It's been a decade and more since I published that piece, and there are plenty of things that could be trimmed. Originally the concept was drafted as an example for a Food Writing class, to be published at a later date, and it shows. My tendency towards word bloat for deliberate student editing practice is painfully obvious, as is feels like an overuse of alliteration. While not forced, it's clear I built some section-defining sentences around it. But that's less important for this than the concepts behind the piece itself.
It briefly but clearly goes through the rise of food and fitness expertise on television from the 1950s through the early to mid 2000s, accompanied by analysis of the likely intended goals of said media representation. It moves from applauding the practical and pragmatic methods of the earlier incarnations to decrying the more theatrical, advertising driven modern approach.
Overall that notion holds up fairly well to scrutiny, though it does come across as somewhat bitter. As someone who actively resents the notion of appearance influencing perspective likely even more now than I once did, that should come as no surprise.
What's happened in the intervening years has been very interesting- similar to a condensed version of the original piece's time scale. The rapid rise of Instagram and other forms of monetized high-exposure social media interaction have led to a drastic reduction in longform education for both food and fitness (also just in general, but that's for another post).
This results in large quantities of unrelated or junk information, which requires additional verification... that doesn't usually happen. Formerly reliable sources of information have been paywalled, monetized, pulled offline, or otherwise hamstrung, and the remainder aren't always up to snuff. Likewise, the tendency toward short form, rapid 'content generation' has resulted in other sociocultural and educational flaws.
In the time spent making sure a recipe, technique, or informative tip is viable (sometimes one must even ensure something is simply safe), a person could often have learned the necessary processes from scratch- so the shorter formats don't reliably reduce time spent learning or improve ease of understanding. "All surface, no substance" has seemingly become the order of the day- a logical if rapid progression.
The speed with which nearly effortless worldwide interaction and information gathering has become standard for much of the world has largely left the individual desire for research at nadir.
Given the comparable ease with which disinformation can be spread, the need for cultivating such a desire may never yet have been greater.
So the question remains- what is to be done? What can be done, even? Had I the authority I qualify for, It would be relatively simple. But when media conglomerates and technopolies command more attention and influence than supposed world leaders, the notions of aggressive reformation and societal change seem as naught but a pipe dream. Underneath it all, the notion is simple: those with resources and influence most reliably prioritize objectively wrong things, and do not care about improving themselves enough even to recognize that, much less work to make amends.
