Are Vitamins Cool?
Wandering through a convenience store today, I came across a new end-of-the-ailse display- lots of cute little foil bags on a rack. Eyecatching graphics. Co-ordinated colours. What is this stuff?
Vitamins.
COOL vitamins.
I mean, most vitamins come in these brown, medicinal-looking bottles. Medicine isn't cool. Medicine suggests illness, convalesence, time and effort.
Yuk.
As I looked more closely, saw the foil bags had cute little illustrations of young women illustrating the stuff these cool vitamins can do illustratively (for semi-literates like myself).
So, these girls are drinking beer and wolfing down huge meals and checking their figures, etc. What can these vitamins do? They can quickly, cheaply reverse the negative effects of an irresponsible lifestyle, effortlessly transforming the users into Darwinianly acceptable organisms (with no hangovers). Cool.
But not really possible. We live in a complex environment which generally requires time-and-energy-consuming processes to accomplish anything of substance.
I guess it all goes to prove that one of the few things that CAN be accomplished simply is selling people useless stuff they hope- against the evidence of all previous experience- will actually work.
Vitamins.
COOL vitamins.
I mean, most vitamins come in these brown, medicinal-looking bottles. Medicine isn't cool. Medicine suggests illness, convalesence, time and effort.
Yuk.
As I looked more closely, saw the foil bags had cute little illustrations of young women illustrating the stuff these cool vitamins can do illustratively (for semi-literates like myself).
So, these girls are drinking beer and wolfing down huge meals and checking their figures, etc. What can these vitamins do? They can quickly, cheaply reverse the negative effects of an irresponsible lifestyle, effortlessly transforming the users into Darwinianly acceptable organisms (with no hangovers). Cool.
But not really possible. We live in a complex environment which generally requires time-and-energy-consuming processes to accomplish anything of substance.
I guess it all goes to prove that one of the few things that CAN be accomplished simply is selling people useless stuff they hope- against the evidence of all previous experience- will actually work.
posted by John Elliot | 9:26 PM
3 Comments:
Howdy. On the other hand, I'm reminded of this article, and a very interesting idea:
"...there is now a presupposition that illness is as normal as health. Earlier theories of medicalisation still considered illness to be the exception; now, being ill is seen as a normal state, possibly even more normal than being healthy. We are all now seen as being potentially ill; that is the default state we live in today. [...] Being potentially ill is now so prevalent that we have reached a situation where illness becomes a part of our identity, part of the human condition."
So vitamins are cool, and my medication makes me who I am, and things that happen to me, or that I do to myself, are all there is of me... Related, I suspect. Perhaps it's more noticeable here in the States than .jp?
Gives the term "How are you today?" a whole new meaning. And some people will give you the true answer! (How tedious.) We would all do better to spend more time in physical labour and going for long walks to promote our appetites for good healthy food and and our minds for good healthy learning.
There's a lot to your advice, Janet. Nowadays, you can just decide what you like to eat and do, then go online to find some "expert" to back you up. Moderation , activity, and low-processed foods are a better bet than exteme fads.
As to sickness and health, it seems sickness can bring about a lot of spiritual healing and growth that merely physically healthy people don't have. We are more than a piece of meat. But, taking care of the bodies God gave us is important as well. The main thing is to remember that, healthy or sick, we are God's children, and not free agents. Keep right with God, and your time here on earth is well spent, "in sickness or in health".
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