Food And Media Wise

A Media Literacy Program

Food and Media Wise is a food and media literacy program designed for teens and young adults to improve understanding of the relationship between our food choices, our health, the environment, global and local economies, human rights and the media. Students develop critical thinking skills through close examination and analysis of different examples of food and health related messages to better understand how media influence our attitudes and behaviors. Students are taught how to use digital technology to produce original public service announcements to promote healthful food and lifestyle choices. Students are encouraged to use their creativity to encourage viewers with informative ads that might provide alternatives to junk food. For example, what healthy foods you can buy for a dollar or where to find those foods.

The purpose of Food and Media Wise is to:

Media understanding encourages youth to become active within their communities. Through promoting independent thought and freeing youth from the influence of profit driven media, they are able to make healthful decisions based on their needs rather than the needs that are prefabricated by the corporate powers that be.

Why/Need:

Media are all around us and increasingly taking over the images in our mind. Youth are especially susceptible as they are presented with up to 3,000 media images a day! What are media? Media are the tools used in order to communicate in a language that is usually visual, audio or a combination of both. They are used to convey a thought or evoke an emotion in the receiver of the messages. Media is increasingly influencing knowledge, values, attitudes, behaviors and social norms, especially of youth. Because media has become so ubiquitous in the life of American children, it is crucial to teach children how to interpret, analyze and synthesize the messages they are constantly bombarded with.

Media are all around us in many forms such as TV, internet, books, newspapers, magazines, video games, t-shirts, billboards and much more. There is nothing inherently bad or wrong with media, but the use of media to market products and shape the culture of a new generation of consumers does have its share of negative impacts on society. For example, when corporations are more concerned with profit than your health or the health of the environment, the use of media becomes more destructive than constructive. Media literacy challenges media images and transforms the passive receiver into an active citizen.

The topics of media and food are analogous in that they both deal with matters of access, control, freedom and democracy, autonomy, equality, human rights and harmful environmental impacts. Examining both issues are equally crucial in maintaining a true democracy where we, the public have the right to make informed decisions about how we choose to relate with nature. Understanding how we feed ourselves and how media influence our actions are key to avoiding an environmental and societal catastrophe. Our future depends on our recognition that we are solely responsible for the preservation of our life sustaining planet, Earth.

Media have been used very cleverly by the food industry to influence America's food choices. The present control of media by corporate players have teamed up with agribusiness to promote some of the least nutritious foods through product placement and branding. Media and food corporations form a tremendously powerful partnership that has the ability to influence government policies. Media also consistently provides contradictory and confusing health messages which further create ignorance rather than assisting the public to make better choices. Consumers who rely on mass media outlets for information have very little knowledge regarding what is happening within our current food system. The lack of information is just as harmful in limiting consumer choices as misleading information. Many know very little to nothing of what genetically modified organisms are, for example, while they are consuming them daily in meat and processed food. Consumers are also unaware that most of the food they eat is much more expensive than what we pay for at the cash register since taxpayer dollars pay for the subsidies and environmental cleanup that the private sector benefits from.

Food is an excellent place to focus on media since we all have an intimate relationship with food and we all need to eat. Food is also connected to everything in the universe and because it is taken into the body, it is our direct connection to our environment. In addition, food influences not only our physical bodies, but also our intellectual development, spiritual and emotional selves. We also must accept the fact that our current agricultural practices are not sustainable and with the planet's health at risk, we are all at risk. Why media? We are currently in the information age, although in reality it can be better expressed as the misinformation age. It is necessary to have the tools to sort through the 3,000 images we are exposed to daily. In order to better understand ourselves we must look closely at where our ideas of reality come from. Are they truly our own? Do your wants truly reflect what your heart desires or are our needs sold to us by an outside source? When we begin to question media consciously, we are able to sort through messages to draw our own conclusions and therefore, make our own decisions. Examining media as they relate to food also allows us the skills to create our own messages. Creating media is a way to exercise citizenship that is challenging, thought provoking and soulful. When we create and share media, we become the message makers who contribute a diverse and authentic voice to the public sphere.

Who? Where?

Food and Media Wise can be incorporated into an after school, enrichment or summer program.

Teachers are increasingly losing vital teaching time in their classrooms due to testing requirements. Teachers barely have enough time to teach their regular curricula. Therefore, after school programs and summer programs provide the opportunity for supplemental learning that goes beyond the basic subjects of math, English, science and social studies. Since public schools no longer teach the crucial art of critical thinking or health and nutrition, it is imperative that these subjects are taught to youth through alternative programs.

It is time we invest in our adolescents by providing real life skills and information that are crucial for youth living in this world on the brink of social and environmental disaster. We must offer the opportunity to make a difference. Food and media understanding is by no means the only answer, but it does provide a solid framework for youth to better understand how our daily decisions shape our world.