Fear Mongering in the Media

GMO's, pesticides, toxins, herbicides, danger, death, illness and all these other words are heavily thrown around in the health and wellness arena. The main relationship among all of these words is they have a purpose; this purpose in my opinion is to instill fear.

This tactic is called fear mongering, but why does the media do this? Simple; traction. Traction to websites, articles, stores, products and other formal streams of revenue. Modern day society is drawn to buzz words and phrases like organic, all natural, hormone free, naturally raised, GMO free and more. Because of the fear mongering, it makes these things sound safer, and if it is safer, it is better, right?

Not necessarily. More on that in another article of mine: "No No No to GMO's"

Coming up on 5 years being a coach and 8 years as a competitive physique and performance athlete I have constantly changed my thought process. The biggest adaptation and skill I have gained is being able to hear both sides to any story. Being able to hear people concerns about pesticides and health implications along with people who understand pesticides, from that, I make my own personal opinion and analysis. From that, I stand by what I believe as many of you do and as many of you should. From all of this, my key point is there is a happy medium around this nutrition/food thing. We should all know that quality food matters, I am not talking about quality of food, the actual food you eat and its ability to nourish the body.

That said, people need to learn to think for themselves and research and understand the reality around nutrition is. If you are watching a documentary about how meat is toxic and the people involved promote eating nothing but fruits or vegetables, guess what, they are likely vegans or vegetarians. Nothing wrong with their lifestyles at all, but, this does not make them right in their beliefs. We all have the ability to choose, the only thing I say is before you start throwing GMO and dangerous in the same sentence, educate yourself. Before you talk about dairy is killing us but you promote Shakeology, you really need to step back and realize how dumb you sound/look. Instead of focusing on and holding on to what you only know, why not try opening your horizons, open your mind, and being willing to broaden your ideologies.

One of the things that people hold onto is that those who are anti-GMO express, talk, speak and preach "research shows", sure, studies and research are key, but, things like who funded the research, how was the structure setup, how were things controlled and more are key things to speak around the end results of this research. Am I saying that this research is not valid or correct, Not at all, what I am going to say is if you can truly find valid research supporting the theory around dangers of GMO, at least do the due diligence by finding research and studies that support that GMO's are safe and at least dabble in the idea that there is a happy medium between the two.

Here is the line where people do not realize as to how their words impact others. If you are a parent, I posted an article and it said "Baby bottles cause cancer", how many of you are going to click it because it hits you at home? I guarantee you that 97.5% of you would/will click it as you would be concerned that you may be harming and hurting your child/children. Then you learn that feeding your kid(s) through a baby bottle does not cause cancer, how would/do you feel for panicking? It is the same when you as someone who has great intentions and want to help when you share and post fear mongering content that you may know nothing about.

Here are some tips and insight as to how you can take things you see, read, and obtain across all media platforms to helps protect yourself from fear mongering. Doesn't matter if it is nutrition, war, politics, medicine or anything else.

1.) As you are reading/seeing what you are going through, take everything with a grain of salt.

2.) Question/reading everything you are reading/seeing.

3.) While you are reading/seeing things ensure you are 50/50 seeing things from either side ex: organic vs. non-organic.

4.) When done reading/seeing the topic you are on go and find something that counters the key beliefs and ideals of that specific topic.

5.) Finally, construe your own ideas and beliefs.

Protect yourself from extreme media, understand that media has its place but there is always a reason to it. The greater the debate, the greater the conflict, and the greater the fear, the media will push it as hard as they need to to keep people not thinking for themselves. One thing I firmly believe is that if you are thinking like everyone, you are not thinking.

RJ Perkins

Aesthetics Training and Nutrition

Owner and Head Coach

Email: rj@atncoaching.com

Site: www.atncoaching.com

Instagram: @atn_coaching

Twitter: @atn_coaching