Below, you will find the link to my final project, which is a series of lesson plans for teaching Tuesdays with Morrie from a popular culture perspective. The file is in .pdf format, but do not hesitate to contact me if you have trouble viewing the document. Enjoy!
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=d94d0a53ef145c5590a82c7bb0fad7ade04e75f6e8ebb871
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Pop Culture and Food: A Delicious Combo Meal or Not?
Since I am currently student teaching, I have had more first-hand opportunities than ever to see the bizarre relationship between teenage girls and food. Girls who only eat saltine crackers for lunch? Check. Girls who drink their lunch in the form of Diet Coke? Check. 85-pound girls who skip lunch altogether to sneak cigs in the bathrooms? Check. Indeed, the female teenagers who populate today’s suburban high schools have some serious issues in terms of their relationships with food. I need to look no further than the fateful day I allowed 10th grade students to choose their own topics for the research paper—guess how many girls wanted to write their research papers about eating disorders? Too many to count (in fact, the runner-up for most hackneyed topic was teen drinking, which is equally troublesome…). Eventually I had to veto these topics altogether, but it got me thinking about why the topic of eating disorders was captivating the minds of our country’s gals?
It seemed so bizarre that the 10th graders were so fixated on this topic, but then I thought back to my own high school days. Girls had equally unhealthy relationships with food, but seeing it from this outsider perspective was much different. I was reminded of the day the Bloodmobile rolled into school, and 8 of my best female friends and I strutted down to the gym (I imagine us “Mean Girls” style) to donate. Indeed, I was the only girl who actually donated blood—the rest of them were turned away because their iron count in their blood was too low. Malnutrition, anyone? I guess that’s what a diet of saltine crackers and Diet Coke will do to a girl. I did not give this a second thought until I began student teaching and noticed the effed-up relationship of my female students with food. The chapter for this week, as well as my online research, further backed up my discomfort with the subject. Kind of makes me long for the Victorian Era, when “women were large and soft,” though the whole lack of political power and economic worth thing wasn’t so great (White and Walker 134). I guess I understand the pressure to a certain extent though, since a study reported “a $12,445 annual salary difference between overweight women and underweight women. The same study found that women at medically recommended weights also made less ($1,676 annually) than underweight women…the message is clear-cut: women who are financially successful must have small bodies” (White and Walker 134). In this economy, ladies need to do whatever they can to make that buck, right? Why not save the money that you would normally spend on your grocery bill in the process? Hmmm…I’m not so sure…
I began wondering about my own relationship with food in high school and today. Why was I immune from the temptations of eating disorders? Why did I not obsess over my waistline, and why don’t I equate my worthiness as a human being with my pants size, as so many of my peers do? Then I remembered. Oh yeah. I’m Greek. I was never a size 0 in the first place. I never stood a chance at being model-thin, so I just rolled with it. Literally. In any case, I always knew I was a little bit different from my beautiful blonde classmates—when the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” came out, I was reminded of a hauntingly familiar scene in which the “regular” girls eat Wonderbread sandwiches in the lunch room but Toula eats moussaka. Welcome to my life—skip to the 3 minute mark…
For these reasons it does not surprise me that “eating disorders affect approximately 8 million people in the United States today…Many of us, children included, have chaotic eating patterns; we diet, miss meals, overeat, and binge. Popular culture, rather than discouraging dysfunctional eating, seems to inspire it” (White and Walker 132). Something that I always found disgusting immediately came to mind—have any of you heard of Taco Bell’s Fourthmeal? For those of you unfamiliar with this horrible invention, visit:
http://www.tacobell.com/fourthmeal/
Basically, Fourthmeal is “the meal between dinner and breakfast.” What happened to sleeping between dinner and breakfast? What ever happened to the whole “three square meals” thing? Seriously—so many people suffer from eating disorders, but let’s also think about that other-end-of-the-spectrum eating disorder known as obesity. Is Fourthmeal helping the situation? I think not.
For those of you still wondering if the link between food and popular culture could become stranger or more intertwined, look no further than the strange literary genre of cookbooks themed upon TV shows, music, or movies. Check out the following:
The Star Trek Cookbook
http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Cookbook/dp/0671000225/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-4286870-4297414?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184029036&sr=1-1
The Sopranos Cookbooks
http://www.amazon.com/Entertaining-Sopranos-Carmela-Soprano/dp/0446579114/ref=pd_bbs_2/103-4286870-4297414?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184028897&sr=8-2
http://www.amazon.com/Sopranos-Family-Cookbook-Compiled-Artie/dp/0446530573/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-4286870-4297414?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184028897&sr=8-1
The Forrest Gump Cookbook
http://www.amazon.com/Bubba-Gump-Shrimp-Co-Cookbook/dp/0848714792/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239397018&sr=1-1
The Beatles Cookbook
http://www.amazon.com/She-Came-Through-Kitchen-Window/dp/080652359X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239397098&sr=1-1
Frankly, I’m not sure what else to say about these. I think their craziness is self-explanatory. I wonder to what extent the gals in other countries have strange relationships with food, and what they think about food in America. In any case, I wish everyone a delicious and feast-like dinner this weekend, especially my 10th grade female students…
It seemed so bizarre that the 10th graders were so fixated on this topic, but then I thought back to my own high school days. Girls had equally unhealthy relationships with food, but seeing it from this outsider perspective was much different. I was reminded of the day the Bloodmobile rolled into school, and 8 of my best female friends and I strutted down to the gym (I imagine us “Mean Girls” style) to donate. Indeed, I was the only girl who actually donated blood—the rest of them were turned away because their iron count in their blood was too low. Malnutrition, anyone? I guess that’s what a diet of saltine crackers and Diet Coke will do to a girl. I did not give this a second thought until I began student teaching and noticed the effed-up relationship of my female students with food. The chapter for this week, as well as my online research, further backed up my discomfort with the subject. Kind of makes me long for the Victorian Era, when “women were large and soft,” though the whole lack of political power and economic worth thing wasn’t so great (White and Walker 134). I guess I understand the pressure to a certain extent though, since a study reported “a $12,445 annual salary difference between overweight women and underweight women. The same study found that women at medically recommended weights also made less ($1,676 annually) than underweight women…the message is clear-cut: women who are financially successful must have small bodies” (White and Walker 134). In this economy, ladies need to do whatever they can to make that buck, right? Why not save the money that you would normally spend on your grocery bill in the process? Hmmm…I’m not so sure…
I began wondering about my own relationship with food in high school and today. Why was I immune from the temptations of eating disorders? Why did I not obsess over my waistline, and why don’t I equate my worthiness as a human being with my pants size, as so many of my peers do? Then I remembered. Oh yeah. I’m Greek. I was never a size 0 in the first place. I never stood a chance at being model-thin, so I just rolled with it. Literally. In any case, I always knew I was a little bit different from my beautiful blonde classmates—when the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” came out, I was reminded of a hauntingly familiar scene in which the “regular” girls eat Wonderbread sandwiches in the lunch room but Toula eats moussaka. Welcome to my life—skip to the 3 minute mark…
For these reasons it does not surprise me that “eating disorders affect approximately 8 million people in the United States today…Many of us, children included, have chaotic eating patterns; we diet, miss meals, overeat, and binge. Popular culture, rather than discouraging dysfunctional eating, seems to inspire it” (White and Walker 132). Something that I always found disgusting immediately came to mind—have any of you heard of Taco Bell’s Fourthmeal? For those of you unfamiliar with this horrible invention, visit:
http://www.tacobell.com/fourthmeal/
Basically, Fourthmeal is “the meal between dinner and breakfast.” What happened to sleeping between dinner and breakfast? What ever happened to the whole “three square meals” thing? Seriously—so many people suffer from eating disorders, but let’s also think about that other-end-of-the-spectrum eating disorder known as obesity. Is Fourthmeal helping the situation? I think not.
For those of you still wondering if the link between food and popular culture could become stranger or more intertwined, look no further than the strange literary genre of cookbooks themed upon TV shows, music, or movies. Check out the following:
The Star Trek Cookbook
http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Cookbook/dp/0671000225/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-4286870-4297414?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184029036&sr=1-1
The Sopranos Cookbooks
http://www.amazon.com/Entertaining-Sopranos-Carmela-Soprano/dp/0446579114/ref=pd_bbs_2/103-4286870-4297414?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184028897&sr=8-2
http://www.amazon.com/Sopranos-Family-Cookbook-Compiled-Artie/dp/0446530573/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-4286870-4297414?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184028897&sr=8-1
The Forrest Gump Cookbook
http://www.amazon.com/Bubba-Gump-Shrimp-Co-Cookbook/dp/0848714792/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239397018&sr=1-1
The Beatles Cookbook
http://www.amazon.com/She-Came-Through-Kitchen-Window/dp/080652359X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239397098&sr=1-1
Frankly, I’m not sure what else to say about these. I think their craziness is self-explanatory. I wonder to what extent the gals in other countries have strange relationships with food, and what they think about food in America. In any case, I wish everyone a delicious and feast-like dinner this weekend, especially my 10th grade female students…
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