If you don’t have a basic understanding of the forces working to try to control your eating, you don’t stand a chance in this world. So beware these food advertising buzzwords when dining out or grocery shopping. From The Body Shape Solution to Weight Loss and Wellness by women’s health expert Dr. Marie Savard
This whole need-to-burn-more-calories-than-we-eat fact is not new. I’m sure you’ve heard it before, even if you never fully understand all the nuances. And yet, 60 percent of us are overweight. The problem certainly isn’t lack of knowledge. Walk into any hospital or doctor’s office and count the number of overweight physicians and nurses — chances are it will be about 60 percent, the same proportion as the rest of the population. These are people who make their living dispensing health advice. If the equation is so simple, why aren’t we all thin?
Part of the reason is that, as we all intuitively know, there is more to eating than just knowing about calories. Food plays a central role in our lives — it is part of every celebration and ceremony, it can express our ethnic heritage and traditions, and it brings families together. We give gifts of food to express love or friendship. Cooking can be a point of pride, a creative outlet, or even part of a healing ritual — the medicinal power of chicken soup comes from its preparation as much as its ingredients. Food and weight are societal problems as much as individual ones.
It is a sad fact that our society is not designed to keep you healthy. Sure, we have wonderful physicians and other health care workers who will try to cure you when you are sick, but there are few supports for people who want to pursue wellness. Real world nutrition guidance is especially lacking. When was the last time you saw a television commercial for a healthy food? There have been a few — ads for milk, orange juice, and oatmeal come to mind — but they are rare. What we have is a nearly steady stream of media messages designed to encourage you to buy foods that are unhealthy.
Food Myths
If you don’t have a basic understanding of the forces working to try to control your eating, you don’t stand a chance in this world. Messages that are among the most dangerous try to trick or seduce you into eating foods that are high in calories, foods that are more likely to cause weight gain. These messages include:
- Fun. Ideally, food is flavorful, nutritious, filling, satisfying, and memorable. It can’t really be “fun.” Watch television commercials that tell you a particular food is fun, and you’re likely to see people dancing or laughing hysterically while they eat. You’ll see them tossing the food in the air, or the food itself transforms into a cartoon object. The food will draw crowds, create instant parties, and make the eater popular. In reality, we know that no food can make us dance or laugh, but the images are so powerful. They make us wish our lives were that carefree and happy. Even if we don’t consciously remember the dancing and laughing, the general good feelings evoked by the commercials will carry over into the supermarket. We pick the product up off the shelf, somehow feel good about our decision, and bring it home. It’s as though someone were casting a happy spell on us whenever we look at the product. Once you become aware of the “fun” messages, the subconscious spell is broken.
- Reward. Using food as a reward is a sure way to become overweight. There’s no doubt about it — food is enjoyable. That’s what makes it work as a reward. We learned this when we were young when our parents rewarded us with our favorite foods if we behaved. But when we use food as a tool instead of as a way of nourishing our bodies, then it becomes an object of desire, something positive to attain. But instead of winning a blue ribbon for our efforts, we win an extra inch of fat on our thighs or waist. It is OK to splurge on a high-calorie food once in a while, but it’s important to be conscious of when and why you are doing it. You never “deserve” a piece of cake. You don’t have to win it or earn it. Food should never be a prize. Eat it, or don’t eat it, but don’t rationalize it. Be wary of products that seduce you with a message of how deserving you are — they are playing with your emotions, trying to make you feel deprived even when you might otherwise be perfectly content.
- Energy. All foods contain energy because all foods contain calories. Remember, a calorie is simply a unit of energy-producing potential — when you “burn” a calorie, you release that energy. There are many, many advertisements for foods that purport to “give you energy.” In reality, no food can give you energy beyond what you get from calories — not vitamins, not minerals, not herbs, not caffeine. If a product is said to give energy, it must be high in calories. That’s why it is legal (and honest) for a candy bar to claim to give you energy. It doesn’t mean that it is necessarily healthy for you, just that it has a lot of calories — usually in the form of sugar.
- Beauty. It always amazes me to see toothpick-thin young women on television shows or advertisements casually eating pints of ice cream, large helpings of pizza, or whole cheesecakes. We know in our heads that these are just images, and that the actresses weren’t really eating all that food — it was acting. When the camera stopped rolling, they spat out whatever was in their mouths. No one can eat as much of the kinds of treat foods we see being eaten on television and still be that thin. This sets up an unobtainable standard of beauty — a size-2 life full of indulgences. In reality, it is impossible. We cannot eat incessantly and unthinkingly without gaining weight. We know that, and yet we are fooled again and again. In the 1990s, when the tobacco companies came under fire for using advertisements to entice children into starting to smoke, they adopted a voluntary marketing code. One of the outcomes was that we rarely see healthy, active people smoking in ads anymore. No more water-skiing smokers, football-playing smokers, or anything else that would suggest that smokers get some active health benefit from cigarettes. I’d like to see the same type of code enacted for eating — no more skinny models eating corn chips in an aggressive frenzy, no more weightless angels popping cakes into their mouths. Truth in advertising has to extend to food.
- Bigger. When did we ever lose sight of the old adage less is more? Now, everything is supersized. It seems like a good deal for you, but did you ever wonder why the fast-food companies bother to give you so much more food for so little money? Trust me, it’s not for your benefit. It has to be worth money to those companies, otherwise the practice wouldn’t continue. They make incremental pennies on that single supersize purchase, but their main goal is to build an army of loyal customers who will return again and again. How do you build a better customer for fast food? Simple. Make her fat so that she needs to eat more. (It’s just like building a customer for cigarettes — entice young women with images of glamour or the empty promise of weight loss and then continue to sell cigarettes long after they are addicted.) With inexpensive food so easily available, it becomes a cheap and easy meal solution to pop into the local burger outlet for enough food to satisfy. We’ve been marketed into the next-size jeans. And in case you didn’t notice, part of the allure of fast-food restaurants is the promise of “fun.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marie Savard, M.D., author of The Body Shape Solution to Weight Loss and Wellness: The Apples & Pears Approach to Losing Weight, Living Longer, and Feeling Healthier (Copyright © 2005 by Marie Savard, M.D.), is a nationally known internist, women’s health expert, and advocate for patients’ rights. She is the author of the highly acclaimed How to Save Your Own Life and the creator of The Savard Health Record. She lives in Philadelphia.
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