Do you want a coffin with that?

A place to discuss health and fitness, healthy diets. A fit body makes for a fit mind.
alan
Posts: 3111
Joined: Wed Sep 30, 2009 12:14 am
Location: Miramar beach, Fl.

Re: Do you want a coffin with that?

Post by alan »

Moderation--we all love it. Who is willing to decry a sensible, moderate policy when it comes to diet?
I am.
Show me any world in which the garbage sold at those chain food joints qualifies as food, and I'll agree that it is Ok to eat it.
plwk
Posts: 1462
Joined: Mon Mar 01, 2010 5:14 am

Re: Do you want a coffin with that?

Post by plwk »

They shld have added KFC...
Paññāsikhara
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Re: Do you want a coffin with that?

Post by Paññāsikhara »

This reminds me of a funny story.

Way back in the early 90s (adopt grandpa voice for this story) we had a project to do in the standard Engineering School maths class. We were given a McDonald's menu, which included prices and nutritional information, and had to work out the most cost effective way of getting a standard dietary intake through the items on the menu.

Tricky.

However, my friends and I, being rather clever and all ( :tongue: ) didn't even need to set up the various equations (and possibly even computer model) to work it out, the answer was as ingenious as it was simple:

The most cost effective way to eat from a McDonald's menu, was to eat only the tomato ketchup ... because it is free! :jumping:

Needless to say, from my undergraduate days until now, I can recall no more than about 2 or 3 times I've eaten McDonalds, always only when taken there by someone else. That stuff barely qualifies as food (except, um... the ketchup, of course!) I remember a few friends of the anarchist / punk / militant vegan variety who used to protest outside the big McDs on Queens Street, in the heart of Auckland.

ah, those were the days!
Last edited by Paññāsikhara on Thu Sep 16, 2010 8:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
My recently moved Blog, containing some of my writings on the Buddha Dhamma, as well as a number of translations from classical Buddhist texts and modern authors, liturgy, etc.: Huifeng's Prajnacara Blog.
shjohnk
Posts: 193
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2009 2:19 am
Location: Shanghai, China

Re: Do you want a coffin with that?

Post by shjohnk »

Ben: I'm gathering that you're an Aussie of similar vintage to me, so I guess you'd remember too the anti-smoking campaigns they used to put on TV, like the sponge soaking up all the dirty, greasy water, or more comically, the 'Bag the Fag(means cigarettes in Australia/NZ/UK etc.!)' campaign: It was very visually impacting but it didn't stop many people smoking that I knew - They just figured 'won't happen to me'. Same with the 'Grim Reaper' HIV/AIDS ads, didn't eliminate unsafe sex. People (including me:)) know that their unskilful habits are harming them, probably going to kill them but they prefer to remain blissfully ignorant. Hence, we practice! :)
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Ben
Posts: 18438
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:49 am
Location: kanamaluka

Re: Do you want a coffin with that?

Post by Ben »

Hey John
Mate, I think you would be surpised as to how effective those campaigns really are/were. And for a lot of people that are addicted, those ads become a constant nag, that and other social pressures, it builds up. Most people I have known who were addicted, myself included, hated smoking and were looking for the courage or support to give up - even if it was never admitted.
How long has it been since you've been home John? Have you been back after a law was passed that turns quarter of a cigarette packet into a health warning?
Australia-smoking-2010-05-10.jpg
Australia-smoking-2010-05-10.jpg (190.16 KiB) Viewed 3291 times
And that's just one of them.

That grim reaper ad was a classic.



A few years later when I was doing marketing as part of my degree, it was cited as the most successful television campaign for a public health message (in Australia).
kind regards

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

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shjohnk
Posts: 193
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2009 2:19 am
Location: Shanghai, China

Re: Do you want a coffin with that?

Post by shjohnk »

Hi Ben,

Points taken. I was back in Oz for 6 months in '09 but not being a smoker didn't pay so much attention to the nifty new feature on the packs :) Well done, anti-smoking lobby :clap: Yeah I remember being freaked out by the reaper thing but it hit me a few years early, if you know what I mean! Anyway, if these campaigns can stop people living an unhealthy lifestyle, great. I guess I just wanted to point out from my own experience that deep-rooted bad habits have a terrible habit of sticking around longer than Geoffrey Boycott on a plum pudding pitch, even though we know it (he?) is harmful! All the best to you and yours down there in Tassie!

John
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