Posts Tagged ‘advertising’

Super Size Me: Is Fast Food Really to Blame?

Monday, September 28th, 2009

Super Size Me - Morgan SpurlockSuper Size Me is an informative documentary about the negative impact that McDonald’s and the rest of the fast food industry are having on society. Despite the importance of this message, Super Size Me neglects several critical factors that I consider to be more important than the popularity of fast food and it even gives an inaccurate representation of why fast food is unhealthy.

The majority of Super Size Me is based on Morgan Spurlock’s one month binge of eating nothing but food from McDonald’s. This was inspired by lawsuits from two teenage girls who blamed McDonald’s for their obesity. At the time of the lawsuit, one girl was 19 years old and weighed 270 pounds at a height of 5 feet 6 inches and the other was 16 years old and weighted 170 pounds at a height of 4 feet 10 inches.

During this one month experiment, Spurlock ate three full meals per day from McDonald’s, only ordered a super size meal when asked, and never ate food from any other source.

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Is Television Limiting Your Life?

Friday, September 18th, 2009

TelevisionDespite the fact that many of us are extremely busy, stressed, and deprived of sleep, we somehow manage to watch more television than ever. If you’ve ever wondered why you’re always short on time and why you never seem to accomplish what you’d like, the answer may very well be right in front of your eyes.

According to a report from The Nielson Company, the average American watched a record breaking 151 hours per month of television during the fourth quarter of 2008. This amounts to approximately 35 hours per week which is almost the equivalent of a full time job.

Although television is a convenient source of entertainment, it’s usually mindless, provides little to no meaningful value, and can sometimes be a harmful influence. The following are three reasons why television detracts from the quality of your life and why you should minimize the amount of time that you spend watching it.

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Aspirin Saved My Life

Monday, January 26th, 2009

Television commercials can be downright deceptive and literally bad for your health. Enormous amounts of money are spent on ad campaigns with one purpose in mind – getting you to spend money. Serious effort is put forth to make these ads connect with you emotionally, and in many cases, the connection is harming you.

I rarely watch television, but as a big tennis fan, I’ve been watching the Australian Open. The deceptive marketing power behind the commercials I’ve been seeing is sickening. In just the past week, I’ve seen repeats of three misleading drug commercials for the same product – Bayer Aspirin.

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