A More Conscientious Citizen

My greatest takeaway from this class has been my attitude towards advertisements.  I’ve always known that most advertisements are heavily biased or exaggerated but after taking this class I have a whole new outlook on nature-centered advertisements.  It hit me last night.  I was watching TV and there was a commercial that seemed to be encouraging people to “get back” to nature and enjoy the great outdoors.  I actually rolled my eyes thinking about how this was probably some outlandish scheme to make people feel as if some completely unrelated anthropocentric product could make them reunite with nature.  It turns out it was actually a commercial for Cabela’s… For those of you who don’t know, Cabela’s is a retail store specializing in outdoor recreational sports such as hunting, fishing and camping.  Needless to say, I suppose this class has made me a little over skeptical in some ways.

However, I still appreciate the awareness that this class has given me.  It has really forced me to reconsider a lot of what I am told pertaining to my health and nature.  Another tidbit that I took away from this course was the power that the “ceutical” companies have over us.  In particular, I remember it really surprised me to find out that the “one a day” chewy vitamins aren’t actually approved by the FDA and have been shown to have no significant impact after extended use.  What startled me most about this minuscule fact is that those vitamins have been recommended to me by at least two or three doctors.  It’s amazing that “neutriceutical” such as these can even fool professionals!  Facts such as these that I’ve learned through out this course really make me wonder how many other times I’ve fallen into such a trap.

-Jordan Cotleur