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Issue No. 1 Consumerism
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Content
Consumerism as an identity
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What in the health ?
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The destruction of earth
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Consumerism as an identity The New Norm
Many of us dream about the new things that we like to have, from the newest version of a mobile phone to the most recent product of a famous clothing brand and plan to buy them, mostly by working hard. This has become a norm in the modern era we live in. And it’s a sad reality that in fact, possessing most of those items is not crucial to our survival. We live in a world where our identity depends on the number of certain products we own and the more expensive they are, the higher social level we gain. Even though individuals play an important role in the expansion of consumerism, it is not limited to individuals and goes beyond that. After WWII countries have been divided into different classes based on their gross national products known as GNP. Politicians and
Consumerism as an identity
Behrad Rezaei
government agencies use GNP as a tool to evaluate economic success. However, GNP is truly about the amount of products a country consumes; it is about compelling people to consume more to avoid the dooms day. Zygmunt Bauman in his book Consuming Life (2007) explains how individuals in today’s modern world are forced to find an identity and pursue it, and governments and media found that consumerism is the most common vehicle to perform this task. As mentioned above, media has a significant role in driving this trend. They endorse consumerism by creating an icon and impose consumerist values on us as characteristics of a normal individual.
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Therefore, we never feel satisfied and happy with what we have, so we work harder to get more and unwillingly erase human values and consume most of the existing resources to gain better and higher social identity. Today, we are unwittingly attracted to products that have been endorsed by famous cinema and TV personalities or commercials because we feel obliged to obtain their identities and values. However, most of these values are misleading and aim to enforce consumerism’s value which is “live to buy�. Now the important question is, what we can do to stop this dangerous trend? To answer this question, we have to define how we can practice true consumerism and improve our life style rather than being trapped
Consumerism as an identity
by it. We have to accept the fact that we cannot live without buying things but making the right decisions before buying is what makes the difference. For instance, we have to realize that when an item is on sale it does not necessarily mean we need to buy it. Also, commercials are not made based on true facts and they are not genuine representation of a normal life. Additionally, having a job is not only about getting paid to buy products: it is a way to improve our life in many different areas such as, education, health, family and may be helping to sustain our planet in a bigger scope.
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The final word is about our planet: we are at the edge of destroying our planet and eventually humanity if we keep practicing media’s concept of consumerism. We should learn more about true consumerism which is defined by rational individual and its dignified solutions to sustain the existing resources and improve human life in a more constructive way, rather than living as an irresponsible consumer who believe in media’s promised utopia and prioritize their identity and values over their own. Probably then we can put a stop to the destruction that is facing our beautiful planet.
Consumerism as an identity
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What in the health?
What Are You Really Consuming?
With heart disease being the number one killer world wide, type 2 diabetes at an all time high and an obesity epidemic all happening as you’re reading this it leads one to think what is going on? Why are more and more people attaining chronicle illnesses? The answer can be found in The China Study. The China Study conducted in 2006 by Tomas Campbell and Colin Campbell is deemed one of the “largest nutritional researches ever conducted.” You may be wondering now what does this have to do with heart disease and diabetes? The study has proven direct links between foods we are eating and chronicle disease. Foods derived from animals such as meat, diary and eggs are all high in
What in the health?
Didem Altindoken
cholesterol causing certain types of cancer, heart disease, obesity and diabetes. Foods such as processed meats are group 1 Carcinogens. This is the same group as cigarette smoking and drinking alcohol. Group 1 Carcinogens are deadly to the human body and should never be consumed. We often are told that McDonalds and KFC are bad for our health but people don’t listen because they’re unaware of or don’t completely understand how bad they really are. To put it into context buying your child a nuggets happy meal form McDonalds is like basically giving them a packet of cigarettes and a bottle of vodka but in a socially acceptable way of course.
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So why is this information not being promoted by leading health organisations like cancer council and heart foundation? Theses organisations actually promote eating these products. The Heart Foundation for example has recipes on their site that are presumed ‘healthy’ that including bacon chicken and even beef Bolognese. This is because major meat, dairy and egg corporations are typically the largest sponsors of organisation that ‘research’ into finding curers for diseases.
in some cases reduce the growth of cancer heart disease and other illnesses. With a plant-based diet nothing is missing more and more companies are creating plant-based alternative for your favourite things such as milk, eggs, burgers, cheese and even meat. In 2017 alone there was a 987% increase in the demand for vegan and vegetarian foods. Veganism is expected to be the biggest food shift of 2018. It is quickly becoming easier to find plant-based food in supermarkets and in restaurants.
You may be thinking “that’s okay I don’t eat those things that often”. The China Study states that eating any food with even 1% cholesterol will increase your risk of contracting these chronicle illnesses.
As Hippocrates the ancient most famous figure in the history of medicine had once said, “let food be thy medicine.” The food you put in your body is the most important type of medication. It can make you healthy and happy or sick and sad. The ultimate choice is up to you.
What will I eat if I can’t eat meat, dairy and eggs? A plant-based diet has been proven to stop and even
What in the health?
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PROCESSED MEATS ARE GROUP 1 CARCINOGENS. Eating one hot dog is the equivalent to smoking 4 cigarettes.
EATING MEAT CAUSES CANCER
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The destruction of earth Luxury Vs Necessity
Consumerism is seen on todays society more than ever before. Not only does consumerism exist in the real world, it also exists in the online world. Everything we do revolves around consumerism. Consumers today are all about the way people are expected to look, as a result buy into brands to please the society and the people around us. Another aspect is that Consumers today do often is we are buying thing we do not need lead to full closet of junk and unusable items. We as consumers need to understand that there is a cause and effect in consumerism this not only effect the consumers of the first world countries but also issue for consumer of the third world countries. Consumerism has not just started right now in todays society but has
Luxury Vs Necessity
Gigyasa Sood
exists long before this. The only difference is how people dealt with it. The philosophy behind todays drive for consumerism is the following of trends an example of this the consumer that line up for the new iPhones. This also apples to the evaluation of technology, fashion and jeweller. Globalization is another issue that is the biggest driving force for consumerism occurring in first and third world countries. It is not hard to find items such as televisions, cell phones, computers and air conditioning are considered as necessities to consumer around the Global. Another issue in the first world country is that went a product is broken or used often they have the tendency to throw away and replaced with new one, while in the third world countries they tend to find a way to solve the problem,
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maybe by repair or an ingenious way of using the item. Consumerism has targeted the consumer through the advertisement on the TV, radio, flyer and in between video consumer watch. All the above have gain the attention of the consumer through the terms such as buy one get one free, lowest price granted and price match. These terms are related to the advertisement of big company that increase their cash flow through low price. Furthermore, because of the low-price consumer in the first world country think that it is cheaper to replace a product then to get it fixed. Most big company entice the consumer of the product through putting the price to be $4.99 instead of $5 another method is putting up sign in the window indicating a sale that tempts the consumer into the shop where they end up buy at lets
Luxury Vs Necessity
on item. This is not only limited to the physical world but also the internet were in between 2012 to 2017 the Online retail sales have increased from 11.6% to 24.1%. A major role in this is the increase in use of social media as social media has the ability to affect the way people think before buying e.g. craft videos and links help consumers to item or site solve their problem. Consumerism is an issue that not only effect the consumer but also the earth. Furthermore, consumerism has integrated into the society that we as Consumer do not realise the difference between wants and needs. This is modern day crises and will be the cause of many problem in the future in of the first and third world countries due to population increasing every second.
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