In research, I rediscover my rage

Thesis Week 2: Literary Review

An apparently angry salmon swimming its way upstream — source, Wikipedia (with my edit)

Sometimes, like fish, we allow ourselves to be carried downstream and we forget too quickly the realities that, upon our discovery of them, made us want to turn tail and swim upstream. Since last week’s topic exploration, I managed to commit to a space relevant to advertising and educational systems around food and nutrition. That’s still a broad topic area, but research will help me…right?

While researching scholarly articles about nutritional education, I stumbled across article after article examining through the years the affect advertising for foods high in fats and empty calories ( junk food) has on young children. I remembered things I’d forgotten. I got angry all over again.

Problem spaces are weird. Just when you think you’ve narrowed them, they seem to get bigger. Right now, I’m frustrated by at least 7 realities I’ve been reading about all week (and some of which I had prior knowledge of):

1. LACK OF BIODIVERSITY
   The industrialization of the food industry has produced identical mutant tomatoes (and every other item of fresh produce you see on the shelves.) Millions of bananas lay out in a trash heap to rot because they were too big, small, long — and yes, the workers actually have a measuring tape for that. This is why businesses like Imperfect exist.
2. OR LACK OF DIVERSITY IN GENERAL
   In the typical American grocery store, there are significantly less corporations than the plethora of “options” on display might suggest. When Hostess declared bankruptcy in 2012, everyone rushed to stock up on Twinkees and my sisters scoffed. They had no use for Twinkees (empty calories, right?) But then they realized that their favorite brand of bread was also under Hostess and they felt a little differently about that.
3. COMMERCIALS
   I don’t even like breakfast, so I did notice as child and even now how often sugary breakfast foods appear during commercial breaks. Nothing has changed and it turns out that sugary cereals are one of the most heavily advertised junk foods on television.
4. FACING
   I know stores practice facing, a sort-of fancy term for an organizational practice to make observers believe a store is fully stocked, and thus condition people into buying more.
5. SLOTTING FEES
   Companies actually pay stores to move their products to be strategically accessible to children. (I also noticed as a child that the Gushers were always at my eye level.) Do companies have no conscience? Will they simply continue to jeopardize global health just to make bigger profit?
6. LOST ORIGINS
   You might miss out on some cool history — orange carrots have amazing purple and white cousins from the Middle East. Or it may be a culturally important staple food but only appears in the cultural marketplaces — you can only find perilla (sesame leaves) in an Asian market. Mass production of food strips away the origin narratives of the produce.
7. LACK OF NUTRITION EDUCATION
   Studies show that most people can recognize the food pyramid when they see it, but don’t know it well enough to put it to use for themselves. But even if nutrition was taught better in schools, it wouldn’t be enough because people aren’t being taught how to read the labels either.

Additionally, each person is different and so the standard “don’t eat carbs” doesn’t work for everyone’s body type. Our bodies react to quantities, qualities, and types of foods differently, so don’t always believe the health gurus in their yoga pants who preach that broccoli is the best food for weight loss. (Habit has a cool service that generates a unique diet based off of blood samples.)

“Research provides evidence that even if everyone became more knowledgeable about food and nutrition, and food companies produced more healthful food products, consumers would still need help making nutritious food choices. Information is not enough.”
— Contento, Isabel. Nutrition Education: Linking Research, Theory, and Practice, p5

In Conclusion

My problem area didn’t get bigger, but I have more context to help me find the niche I want to design in. There’s an opportunity here and I intend to use my frustration and passion for change to fuel my thesis project — using my interaction design practices to change some aspect of this horribly broken system. Maybe I’ll add to the paths being paved, or channels being established toward change.

If you’ve followed me this far into my wandering thoughts, thank you. This was a very cathartic and clarifying experience for me. I hope you learned something new as well, and if there is any feedback you have for me, I’m down to chat!