Kentucky Fried Catastrophe

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Interesting article on " Wellness, KFC-Style "

Finger-Lickin’ Fitness

By Mickey Z

 

 

In terms of co-optation and propaganda, corporate America has brought irony to a

new level in the late 20th century. As featured in the October 1996 issue of

Fitness Management, none other than PepsiCo-owned Kentucky Fried Chicken is now

being touted as a bastion of " wellness. "

 

In her article " Wellness, KFC-Style, " Christina Gandolfo touts a new tendency

for corporations, i.e., " heeding the wellness message. " In fact, our intrepid

reporter cites a study showing that the sale of fitness equipment to corporate

wellness centers had grown 11.2 percent annually since 1990. Why, you may

wonder? Well, Gandolfo provides the simple answer when she declares, without

irony, that " health promotion is just plain good business. "

 

Offering Nike as a good example of a company " promoting well-being " to its

employees, Gandolfo conveniently chooses to ignore those " other " Nike workers

who toil in Indonesia, under oppressive conditions that do not include

state-of-the-art exercise equipment, for about $1.25 a day. Sort of gives " just

do it " a new meaning, huh?

 

Anyway, moving on to a more detailed case in point, we are presented with KFC, a

company so concerned with wellness that it even " slimmed-down " its name to an

acronym, notes Gandolfo. Mark Leonardi is the manager of the health and fitness

program at KFC. " We may not have the healthiest product, " he admits. " But, like

they say, everything in moderation. " Including the truth, Mark? Limiting one’s

critique of KFC’s junk food to a benign statement like " not the healthiest " is a

crime in and of itself.

 

 

Kentucky Fried Catastrophe

 

To satisfy America’s junk food addiction, pushers like the Pepsi/KFC alliance

need plenty of supply. Hence, over three billion chickens per year are murdered

in the United States—how’s that for societal violence? The end result of this

unreported, taxpayer-subsidized mass murder spree is a precipitous rise in

animal fat-related illnesses like heart disease, stroke, and cancer; the

continuation of devastating farming techniques that wreck havoc on our

environment; and the utter physical and spiritual destruction of a unique breed

of animal.

 

Yes, three billion chickens are slaughtered each year and their life leading up

to their execution is " not the healthiest, " as Leonardi might put it.

Ninety-five percent of all eggs are produced by chickens kept in crowded battery

houses, never seeing daylight. Since fights break out regularly, the birds are

painfully

de-beaked so the " merchandise " isn’t damaged. Such treatment not only terrorizes

the animal, but can lead to more toxins in our bodies.

 

All animals—chickens, pigs, cows, turkeys, etc.—as they are being led to

slaughter, eventually realize what’s in store for them. This results in a sudden

release of hormones, i.e., the " fight or flight " response. Thus, when the animal

is brutally killed moments later, those hormones remain in the meat to combine

with all the pesticides, antibiotics, and other noxious substances already

there, offering the discerning KFC consumer a " quick meal " unfit for anything

except, perhaps, a toxic waste cite.

 

" We are a nation with an assembly-line chicken in every pot, " writes John

Robbins in Diet for a New America: How Your Food Choices Affect Your Health,

Happiness, and the Future of Life on Earth (Stillpoint Publishing 1987). " We do

not know that we eat the bodies and eggs of tortured creatures. We do not know

that they have been inoculated, dosed with hormones and antibiotics, and

injected with dyes so that their meat and yolks will appear to be a

" healthy-looking " yellow. How far out of touch we have become, not only with

animals but with our own taste buds, to be susceptible to being so deprived…If

we buy and eat the products of this system of food production, are we colluding

with them in creating this hell? "

 

But, then again, when hell has a nifty corporate gym, I guess you can convince

yourself to look the other way. Besides, those KFC paper pushers aren’t actually

killing chickens, are they? I can hear the familiar refrain now: " We were just

following orders… "

 

 

Kentucky Fried Competition

 

Based, of course, in Kentucky, the KFC headquarters boasts of a modest success

in its ever-diligent pursuit of wellness: at any given time, 25 percent of its

600 employees participate in one wellness activity after another. However, when

all else fails, there’s always the healthy lure of competition to help those

other slackers attain optimal fitness. " We’ve got a lot of type-A individuals

here who love competition, " Leonardi notes. " You’d be amazed at the number of

people who come out of the woodwork just to win a T-shirt. " I wonder if that

T-shirt bears the image of the corpulent white, slave-owning KFC colonel?

 

Besides fitness equipment and marvelous motivational tools like T-shirt

contests, KFC has developed sport leagues and an annual health fair where its

chicken-gorged employees can seek out cholesterol screening, nutritional

education, and flu shots. However, through it all, Leonardi is more than careful

to

make sure his minions don’t get too health-crazed.

 

" We preach the fun side of fitness, and it works, " he says. " When I see a member

who’s been at the fitness center every day there on a Friday, I’ll be the first

to say, ‘Go home—enjoy your weekend.’ That’s just as important as working out. "

The lesson here. Working out isn’t fun or enjoyable like the things you do

on the weekend and you best trust an expert like Leonardi and not overdo it or

you may become a fanatic (who may start wondering about all those greasy,

antibiotic-filled drumsticks being marketed across the globe, perhaps?)

 

 

Kentucky Fried Control

 

Finally, not to limit themselves to mere health, KFC takes its wellness mission

even further, offering " perks " like on-site ATMs, dry cleaning services (more

toxins), and auto repair pick-up and delivery. It’s important to note that

Gandolfo, the article’s author, does not see these co-called perks as making

employees’ lives better, more stimulating, or more challenging, but " more

manageable. " Don’t demand more pleasure, settle for less pain, seems to be the

operative theme here with Leonardi adding. " We may not get them home early, but

we offer activities that teach lifestyle balance and how to be healthy—and that,

we think, helps them to be better people. " I can just see his

soon-to-be-released New York Times best seller, Better Lifestyle Balance Through

On-Site ATMs.

 

Does anyone at KFC headquarters believe that, perhaps, shorter hours could lead

to wellness and lifestyle balance or do the purveyors of partially-hydrogenated

oil, animal fat, sugar, and other deadly substances have another agenda? By

freeing their employees of the " nuisance " of dealing with

their own personal chores and duties and keeping them in a relatively decent

physical condition, KFC has indeed cultivated the ideal post-NAFTA workforce:

seduced by high-tech gyms, bowling leagues, and T-shirt contest; relived of the

day-to-day personal activities that not only interfere with work time but may

result in some semblance of individual thought; and oblivious to the

nutritional, environmental, and ethical holocaust they are contributing to every

minute of every day.

 

Welcome to wellness, KFC-style.

 

http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/jan97mickey.htm