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EDITOR
Paula Lavigne
OPINION
EDITOR
Matthew Waite
EDITORIAL
BOARD
Erin Gibson
Joshua Gillin
Jeff Randall
Julie Sobczyk
Ryan Soderlin
Our
VIEW
Advertising
autocracy
Government tobacco
tyranny harmful
Puff that cigarette.
Chew that tobacco.
Roll that smoke and spit that juice.
The government can tell people that
tobacco products are bad for their health,
but it shouldn’t slap the tobacco compa- *
nies with a “You sell a product that is bad
for people, you can’t advertise it.”
It this is the trend ot the federal govern
ment, why is alcohol still able to advertise?
Drunken drivers kill and maim thousands of
people a year. But the companies that pro
duce these products are still able to advertise.
Smoking can give people lung cancer
and drinking can give people a range of
health problems. Either way, a person dies
a slow, painful death. Why then are tobac
co companies being singled out?
It has also been suggested that eating
too many fatty foods can clog people’s
arteries and eventually kill them. But fatty
foods are still advertised in this country on
a daily basis.
People, regardless of what the govern
ment thinks, have the right to do bad
things to themselves. Yes, it is a person’s
God-given right in this country to smoke,
drink, chew and eat fatty foods. People
know that these things are bad for them.
People have been made aware by the
media, government and health pamphlets
that these things can kill people.
But people, of their own volition, do
them anyway.
It’s all about the Constitution, baby.
There is freedom of speech in the
United States. The First Amendment gives
tobacco companies the right to advertise
because advertising is a form of speech. If
the government continues to kill advertis
ing campaigns like the Marlboro Man and
Joe Camel, what’s next? The Pillsbury
Doughboy? If the federal government can
control advertising, it can control other
things as well.
Without tobacco advertising, sports
such as car racing, rodeo and drag racing
might suffer or cease to exist. These sports
would have to fill the hole left by the
absence of the tobacco dollar. Some forms
of entertainment could disappear.
The federal government should get its
nose out of tobacco advertising. It should
worry more about the war on drugs than
the war on tobacco.
How tobacco companies advertise
should be on a very low priority level of
the federal government. Issues like home
lessness, AIDS, gang violence, domestic
policy, foreign trade, environmental pollu
tion (for which funding was cut) and
crowded prisons should take priority.
It seems the government isn’t dealing
with the issues that are really affecting the
United States. Instead, they have been
putting up a smoke screen.
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the Fall 1997 Daily Nebraskan. They do
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Haney's
VIEW
. sTl
F ,:
STEVE CULLEN is a
junior advertising major
and Daily Nebraskan
columnist.
“Diet pills may hold the cure for
obesity.”
Sure.
“Lose 30 pounds in 30 days.”
Right.
Sounds like another quick fix.
In our society, pressures from
culture and its fat-pocketed, demigod
controllers have led many Americans
to become obsessed with “health”
and appearance. At the root of this
unhealthy health rush of waist-whit
tling wisdom is the worst illness I
have seen: Quick-Fix Mentality.
This mentality and the way it has
gorged itself on our deep-fat-fried
food-on-a-veggie-plate society will
bloat us on a diet of falsehoods. It
will kill you faster than an overdose
of fen-phen.
bhort- lived trends and tad fash
ion play a huge role in this mind-set
by idealizing images that are found
in less than 1 percent of the popula
tion, then digitally remastering them
for mass-magazine distribution. No
person on earth can attain those
dimensions. We’re bursting at the
buttons to look a certain, thin, way.
We have lots of food freedom,
and second helpings of overdone
pressure about what to eat. The two
have brought about an all-you-can
eat buffet of fitness/nutrition infor
mation.
Unfortunately, we know many
things about very little.
Everyone has their own opinion
of what is healthy. Just look around a
GNC, the health store that is to
health fads as drug dealers are to the
crack epidemic. But GNC deals
crash diets, metabolizers, L
Carentine, ginseng, and even tea
leaves that burn fat or “give you
great abs in five minutes a day.”
The Quick-Fix Mentality has led
these “stay-puffed” health gurus to
bail water instead of plugging the
holes in the boat - they are standing
the middle of the forest and just
looking at all the trees.
The result is fat-free everything,
I----—
Diet duplicity
Slick shortcuts undermine health
«-, j
Well, I have Big News for everybody
looking for the Big Secret: the killer ab
workout or the diet that will give them their
dream body. ...It doesn’t exist.”
even fat. Remember Olestra? Its
more akin to Turbo Lax than diet
pills. Yeah, that’s healthy. The powers
that be brainwash the masses into
self-conscious delusions, then give
‘em what they want.
All this for a price, if not the
health they longed for.
The American bottom-line spirit
feeds the Quick-Fix epidemic; we
end up judging success in terms of
tangible, visible results. Here’s the
irony: Americans embrace the work
ethic, yet work amazingly hard and
commit so much time to finding a
shortcut. Or worse yet, an easier way
to do it.
Easy come, easy go, and often
the shortcut falls short.
With all these options, pressures
and misinformation, fat fighters and
weight watchers end up chasing a
dream. Most either give up and wal
low in their rotting fat, or are search
ing for the Quick Fix: fooKs gold.
And yet despite our go, go, go
culture, 90 percent of the population
can’t meet the American Medical
Association’s pathetic definition of
physically fit. Twenty percent of
Americans are obese, and it’s not
uncommon for people to hgve eating
disorders.
Well, I have Big News for every
body looking for the Big Secret: the
killer ab workout or the diet that will
give them their dream body. There is
no secret. It doesn’t exist. You won’t
find it.
Being fit is the way you live, not
the size of your jeans. Washboard
abs come with the lifestyle not the
workout. Being proud of the way you
look is just what happens when you
are proud of who you are and how
you live. Look at it this way: Slim
waist does not equal being fit. Being
fit equals slim waist.
But I didn’t sink $5 million into
an ad campaign, so you probably
won’t listen.
It's really simple: Don’t eat the
second cheeseburger. Use your body,
don’t abuse it. I run 70 miles a week,
but I don’t recommend that to every
body. You don’t have to live like a
gym rat to stay in shape, but don't
lay around and eat potato chips.
See? Simple.
This bottom line, Quick-Fix,
GNC-wizard garbage is why diets
never work. The focus is inaction and
result - do nothing and get results -
never deal with lifestyle and process.
Same goes with smoking, drinking
and anything else, even my running.
What you are is how you view your
self and life.
Are you a Quick rix or a long
haul - a Twinkie or a PowerBar?
A fundamental flaw with diets is
once you pursue a diet - and get on
one - you have accomplished your
goal. You are on a diet.
Congratulations. Go home, eat a
Twinkie. The only place to go is out
of the diet.
The one who commits to being
more healthful is striving to be more
healthy, not end up more healthy It’s
a lifestyle, not a goal. It’s a funda
mental change, not a temporary way
point.
Life doesn’t come with “miracle
solutions,” and “secrets to better liv
ing.”
I know sometimes things go
wrong and we have to do some dam
age control, but the Quick Fix is a
bandage solution. It doesn’t save you
from being split in two by the cement
mixer of cultural distress speeding at
you everyday.
If you don’t stop putting your
hand under the hammer, it won’t stop
getting whacked.
Don’t get Quick Fixed.
Be healthful. Be smart. They
aren’t mutually exclusive.
P.5. Write 1,11
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