Al Katrina We Re Watching What We Eat Summary

In Al Katrina’s, “We’re Watching What We Eat,” he talks about how food portrayed on television tells us a lot about the shifting cultural attitudes. Katrina attacks the extreme levels television portrays healthy and unhealthy eating habits by mentioning shows like The Biggest Loser and Bulging Brides treating hunger as an almost sick shameful necessity. The author also talks about one’s opinion on Western culture or primetime programming may infer that hunger is matched only by one’s self-loathing; he uses Homer Simpsons severely eating disorder which leads to anything ranging from a heart attack to a spiritual journey. Finally, Katrina explains a few shows showing the satisfaction we can get out our food with the mobster drama The Sopranos who revelled in an endless consumption of ziti, cannoli, and capicola ham. Watching TV over the years has shown me a few ways of my own how television illustrates unhealthy eating habits with numerous amounts of fast food commercials, TV characters, and popular TV shows. …show more content…
Katrina discusses this when he states, “The tension between healthy moderation and debauched indulgence is amplified to unhealthy extremes in contemporary television, with shows either championing near-starvation or reveling in abject gluttony” (2). For example, throughout a day fast food commercials are played constantly for a viewer to see promotions for stores such as McDonalds, Burger King, and Wendy’s, all which are known for their own famous style of burgers and fries. These commercials manipulate the viewer, reeling them in like fish making them want to go out and dive into the loaded fat, high calorie foods illustrating unhealthy eating unhealthy habits. Although commercials are a way for television to illustrate unhealthy eating habits, so is using popular characters of a