Designed pleasure: how advertising is selling food as drugs

This chapter will focus on advertising representations of heavily engineered addictive food. I will argue that there is a direct link between illegal drug culture and addictive food culture, on the level of representations of ways of consumption as well as rhetoric, created and maintained through advertising of the legitimate, commercial 'high impact' food industry. Advertising is by purpose designed in a way that is unreflected upon by consumers and the wider public, as it renders the culture of addiction invisible through its communicative integration into discourses of pleasure. At the same time, such advertising directly promotes food in particular ways, which directly enhance the drug like aspects of food. Such advertising is designed to precondition the consumer and create a relationship between the consumer and promoted food, which in turn, should maximise profits of the advertiser and strengthen the consumer's relation to the most potent substances of food that create states of pleasure. Fast foods, food high in sugar, with a high glycemic index, high in salt and fat and as well as a combination of these are perfect for creating addiction. This chemical engineering is also supported by a marketing discourse that, heavily designed through advertising, creates a superficial culture of pleasure. This pleasure driven advertising culture is a legitimate, commercially enforced and legal drug culture.