Food Addiction
There is a huge market for weight loss television. People are obsessed with the idea of obesity, the idea of losing weight, and the idea of fitness. The real issue at hand though, is the actual addiction that gets people to this point.
Food is portrayed in pop culture in three different ways. We have tv shows like "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives", and "Good Eats", consistently showing food a source of extreme pleasure. On the other hand, food is portrayed almost as a sin in the tv shows about food addiction, such as "My 600 lb Life", and 'Addicted to Food". We even have food as a neutral force in shows about baking competitions, etc.
Food plays a huge (and vital, obviously) role in the human experience, and I think that having these extreme contrasts in the way that we are fed the idea of food really has the power to give people an improper and uninformed perspective on food. I have seen people stop eating, or start eating things in weird ways just because they saw it on a show. Food as a topic is almost too real and too relatable for people to be able to separate how they live their own life from someone on a tv show. I also think that the existence of these reality tv shows in general, solely focused on food and it's many faces, really comments on the society that we live in and what we really care about.
Food is portrayed in pop culture in three different ways. We have tv shows like "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives", and "Good Eats", consistently showing food a source of extreme pleasure. On the other hand, food is portrayed almost as a sin in the tv shows about food addiction, such as "My 600 lb Life", and 'Addicted to Food". We even have food as a neutral force in shows about baking competitions, etc.
Food plays a huge (and vital, obviously) role in the human experience, and I think that having these extreme contrasts in the way that we are fed the idea of food really has the power to give people an improper and uninformed perspective on food. I have seen people stop eating, or start eating things in weird ways just because they saw it on a show. Food as a topic is almost too real and too relatable for people to be able to separate how they live their own life from someone on a tv show. I also think that the existence of these reality tv shows in general, solely focused on food and it's many faces, really comments on the society that we live in and what we really care about.