Fat and Depressed Many people suffer from obesity and depression. Resulting from the unhealthy diet and the lack of enough exercise, obesity has rapidly increased due to people’s accessibility of increasingly high calorie food. Depression, causing feelings of melancholy, exhaustion, low spirits, and even thoughts of suicide, can affect how people feel, think, and handle daily activities. Obesity and depression are widespread health problems that many people encounter and should be paid much attention to. In “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan”, Ethan Watters is concerned about Western drug companies engaged in a crusade to replace indigenous knowledge with Western paradigms that will open up highly lucrative new markets. In the course
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According to Watters, the executives of drug companies are devastatingly sure of the value of their products and they are perplexed about why other people are dubious about their products’ effectiveness. “The result is a marriage of the profit-seeking scheme in which disease is regarded as ‘an opportunity’ to the ethical view that mankind’s health hangs in the balance. This helps even the most aggressive marketers trust that they are performing a public service” (Applbaum as qtd. in Watters 528). The combination of the moral certainty and the enticement of considerable profits endorses those executives’ perspective that out of good intention, they are performing a public service and making an effort to heal the world. It the particularity of pharmaceutical industry that provides the drug companies with “an opportunity” to links their marketing activities to ethical objectives. The phrase “hang in the balance” implies that the executives are convinced that the well-being of human beings is at a critical stage. They regard themselves as people driven not only by profits but by the belief that they are battling with the diseases, specifically, depression. Likewise, Moss looks into the conflict between the profits and the …show more content…
Watters mentions that in order to attract people’s attention on the urgency of depression, the drug companies endeavor to finance research to show the correlation between depression and suicide rates. Various studies, which might obtain downright distinctive experimental results, are likely to be treated discriminatingly. “Those studies that showed a connection were reprinted in pamphlet form and reported to national media outlets as breaking news. Studies that failed to show a connection could simply be ignored” (Watters 526). Benefiting from the national media outlets, research whose conclusions is favorable to the drugs are publicized as the latest news, whereas research proving no relationship between depression and suicide is deliberately turned a blind eye to. The latter, even though its outcome is inconsistent with the prediction, should have been paid equal attention to. Similarly, Moss draws his attention to the research which is intended to find “the bliss point” of a product and finds some official papers documenting companies’ improper application of science. According to Moss, Lin—a former chef scientist for Frito-Lay—seriously treats salt as a risky food addictive that “The documents were evidence of the concern that Lin had for consumers and
According to Watters, the executives of drug companies are devastatingly sure of the value of their products and they are perplexed about why other people are dubious about their products’ effectiveness. “The result is a marriage of the profit-seeking scheme in which disease is regarded as ‘an opportunity’ to the ethical view that mankind’s health hangs in the balance. This helps even the most aggressive marketers trust that they are performing a public service” (Applbaum as qtd. in Watters 528). The combination of the moral certainty and the enticement of considerable profits endorses those executives’ perspective that out of good intention, they are performing a public service and making an effort to heal the world. It the particularity of pharmaceutical industry that provides the drug companies with “an opportunity” to links their marketing activities to ethical objectives. The phrase “hang in the balance” implies that the executives are convinced that the well-being of human beings is at a critical stage. They regard themselves as people driven not only by profits but by the belief that they are battling with the diseases, specifically, depression. Likewise, Moss looks into the conflict between the profits and the …show more content…
Watters mentions that in order to attract people’s attention on the urgency of depression, the drug companies endeavor to finance research to show the correlation between depression and suicide rates. Various studies, which might obtain downright distinctive experimental results, are likely to be treated discriminatingly. “Those studies that showed a connection were reprinted in pamphlet form and reported to national media outlets as breaking news. Studies that failed to show a connection could simply be ignored” (Watters 526). Benefiting from the national media outlets, research whose conclusions is favorable to the drugs are publicized as the latest news, whereas research proving no relationship between depression and suicide is deliberately turned a blind eye to. The latter, even though its outcome is inconsistent with the prediction, should have been paid equal attention to. Similarly, Moss draws his attention to the research which is intended to find “the bliss point” of a product and finds some official papers documenting companies’ improper application of science. According to Moss, Lin—a former chef scientist for Frito-Lay—seriously treats salt as a risky food addictive that “The documents were evidence of the concern that Lin had for consumers and