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A lecture drawing on social psychological and cultural studies perspectives to dissect the debate over whether obesity in American society is the fault of the consumer or the provider. Concludes with reminder that eating is a moral act and call for celebration of forms of food production that remind us of the moral dimension of eating.
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Does McDonald’s Make Us Fat?How a Consumer Society Shapes Individual Choice
Steve [email protected]
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University of San FranciscoDepartment of Sociology
The New Cultural Debate...Who is responsible for the obesity epidemic?
The Fast Food Industry …
“McDonald's spends over $2 billion a year broadcasting their glossy image to the world. This is a small space for alternatives to be heard.”.
The New Cultural Debate...… Or the consumer?
Don't blame the burger, East Bay lawmaker saysBill would curb lawsuits against eateries for weight gain "One or two restaurants should not be liable simply because people gain weight over time," the lawmaker says. "Consumers must be responsible for their own personal decisions and eating habits. Frivolous personal injury lawsuits against restaurants are not the way to promote healthy living.”Oakland Tribune, March 7, 2005
Governor Signs ‘Commonsense Consumption’ BillSPRINGFIELD – Illinois citizens who abuse fast food and other snacks will not be allowed to sue food companies for making them fat, under House 3981, the Illinois Commonsense Consumption Act. The law prohibits civil lawsuits in state court by individuals who abuse a food product then seek damages based on a claim of injury resulting from weight gain, obesity, or any related health condition.http://www.kdillard.com/PR1.htm (IL State Sen. Kirk Dillard’s website)
Governor enacts ban on suits linking obesity to fast foodColorado—Gov. Bill Owens on Monday signed into law a bill prohibiting obese people from suing fast-food companies for causing them to be overweight. The governor said a proper diet is a matter of personal responsibility. Office of the Governor Press Release, May 18, 2004
Who is winning?= law enacted
= bill pending
= bill dead
OBESITY LAWSUITS• 26 States with obesity-
lawsuit bills filed or prefiled
• 18 states that have enacted obesity-lawsuit bans
National Restaurant Association: http://www.restaurant.org/
Does the industry care?
Of Course...
The Sociological Imagination
• An ability to perceive the intersections of history and biography so that human lives are seen as being shaped by historically conditioned social forces
• Personal troubles vs. public issues (e.g., homelessness, divorce, alcoholism)(C. Wright Mills)
Is there an obesity epidemic?• Centers for Disease Control:
• In 1991, four states had obesity prevalence rates of 15-19 percent and no states had rates at or above 20 percent.
• In 2003, 15 states had prevalence rates of 15-19 percent; 31 states had rates of 20-24 percent; and 4 states had rates more than 25 percent.
What would Mills say…
Personal Trouble or Public Issue (Social Problem)?
Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults1985
No Data <10% 10%–14%
(*BMI ≥30, or ~ 30 lbs overweight for 5’ 4” person)
No Data <10% 10%–14%
1986
No Data <10% 10%–14%
1987
No Data <10% 10%–14%
1988
No Data <10% 10%–14%
1989
No Data <10% 10%–14%
1990
No Data <10% 10%–14% 15%–19%
1991
No Data <10% 10%–14% 15%–19%
1992
No Data <10% 10%–14% 15%–19%
1993
No Data <10% 10%–14% 15%–19%
1994
No Data <10% 10%–14% 15%–19%
1995
No Data <10% 10%–14% 15%–19%
1996
No Data <10% 10%–14% 15%–19% ≥20
1997
No Data <10% 10%–14% 15%–19% ≥20
1998
No Data <10% 10%–14% 15%–19% ≥20
1999
No Data <10% 10%–14% 15%–19% ≥20
2000
No Data <10% 10%–14% 15%–19% 20%–24% ≥25%
2001
(*BMI ≥30, or ~ 30 lbs overweight for 5’4” person)
No Data <10% 10%–14% 15%–19% 20%–24% ≥25%
2002
No Data <10% 10%–14% 15%–19% 20%–24% ≥25%
2003
How did we get here?• McCulture• McDonald’s has not
only positioned itself as central to American culture, it has also become a driving force of cultural change
Two concepts help illustrate:
• Cognitive schema1. food/fun
2. fast/efficient
3. predictable/ comfortable
• McDonaldization
Cognitive Schema
• Cognitive Schema: the organization of knowledge about a particular concept; schemas are associated with “scripts” for carrying out tasks (e.g., eating).
• Scripts can be acquired in two ways:
1. Directly (e.g., by trying out and repeating approaches to a task)
2. Indirectly (e.g., by observing or copying)
McDonald’s makes children happy
•…when one bites into a Big Mac one is consuming the sign values of good times, communal experience, consumer value and efficiency … McDonald’s is selling not just fast-food, but a family adventure of eating out together, intergeneration-al bonding and a communal experience. (Kellner, 1999)
More fun
Description: Children can learn their colors as they spin and race Happy Meal® toys past silly scenes toward The Golden Arches Children can learn their colors as they spin and race Happy Meal® toys past silly scenes toward The Golden Arches®
Triggering schemas
“I’m hungry for some fun/food”
http
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McDonald’s makes families American
Let the people speak:
•i love mcdonalds. i really do. it’s one of my many concessions to crass american consumerism. the pizza hut lunch buffet? dig it. a biggie-sized frosty and cup of chili to go? i’m there. big mac, large fry, and a coke? word. mcdonalds, and most of fast food in general, is cheap, filling, and tastes good. have you ever had one of those mcgriddle things? imagine two hockey pucks made out of french toast squirted full of syrup like a piece o freshen-up with the traditional mcsausage/egg/cheese combo wedged betwixt the two. bitchin.
•http://www.locdog.blogspot.com/2005_03_13_locdog_archive.html
Fast and Efficient
• McDonald’s has linked the food/fun schema with the fast/efficient schema
• Put differently, the script associated with our food schema triggers our fast/efficient schema so that when we consider food choices, fast/efficient becomes the dominant preference
Predictable and Comfortable
• In addition to fast/efficient scripts, McDonald’s has added to our food schema the expectation that our food be predictable and comfortable.
• To deliver food that fits the cognitive schema it has created, McDonald’s has developed food production and consumption technologies based on principles that have spread throughout society
McDonaldization of Society• McDonaldization: • The proliferation of McDonald’s principles of
efficiency, predictability, control and rationality through not only food production and consumption, but also through other realms of the social world (e.g., the delivery of health care, education, news, transportation, etc.)
• What this means in terms of my argument:• The merged food/fun/fast/efficient/
predictable/comfortable cognitive schemas created by McDonald’s now serve as the fundamental organizing principles of capitalism and consumer culture.
McDonaldization illustrated
• Direct influences through supply chains• Tyson’s new breed of chicken with larger breasts
• New breeds of potatoes
• Biotechnology
• Indirect influences• McDonaldization of organic food production
• “Eatertainment” (e.g., TGI Friday’s, Outback Steak House, Chili’s, etc.)
Cognitive Schemas and McDonaldization
•The McDonald’s … model of fast-food consumption replaces the traditional model of home-prepared food with commodified food, which then becomes a model for food production, replicated through frozen and prepared food … In other words, McDonald’s provides a new hyperreal model of what food and eating are, mediated by its food technologies and organization of food production and consumption.•(Kellner, 1999)
The McDonald’s Paradox• The power of culture:
• … the paradox of McDonald’s longevity is that an institution that destroyed tradition (that is, home cooking, individualized family restaurants, a balanced and healthy diet) has itself become tradition that accrues nostalgia and the aura of Americana. (Kellner, 1999)
With a smile on his face and a sparkle in his
baby blue eyes, “Eric” is having
the time of his life. He’s
enjoying his very first order of
delicious french fries with mom
and dad at McDonald’s.
McMemories
So what?• Eating is a cultural, and therefore moral, act; so…
• The question is not whether McDonald’s makes us fat. The question is a much more profound one: what does McDonald’s influence on our culture do to us as moral beings?
• Industrial food production systems, central to capitalist societies, strip much of the morality from food and/or attach a new morality independent of the food’s production and the culture in which it is consumed
What should we do?• Promote the cultural and moral value of slow food (a
more positive way of saying boycott McDonald’s and all forms of the culture it has produced)
• “The boycott is not to be judged in terms of its universal success in encouraging everyone everywhere to condemn and avoid (fast-food culture)…The premium of the boycott is in what it does for the individual. It turns the individual into the self-aware author of her or his own moral integrity and ethical being. The individual becomes an inwardly glowing beacon of morality in an otherwise indifferent world.”
