I was driving down the highway in Chicago with my husband this weekend and saw a billboard for a Triple Whopper, new at Burger King.
Fattest nation on earth, all concerned about the future of health care and insurance, and the boneheads at Burger King decide that we need to be tempted with this. Why?
Because it makes them money. And businesses are not bound to ethical standards in what they choose to market. They are just giving us what we want. While, of course, working tirelessly with marketers to help us know that we want it.
And if it's something like caffeine, the new nicotine, you have good old physiological dependence helping them out.
Who's problem is this? Well, yours. Mine. Anyone who is living.
Face it. You will be under marketing assault and manipulation of your appetites for the rest of your natural days. And you adults out there who cannot resist giving your kids pop and candy and flourescent yogurt, can I just ask, what the hell are you thinking? Yes, I know I just insulted all of my childed relatives but it hurts me to see little developing bodies pumped full of shit that does nothing to help them be healthy and strong.
So, if the manipulation is going to be there you have a choice to make. Go with the flow and insist on excellent health care at low, low prices when you need a bypass for your heart and insulin for your diabetes and caffeine for your appalling lack of energy at age 45 or 55 or 65 or take responsbility for your body.
This is about self respect, true self love. No one has a right to manipulate your appetites, but they aren't asking your opinion on that. The train has left the station.
The only way to get control of your life is to know yourself. The only way to know yourself is to follow some kind of centering practice that puts you in the same place with you, mind and body.
Article comments
1 - Franco
Laura,
I am impressed with your article. While so many want to blame marketing and corporate forces for their own weak personal constitution by giving into these forces, and cry for big daddy government to step in a stop the bad guys, you have rightly pointed out where responsibility truly belongs. I think food is a good example as a base example, which can also be applied to all of Americans runaway consumerism.
Thank you for offering your ideas for showing consumers, which we all are, how they can shoring up their individual constitutions and become more responsible.
2 - Laura Young
Thank you, Franco! I know my views may not always be popular because they represent a lot of hard work on the part of each of us. That's the "fierce" part of the Fierce Living feature. None of this is necessarily easy, but it is so, so important.