylamide-laced fries, the mammoth sodas… Can you feel your insulin rising just thinking about it? Clearly, leaving those elements off the table, as some readers said they do, makes a big difference. As for fat? Yes, we’re friends to fats, including the saturated crowd. But 1400 calories and 107 grams of fat in one sandwich seems like a waste of a day’s eating to us.
And what are you really getting with that 1400 calories? Not much in terms of nutrients. A heck of a disproportion in terms of omega ratio. Yikes. (Carl Jr. better be popping them fish pills.) Sodium galore and MSG to boot. Preservatives none of us can pronounce and few of us want to imagine, let alone see in action. (But in case you do, here’s the link to the infamous jar experiment from Super Size Me.)
Each of us makes compromises every day, and as prevalent as fast food is in our society, it’s bound to figure into the picture for many of us. At the end of the day, it’s all about informed choices. And as excessive as fast food ad campaigns might be getting these days, at least there’s more information out there about the foods themselves than there was ten or twenty years ago.
And, gee, it was those crazy health advocates who applied the pressure that eventually resorted in their disclosure! Too bad, Carl.
brainware3000, VirtualErn, soundfromwayout Flickr Photos (CC)
Further Reading:
Carl’s Jr.: ‘Feel Good About Being Fat’
How to Eat More Chocolate and Drink More Wine Every Day
They Did It! A 134-lb hamburger has been constructed! (I hope you can sense the sarcasm.)
Subscribe to Mark’s Daily Apple feeds
Posted By: Worker Bee
Barbara, Vesna – don’t forget pregnancy. Well, maybe not so much jokes, but it seems like the whole world thinks it’s OK to comment on a woman’s, even a complete stranger’s, pregnancy. And you can still make fun of someone’s race, as long as their race happens to be white (and especially if they are male). Not saying I condone it, but it’s true.
Alyssa, you’re still committing the post hoc ergo prompter hoc fallacy. It doesn’t matter how many countries with socialized medicine have better mortality rates than the U.S., it doesn’t mean socialized medicine is superior to U.S. health care. How many of those countries have higher overweight/obesity rates? What is the composition of the average diet? Activity levels? All these things affect mortality.
Not that I’m defending the heavily socialized (but not 100% so) U.S. healthcare system.
Furthermore, when you say that one of the things that made our country great was that people cared, are you referring to charity? Socialization is not charity, socialization is THEFT.
Neal W. and Alyssa,
For lots of reasons, I am critical of both forms of delivering medical care.
But the current debate you are having sticks in my mind because of two glaring situations.
My 80 yo somewhat frail MIL in London just suffered a broken tibia and has been the hospital all week. She has a full leg cast and is being assessed on her ability to get to the bathroom, etc. with crutches before being discharged. I understand the available support at home will also be assessed before she is discharged and sent home. It is likely some intermediate care in the home will be provided, as well as home physical therapy and doctor visits, etc. because her daughter, who lives with her, will still have to go to work, etc. and cannot provide 100% care 24/7 (believe, me, she would do 100% 24/7 if she could). None of this will be billed by NHS, as my MIL is a pensioner on the most basic of SS incomes, lives in a council owned flat, and has few assets (nor does my SIL have assets). She reports to me that *no* elderly people have to choose between their medications and food because there is no charge for medications. While I am not exactly a fan of socialized medicine because of the “nanny knows best” attitudes that can come with it, the excellent care my MIL is receiving is hard to ignore (and be so far away in another country and unable to directly help, I am truly grateful for it).
Contrast that with US hospitals discharging elderly poor patients (probably not so unlike my MIL) into taxi-cabs, in hospital gowns, sometimes disoriented, and left at the door of homeless shelters and charity missions. Some have been found wandering in the streets and roads, all because they are an expensive burden to the hospitals and there is no interest in assisting them with what they need. I feel shame about that, that that could happen any day in this country, let alone be a common occurrence in many large metropolitan US cities.
Anna, glad to hear that your mother-in-law is receiving good care.
In regards to your examples of elderly being let go into taxi cabs, this occurs in the reality of non-free market health care system. The U.S. healthcare system has many aspects of government intervention, from outright socialization of some things, to subsidation, and regulation. I believe this government inervention has worsened healthcare considerably. Therefore, no examples of poor healthcare in the US can serve as evidence against my position.
Furthermore, citing good healthcare for your MIL does not prove the efficacy of socialized medicine either. There are plenty of bad stories I can give for healthcare in the UK, and stories of good care from the US.
Neal W.
You are right, of course, that neither example I gave really support any argument for or against either system. I didn’t really intend it to be, but I suppose it might have sounded that way. Like I said earlier, I am also critical of both the US system and socialized medicine (probably for many of the same reasons you are), and personally wish for something entirely different (but I’ll admit I don’t always know what that “different” should be.
Anna, I totally agree. BOTH systems have real problems. And Neal, I personally think that the decline in our system has at least as much to do with insurance companies making decisions that used to be made by doctors as government intervention. I think we ALL agree that both systems have their problems, and that there must be a middle ground somewhere, we just need to figure out where. Somehow there has to be a way to give everyone access to health care without either bankrupting them or putting them through 70 years of government bureaucracy.
Alyssa & Anna,
Yes, I agree that both the U.S. healthcare system and socialized medicine have their problems.
I do think there are problems with the insurance companies, but this is due party because of government intervention. For example, the HMO act of 1973 allowed for the rapid expansion of HMO’s. If I looked deeper, I’m sure I can find all sorts of ways that the government makes insurance companies more prolific than they would of been if no intervention had ever occurred.
you said it girl