My blog topic this week is a testament to how much importance society places on appearances. I open up my internet at home, and MSN is my homepage. One of the biggest boxes on the page is talking about 70 Years of Style Icons. Of course I cannot help myself, and I click on the darn thing…
A whole new world opened up for me with that one click of my mouse button! There were links to articles about dieting, hairstyles, fads and trends, the best and worst sex advice, and many other things that everyone apparently needs to know about.
The one that caught my eye was the article on the 7 Decades of Wacky Dieting Trends. It amazed me that people have been advertising and marketing diet trends for the last 70 years. If that is true, how is it also true that America is at its highest obesity ever? Something just doesn’t compute…
I believe that this phenomenon is all tied up in a tangled PR circle. Celebrities began hiring PR representatives to get their names and faces out to the public. When that happened, the public realized that they wanted to look like Heather Locklear and Faith Hill: tall, skinny, and confident. Dieting companies like Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, and hundreds of others were born.
The PR reps for those companies in turn hire those celebrities to promote their product, thus giving it credibility. People purchase them and try them for a time, only to realize that they will never look like Shania Twain or Brooke Shields. That is where the continued rise of obesity comes in.
But, I have not forgotten about all those new diet or exercise companies that keep popping up on my television night after night. You see, those companies are getting smarter, and are refining the way they promote their product or service.
Nutrisystem is a great example. They know that the people of today are leading much busier lives than prior generations did. Promoting the ease of their product (it’s delivered right to your door, it is real food, there are no meetings to attend) was the smartest PR move they ever could have made. Using Nutrisystem could take longer to achieve results, but people aren’t going to care as long as it is easy to do.
I think PR is important in many industries, but especially in those where there is so much competition. The diet and exercise industry is a prime example of that. Those companies need to be at the top of their game at all times, otherwise they will lose their market share to the company that sells itself the best to busy families.
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You are so right. The pr for these companies is so important and they seem to be doing a great job of promoting all the diet fads. They know just what buttons to push to get us interested.
ReplyDeleteI always wonder if people plan to live on the food that is sent weekly for the rest of their lives. What happens in another year if that company goes under. The person no longer has someone telling them how/what to eat. This isn't a very beneficial way to lose weight in my opinion.
Unless we start being accountable for ourselves like watching porportions, types of food, calories, etc. we are going to have weight issues. I don't think it's necessary to count calories, etc. but we do need to be more aware of what and how we eat.
I find it interesting that what Americans want most is convenience, and yet convenience is quite likely what has made them fat to start with. The more convenient food (a.k.a. Fast) food we eat, the fatter we get.
ReplyDeleteIt's great that a company like Nutrisystem is making 'healthy' food convenient, but if the ingredients in their food were matched up with making food at home from scratch, I would bet that home made probably has fewer of the chemicals that likely make us fat.
It is sad to see that we live in world full of obesity, diabetes, heart diseaase, an many other health conditions that arise from eating unhealthy foods and not exercising. PR is very key for all diet companies looking to sell thier products. The new convienient meals are in thousands of homes all over the United States becuase of the commericals that make it seem so easy. Companies that sell lean pockets and other healthy microwavable meals also make a lot of money by advertising them as easy on the go or at work meals.
ReplyDeleteSomething that goes along with the diet advertisements are the exercise videos. They are using the same concepts as the diet food companies. By showing how easy and quick they are to do people don't have to go to the gym. They can do a quick 10 minute workout and throw in a lean pocket and call it good.
I too find it odd that we have been a country promoting dieting for over 70 years and are among the most obese nations. I kind of feel like this is due to the fact that our country is quite lazy. Everything we have grown up doing as kids has been changed in the last 10 years to be made easier, so we can get the same thing done with less "work." I also think that this trend is due to the fact that we have so much unhealthy food out there that it may be truly hard to eat healthy unless you go to the grocery store and cook your meals. Which in turn would cause you to do some kind of work so who would want to do that?
ReplyDeleteI never thought about how long that our society has been promoting dieting. I am glad that it is done. I wish there was more we could do for dieting, but then more of American's are to lazy and dont diet any ways to it wouldnt matter i guess. If we had more people promoting dieting (even tho it is annoying and I get sick of the commercials) I think more of America would be less obese. I dont know the exact number but I know that the obesity rate continuously grows in America every year.
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