Food and The Media

I believe the media plays a huge role in food consumption across the country. The media influences people’s decisions about what to eat and how to look. The media provides many commercials and advertisements about fast food restaurants and certain hamburgers or new products that everyone must try. The media uses celebrities to endorse these products to show people that these foods are so popular because celebrities eat them, so you should do. However, the media also shows advertisements for weight loss commercials of the same celebrities endorsing weight loss or dieting plans. The media shows a specific body type that is acceptable for people to have. The problem is that the media is also trying to get people to eat fast food. A problem occurs because the media is trying to sell both fast food and thin, muscular, athletic body types. My group made an imovie about this problem that occurs in the media for our second project. In this video we showed commercials of Kim Kardashian advertising for Hardees’s fast food, but then also on the cover of a magazine advertising her new weight loss. This is a mixed message that the media sends because if people are always eating fast food they are probably not going to look like Kim Kardashian or another celebrity on the cover of a magazine.
For our third project my group has decided to take a look the involvement of media and healthy food advertisements. We are going to try and find out whether or not people will make healthy food choices if images of health magazines, videos, and posters next to their food choices will influence them to choose a healthy snack or not.