Selling Fear and Empowerment in Food Advertising

Abstract

This paper explores the narrative behind Becel®'s pro.activ® calorie-reduced margarine advertising campaign. Becel® pro.activ® is a new functional food product developed with plant sterols that claims to lower cholesterol and is the first food product available for purchase in Canada with plant sterols. The campaign consists of six advertisements specifically targeted to women in two Canadian magazines (Canadian Living and More) over the course of six months from September 2010 to February 2011. Using a sociology of diagnosis framework, I argue that these advertisements create a false sense of urgency and empowerment surrounding high cholesterol for women, and reinforce a “healthy lifestyle discourse” that individualizes the responsibility for health, potentially disenfranchising the individual, patient and consumer. Using frame analysis, I argue that Becel®'s pro.activ® campaign constructs high cholesterol as a disease; simultaneously frightens and empowers women; and lastly, privileges and promotes the individual notion of personal responsibility for health.

Keywords:

• functional foods
• high cholesterol
• women
• health
• sociology of diagnosis

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maja Jovanovic

Maja Jovanovic is a sessional faculty in the Department of Sociology at McMaster University where she was awarded her PhD in 2014. She specializes in the sociology of health and illness, women's health and sociology of food, with an interest in healthcare policy and the sociology of diagnosis. She is currently working on a project looking at lay discourses of women on cholesterol-lowering medications. Sociology Department, KTH #607, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M4, Canada ([email protected]).