Hi ho, MMMLogerinos!

I've been listening to Hay House Radio and enjoying all the inspirational/motivational/metaphysical speakers and teachers. This morning before I started my MMMLog, I caught coach Bill Phillips whose specialty is weight loss help. He was talking about the pandemic of obesity in the United States and asked if the audience had any thoughts about the causes of said pandemic. I've got plenty of opinions about that subject.

It ain't all our fault.

Yes, we put the junk food in our mouths in incredible amounts--that's our decision and follow through. We do that, but you know what, we've been conditioned to do so. Conditioned via print media, TV and radio to seek and find satisfaction of whatever hunger outside of ourselves. The corporations spend billions of dollars on researching human behavior and the best ways to condition people to be receptive to their advertising messages and act on them. It's been discovered that advertising strictly through audio channels isn't as effective as on TV as when one is listening to a radio ad, they're still having to use their imagination to visualize the product or state the ad is selling. So they're thinking and the sellers sure don't want that. They want reacting and the more emotional the response the better.

On TV, no imagination is necessary for all the perceptual input is carefully managed to zoom right into the subconscious. And most of us don't even realize it. We may consciously think or notice something about the ad of a handsome and smiling couple dining at Mickey D's. They share a longing, even flirty glance into each other's eyes, have both hands lovingly wrapped around a huge-seeming sandwich and take a bite. They're obviously pre-orgasmic. And that tasty little message goes right to our subconscious minds and where it's associated with and stored with other like information or experience something like this:

Hunger (physical and emotional) = Eat/Consume = Hamburger (or whatever is being sold) = Delicious = Entertainment = Beauty = Love = Satisfaction = Eat/Consume.

Again, we make the decision to overeat and indulge ourselves in so called processed food we've been told isn't good for us. But we're helped mightily in that decision to consume by every ad we read, see or hear. Think of it, we're constantly bombarded by the subliminal and overt messages to EAT, to drink and indulge ourselves because we deserve some fun, some happiness, some satisfaction, don't we? Then we get the ads for drugs that promise to take away the consequences of our indulgence. It's a win-win for everyone but the consumer.

Look at that word again--CONSUMER. That's what we're called by the corporations, the sellers, the dealers in surrogate satisfaction and fulfillment. They've gotten so good at what they do that we don't even know that we've been conditioned to consume. Then they, and we, blame our lack of self control entirely on us, the conditioned consumer. But, hey, there's a new diet book, a new drug and new coach to help us lose all that ugly weight we've allowed ourselves to put on.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmelinda and her conditioned response . . .