Eat healthy. It's super trendy.

The Livestrong Cancer commercial that we watched in class last week was probably the saddest ad I have ever seen in my life. I literally almost cried, then wanted to donate to every cancer institute in the world. Hypothetically.

I never gave much thought to public health campaigns before, to be honest. Now I realize that, just like the readings from last week said, health promotion really is marketing. It's getting into people's heads, and getting them to listen to information, and then take action. Except the difference being that in business marketing the business owner profits with literal money, while in health promotion, we profit with that nice fuzzy feeling inside (darnit! Okay, I guess it's worth it). Well, also it is truly an investment in our future. When I first saw the "Theory at a Glance" reading again, I had a little bit of a pre-stigma against the lecture to come, but I never really thought about theory being relevant to health marketing/promotion before. It is actually really relevant! A new side of theory has been revealed to me! Lately I've been noticing myself noticing every marketing slogan, and trying to decipher who they are trying to reach, what type of theory it could stem from, how I can apply that to health promotion, and how effective I think it is (one of those things might not be true...). One that stood out to me, and I thought was relevant to the current diabetes epidemic was for the food store, Fresh and Easy. Their slogan is, "As cheap as being unhealthy." Simple. Memorable. Kind of funny. I want to shop there. Of course, I am a bit biased because I am in Public Health and generally a very healthy eater, but everyone is looking for cheap food! And nowadays, being healthy is pretty trendy and hip (esp in North Park, where I live), so that may be applicable to the people that aren't simply looking for cheap food. Often, when I tell people that I'm doing public health, they say, "oh like psychology?" And I always am confused and want to say, "um no, those don't even sound the same." Clearly, I have been mistaken, because health promotion and public health really do have a lot to do with psychology, and psychology has a lot to do with communication, a key component of public health.