FOOD IS HOT SEXY STUFF
Food is sexy. I mean that it’s sexy. Look at the TV adverts. M&S sell their dine in for two experience
using husky voice overs, and beautiful camera angles on gorgeous food.
Would it be as effective if we were looking at the same piece of steak & broccoli every single advert.
Each time the steak has been seasoned with different spices. This week’s advert it’s Cajun, next
week’s it’s Italian mix, for Xmas we will shove a bauble in the scene & sprinkle the steak with
Cinnamon. No quite so sexy huh? Really makes you want to rush out & buy their meal for two.
And we are not just talking sexy emotion. People gather around food at other times than
celebration.
Remember I mentioned that free weight lose group in my village and how within weeks they support
each other’s emotional eating, almost to the point of encouragement?
We see it time and time again in TV shows.
There was a series in the 1980/90s called The Golden Girls. An American sitcom. You may well be too
young to remember it. Anyway at the end of each episode the feisty female pensioners would sit
round a table dividing up an enormous cheesecake to eat away their disappointment in that
episode’s events. The cheesecake represented happiness in adversity and even female bonding.
So you are too young to remember the sitcom. A light hearted police drama called Castle features
food quite heavily too. The main character bonds with his daughter over Ben & Jerry’s style icecream to the point that as the series progresses over the years, she is the one that consoles him for
life’s let-downs by fetching the ice-cream just like he used to do for her when she was in teenage
angst. Food isn’t just a consolation prize it’s a habit of emotion passed from generation to
generation.
I watch a lot of Crime series. You should see what I read on holiday. I would make an excellent
psychopath and probably get away with it too. Maybe it’s my book collection that frightens male
suitors. Perhaps they think my ex-husband isn’t in China, but is actually buried under my newly laid
patio!
Anyway back to food. A favourite subject of mine.
In another crime series, The Closer, the main character Brenda Lee Johnson, a very high ranking
police official played by Kyra Sedgwick (hey this may help you win a pub quiz one day!) is associated
with her love of all things sugar coated. You see her in episode after episode, opening her desk draw
full of sweets, she has a handbag that had emergency chocolate supplies, she is often see grabbing a
piece of cake while running out to solve the latest LA murder (just in case it really does come up in a
pub quiz). At the end of the episode, she relaxes, sighs, puts her feet up & eats a cookie or chocolate
bar as the sign of a job well done & now its reward & relaxation time. There is even an episode
where she tries to conquer her sugar addiction. This is how integral chocolate & sweet stuff is to her
character.
SO WHAT AM I SAYING EXACTLY?
Food is different things to different people at different times
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Boredom reliever
Stress reliever
Comfort
Bonding
Part of their being
Satisfaction
Reward
Celebration
Are your clients’ emotionless automatons? Do they _______ (fill in any emotion here) themselves
with a nice plump piece of chicken?
Yours food has emotional connections for me Karen