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How Pop Culture Shapes Health · Talking FACS

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  Welcome to Talking FACS, what you need to know about family,
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  food, finance, and fitness.
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  This nationally recognized, award-winning podcast is hosted by the University
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  of Kentucky Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Program.
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  Our educators share research knowledge with individuals, families,
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  and communities to improve quality of life.
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  Pop culture isn't just entertainment. It's a mirror of our society and a teacher of habits.
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  So from TV shows and music to celebrity culture and social media trends,
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  pop culture shapes how we eat, how we move, how we think, and how we talk about health.
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  Welcome to Talking FACS, where we share research-based information that you
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  can use to strengthen your family, your community and our state.
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  I am your host, Mindy McCulley, Extension Specialist for Instructional Support
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  with Family and Consumer Sciences Extension.
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  My guest today is Dr. Monica Mundy, who is our Assistant Extension Professor
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  for Community and Family Health.
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  And today we're going to look at what pop culture is and how it influences health,
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  both good and bad, and ways communities can use it to make positive change.
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  So my first question to you, Monica, is what do we mean by pop culture?
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  So pop culture is short for popular culture, and it really is a set of ideas,
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  practices, images, products, right?
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  The widespread recognizable pieces of our society at any given time.
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  So it could be the media, so TV shows, music, video games.
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  It could be social platforms like TikTok dances or memes that we're looking
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  at, celebrity culture, right?
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  Could be UK basketball, musicians, influencers, or just everyday expressions
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  that we use from what we wear to what we say.
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  In pop cultures everywhere. And it tends to spread quickly. Trends come quickly.
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  And a lot of times for people, they're just really relatable than those more
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  formal ways of health education, like campaigns that we may run as well.
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  One trend that I thought was particularly fun
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  was the hot girls walking trend where you
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  know when we think hot normally we think pretty but this
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  trend on TikTok was just people getting out there and encouraging people just
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  to take short walks each day for their mental and physical health so just getting
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  outside seeing the sun and walking for a while so physically hot not pretty
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  oh I'm sure that applied as well yeah,
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  And it does. I mean, you know, you get yourself moving, you might get just a
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  little bit warm, but that's okay.
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  It's good to break a sweat every now and then, isn't it? It is.
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  So how does pop culture influence our health behaviors? Yeah,
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  and so we can have positive influences.
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  So a few examples of those is Beyoncé and former First Lady Michelle Obama had
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  the Let's Move campaign, and some people may remember that,
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  but it was in our schools, and it really was trying to make eating healthy and exercising cool,
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  right, and getting students involved in that as well.
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  It could be the shows that we watch.
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  I know a really popular show that lots of people watched a few years ago was This Is Us.
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  And it really opened a dialogue about topics we typically shy away from talking
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  about as a society, like grief and anxiety and therapy.
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  Or it could be the health challenges that a celebrity faces,
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  like when Angelina Jolie had a preventative mastectomy,
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  and that really sparked a lot of conversation about the awareness of genetic cancer risks.
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  It helped more people seek out that preventative care. preventative care.
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  Okay, these are all great examples of how pop culture is influencing us in a
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  positive way, but does it also have negative implications?
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  It does, and it can. One example is when we look at youth vaping,
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  and this is something that we saw with traditional cigarettes as well, right?
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  This glamorizing the use of tobacco products.
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  And research has shown that has contributed to the rise in teen use,
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  teen use of vaping products as well.
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  We can also think about it when we think about some of the fad diets that we
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  might see pop up here every once in a while.
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  I know for a while, one big fad diet was drinking specific teas to possibly
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  lose weight. And that can lead to unsafe weight loss practices.
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  Over the years. There have been all kinds of fad diets, but like eating just one particular food or.
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  Drinking soup all the time, you know, cabbage soup, you know,
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  and we know that that's not good because we need a variety of foods in our diets.
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  But that was one way that people were trying to lose weight and probably influenced
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  also by pop culture, which said you need to be a certain size or whatever,
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  and so we were all trying to get there.
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  Has pop culture been used for public health campaigns?
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  It has, and there's some memorable campaigns. Some of us may.
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  Have seen on our TVs. I remember seeing this one on Saturday mornings and it
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  was the classic commercial, this is your brain on drugs.
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  Have the egg and crack it in the skillet. So the egg, this is your brain.
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  You crack it, put it in the skillet. This is your brain on drugs.
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  Any questions, Right. It's a pretty iconic anti-drug ad from the late 80s,
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  early 90s, and it was memorable.
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  It was widely quoted. You still see it quoted today, and it kind of became a
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  part of our pop culture memory.
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  So that really does show how powerful that imagery can be and spread awareness
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  beyond, you know, like a traditional PSA.
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  So what we see today might be those messages in the shows that we may watch
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  or music we may hear each day.
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  So it makes me think of shows like Grey's Anatomy and ER, where they use their
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  storylines to really build awareness from organ donation to HIV AIDS,
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  or like hip-hop and rock songs, where they address some social issues that people
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  may be experiencing that are connected to our culture and community health realities.
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  So when health information is delivered through pop culture,
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  people remember it and they talk about it.
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  That is important because if people aren't talking about it,
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  then they might not be thinking about it when it needs to be.
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  Thought about. So how can communities leverage pop culture to improve their general health?
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  And so think about partnering with influencers to promote your health messages.
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  We have so many influencers here in the state of Kentucky, various platforms
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  that would love to help out if they can.
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  And using music and art and film more in the health campaigns that we use as well.
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  Encouraging local creativity and really weaving that into the work we do.
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  So that could be murals or story walks or photo voice podcasts like we are here on today. Sure.
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  And a great example is the use of barbershops and beauty salons.
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  And this has been studied quite a bit of blending a part of culture, right?
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  Making sure that we get our hair done and look nice, but integrating that with
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  educational moments about health screening. So it could be blood pressure checks, right?
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  That message from everyday trusted spaces and individuals that we have seen
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  and had in our lives for quite a while for some of us.
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  I know I've been with my hairdresser for 25 years. Yeah.
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  Well, and, you know, you never run out of things to talk about with your hairdresser,
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  but if they could just weave in a little bit of, you know, a health message,
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  I guess that's something that we can do.
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  We could provide the talking points to help our aestheticians help us out there, right?
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  For sure, for sure. There are partnerships in all aspects.
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  So pop culture really can normalize these healthy behaviors,
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  especially in communities where we're seeing things.
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  You know, high rates of certain behaviors that maybe we might want to change.
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  For sure. In pod culture, it's powerful and it's memorable, right?
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  And striking that balance because we want it to help, but also recognizing that
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  it can have the opposite effect as well.
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  And I do feel that our communities can harness some of this positive change
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  and wrap it into what we're doing every day in our personal lives or as we're
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  working to make our communities a healthier place?
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  Well, and it just makes me think of one community in Oldham County that started,
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  the two sisters in that community started the Be Kind campaign,
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  and they just wanted their community to be a nicer, more welcoming place.
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  And now I think there's even a license plate that says Be Kind on it that you
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  can get. So it can snowball, right?
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  Oh, for sure. And that is a perfect example of maybe one idea,
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  just getting out there and enacting it for yourself and how you can bring others along.
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  So the next time you watch a show or hear a song or scroll through your social media feed,
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  ask yourself what health message is hidden here and how might it be shaping
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  me and the way I think and how it could shape my community, right? For sure.
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  Monica, thank you so much for taking the time to share with me and our listeners today.
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  I find this to be a fun conversation and I'm sure that they will as well.
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  Thank you for having me. If you are just tuning in, you're listening to Talking
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  FACS and you can find us on all the platforms where you listen to your favorite podcasts.
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  Thank you for listening to Talking FACS. We deliver programs focusing on nutrition,
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  health, resource management, family development, and civic engagement.
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