The Food Industry and the Manipulation of the Masses Through Advertising
Keywords:
Food industry, Handling, PropagandaAbstract
The food industry emerged in the seventeenth century, after the Industrial Revolution, and gained strength with globalization and the rise of capitalism in the 90s. This was due to the new format of society, which went from primarily agrarian and pastoral, with a lifestyle that followed the patterns of nature, to almost completely urban, with the notion of time modified and much more accelerated. The growing demand for productivity, at first in factory work, and now in large companies, has made adaptations in people's lives, and in this way eating habits have also changed, becoming more practical and, consequently, less conscious. Alienation, lack of free time and stress form the perfect scenario for the food industry to sell its products, even though it is harmful to the health of consumers. Advertising has become the main driver of industrialized products, selling a distorted image that manipulates the choice of buyers. Neuromarketing strategies, chromatic scales, slogans, songs, and packaging with images of famous characters and artists divert attention from controversial ingredients, making the person unaware of what they are consuming. The use of substances with high addictive power, such as sugar, fats, sodium and chemical additives, create dependence in the body, leading the consumer to always look for that food, in increasing quantities and more frequently. All this makes the food industry create its own consumer market, in a cycle that is only possible to escape with awareness, food education and, above all, critical thinking, so that the population can choose what to eat freely and consciously, knowing the impacts of their decisions.
