SPENDING some time watching prime-time local TV can be an “educational” experience in many ways. And no, I don’t mean the actual programs, but the commercials that air with the regularity of a Swiss chronometer.
What I notice, and so will all the observant readers, is a disturbing pattern in many of these commercials.
When it comes to child stars, there is a preference for the “chubby” look, as if to promote the message that it is okay for kids to eat whatever, because being heavier than you ought to be is a good thing, and might even land you a gig doing TV commercials. Now when it comes to the teenage and grownup talents on the ads, their body compositions are entirely different altogether. Svelte, slim and indeed – thin. Many are underweight for their own good, and ought to eat healthier.
So what does this double-standard in the ad industry promote, as far as being healthy goes? Nothing really, except total confusion.
How many of the slim and trim teenagers and adults actually metamorphosed from the chubby and overweight kids of yesteryears? Not many, I would guess. Well, without mentioning names, I am sure you can recall many a chubby childhood star, who eventually disappeared from the scene as an adult, because they could not land any jobs with their larger constitutions and body types. The standards for appearance changed, but they have not.
Here’s what totally wrong about this.
You’ll see commercials promoting fast-food, sugary soda drinks and all manner of sweet junk food, being peddled by chubby kids. Of course, no wonder they are of the weight they are, because of their consumption of the things they advertise. Empty calories, to say the least. Then in the ads with the “older” talents, they suddenly become slim and slender, with the new suite of products that they tout – all manner of slimming products like herbal teas, “fat-burning” supplements, “healthy” canned meat and fish products, and when all else fails – cosmetic remedies like those of the Belo empire.
Totally crazy if you ask me. But this is how the cookie crumbles these days, it seems. And this, in a country that is severely challenged in terms of its healthcare system. Which basically means it has none to speak of.
It is indeed unfortunate, and quite sad, when our “poorer” countrymen in the rural areas are falling ill to the same metabolic diseases that are plaguing their more affluent urban brethren. Cardiac diseases, diabetes, cancers of various kinds – metabolic disorders that seem to be affecting everyone, whether urban or rural. So much uncommon among them, but yet they have the same set of maladies.
Or is there really more in common among them than meets the eye?
Well, as it turns out – there are. The proliferation of sugary drinks and beverages, canned and processed food, and the general availability of fast-food in even the remotest of barangays. This is what they all have in common. And their metabolic diseases too. Tragic, right? But it doesn’t have to be, if we just open our eyes for just a while longer.
We used to be eating healthy in the days of yore. And that manner of eating is not only healthy, but also cheap and affordable. Lots of fresh greens, legumes, nuts and seeds in our diet. Very minimal consumption of animal products and processed food. But today, no longer. Most of our rural folk would rather down bottles upon bottles of sugary soda, chow down on hotdogs, and snack on the same junk that the urbanites do. And this is all glorified on prime-time TV, as if to say that everything is okay.
Well, unfortunately, all is not okay. And the sooner those in charge of health policy in this country wake up to smell the coffee (not Starbucks, but the barako kind), the better it will be for the well-being of this increasingly sick nation.
(Belated greetings to my brother Totol Batuhan, who celebrated his birthday last Sept. 7)