Discourses are exclusions, a separation of a certain group of people who have similar ideas. The more people included in the group the more dominance they have. If someone adds ideas to this specific discussion and the ideas have either no significance or contribution they are frowned upon as outsiders. In regards to food though, dominant discourses in this area either see the food industry as something that is hurting us or something that is helping us. And the outsiders in this situation could represent people who have new ways of eating which the main experts have not approved yet.
The expression "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" is used very loosely in our culture. What if a person seriously ate an apple a day and still ended up having a heart attack or getting cancer? Is this consciousness of watching what we eat unnecessary if certain diseases or health problems are unavoidable? On my way home from school I was sitting on the subway and the man sitting next to me was reading an article from the magazine TIME, the title struck out to me: How the First Nine Months Shape the Rest of Your Life. I thought what if the only way to live a long healthy life regardless of what you eat is essentially based on what your mother eats while she is pregnant. "We are the way we are because it's in our genes. We turn out the way we do because of our childhood experiences. Or our health and well-being stem from the lifestyle choices we make as adults. But there's another powerful source of influence you may not have considered: your life as a fetus. The nutrition you received in the womb; the pollutants, drugs and infections you were exposed to during gestation; your mother's health and state of mind while she was pregnant with you — all these factors shaped you as a baby and continue to affect you to this day." (Paul, Anne M. "How the First Nine Months Shape the Rest of Your Life." TIME 176 (2010). Print.) Mothers while pregnant are told not to smoke, drink alcohol or do drugs because it can effect the baby physically and mentally. But what if the mother is eating french fries and cheeseburgers throughout her pregnancy does this mean her child is more prone to addiction of these types of foods?
In class today we were discussing the reasoning behind learning songs like 'Old McDonald had a farm' when you are younger. I thought a direct link between the song and our culture was that the song leads to the desire to eat McDonald's fast food, which gives the children a happy feeling inside especially when they are eating their happy meal and thinking about Old McDonald. Which leads to more $ for McDonald's since kids are winy and won't rest their case in till they get what they want. Which then leads to obesity amongst children because they become addicted to the chemical filled food, and once they have children the cycle repeats itself. For people that get trapped within this cycle it is probably much more difficult for them to be able to have a balanced diet because they are so used to eating processed food that comes fast and is convenient. Which is probably why companies trying to sell healthy food have a hard time doing so because so many potential customers have already been hypnotized by someone else. "The baby-carrot industry tried to reposition its product as junk food, starting a $25 million advertising campaign whose defining characteristics include heavy metal music, a phone app and a young man in a grocery cart dodging baby-carrot bullets fired by a woman in tight jeans." (Severson, Kim Clifford. "Told to Eat Its Vegetables, America Orders Fries." The New York Times [New York] 2009, New York ed. New York Times. 25 Sept. 2010. Web. 28 Sept. 2010.
Although we are definitely living in a time of significant reform of U.S. food ways, I don't think it is something to be proud of at all. Essentially it means we have failed as eaters, and in order to save ourselves from complete destruction we better figure out a good back up plan. Think of this example, we have created so much pollution from our cars that has greatly contributed to the problem of Global Warming, so one of the solutions from the specialists are hybrid cars. And so forth the food industry has done a terrible job at promoting healthy eating habits and erasing processed foods from our palates, so now there are 72.5 million adults suffering from obesity and the specialists are stepping to the plate (literally) to save the day! The fact of the matter is that the main speakers part of this discussion know that the country is in a bad state, and in order to change this state people need to understand the one of the only ways to fix the problem is to eat healthier and exercise. “Everyone knows that you shouldn’t eat junk food and you should exercise,” says Kelly D. Brownell, the director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale. “But the environment makes it so difficult that fewer people can do these things, and then you have a public health catastrophe.” (Singer, Natasha M. "Fighting Obesity Through Public and Private Policy." The New York Times [New York] 2009. Print.) It seems like a lot of the specialists try to sympathize with those who are suffering, and allow them to understand they know how hard it is to walk up a flight of stairs instead of taking the elevator... or to cook a meal instead of ordering a cheeseburger... Or are they just sugar coating it to get their attention at all so the problem doesn't escalate anymore?
Of course to the on lookers one of the food experts is going to look like the perfect eater. He/She will probably eat a very well balanced diet, that doesn't include processed foods but only organic, local and fresh. He/She will probably eat with people all the time, regardless of the circumstances. He/She will eat three meals a day, at the "normal" times for meal time. If they really wanna push their limit of eating though they might include a healthy snack in there somewhere. They also will probably surround themselves with other people who are eating the same way, and have the same ideas on the way we should eat. This allows them not to be tempted to give in to food that isn't so healthy, however for all we know behind closed doors they could be breaking their own rules. And if they happen to be seen in public since they are talking the talk, they are also expected to be walking the walk.
Discourses as a whole seem very bias to me... People have a strategy to find similar talking people, with similar degrees of higher education and similar ideas. If anyone who tries to put in a word doesn't fit into these categories they will be looked at like they are out of their mind. Shouldn't people who suffer obesity, eat too much fast food, don't exercise and have diseases because of their eating habits should be the ones having the voice. I mean after all they do have first hand experience with the situation. Or why don't they allow children and teenagers to speak up, I mean they are disguising carrots as greasy potatoes, and turning square frozen hamburgers into salads. The children are the future so let them lead the way... or so they say. And furthermore the bigger problem of discourses is that instead of taking all the ideas of a variety of different people, and creating a more realistic solution to help those suffering, they are taking one idea that may or may not work. Just because they are giving the how to guide doesn't mean people are going to reform and listen to them, or for that matter do the people suffering even want to waste their time reading information delivered from these people? So there isn't going to be any noticeable solution until the dominant discourse allows the general public to add their two cents to the discussion.
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