I had read an article from the new, which indicated that pork consumption might make one add weight. Since I was underweight, as my doctor had told me, I wanted to consume pork in order to add some weight. After consuming it for thirty days continuously, I started gaining more weight and became fatter and fatter. It is from this experience that I really appreciated that consumption of pork can improve someone’s weight, especially these who are under weight.
Gender can influence the way in which pork can be perceived. Most women do not prefer pork because they believe that consumption of pork would make them extremely fatty. They also believe that their bodies biologically digest fats slower than their counterpart males, who use many calories. Hence, a lot of fats are deposited in their bodies. For this reason, men do not often have a problem when they take pork, even in large quantities.
Many ethnic groups do not consume pork and its products because of religious and health reasons. For example, Muslims do not consume pork because in the Quran, God commands them not to eat. In addition, they do not eat pork because they believe that pigs are not clean animals. The Jews and Christians are also forbidden from eating pork because the old testament of the bible states that Pigs are unclean. On health matters, consumption of pork may cause influenza and other illnesses. This is because it is believed that the lungs of pigs contain some substance, which may cause latent diseases, and worms, as bodies of pigs are said to contain these worms (Kotler and Armstrong, 2007).
However, some Christians believe that the verse was directed to the Jews. All these gives a negative message towards consumption of pork in that even those that have no ground reasons have shifted their consumption towards other meats e.g. beef and mutton. Due to increased aggressive campaigns through the media, however, consumption of pigs is gaining popularity and consumers are turning to eating pork gradually. For instance, pork is today used to make different snacks with a combination with other products hence, sometimes it is even difficult to know whether there is pork in such snacks (Groucutt, et. al., 2004).
The audiences have a role to play in relation to the pork consumption in that they are the targeted customers and that they are the ones affected by consuming, or not consuming the pork. The audience has freedom of choosing what they want to consume and their choice may be influenced by the media. The media might in future eliminate the past information about pork consumption if they embark on more positive sides of pork consumption. However because of increased information on health, the media may not change the customers to believe on pork consumption. The negative beliefs on pork consumption will probably continue to hold andeven worsen the marketing and distribution of the product. This is because the few who will be consuming it will not afford to keep it in the market, especially due to increased competition for other substitute products in the market (Kotler and Armstrong, 2007).
References
Groucutt, J. Leadley, P., and Forsyth, P. (2004). Marketing: essential principles, new realities.
USA: Kogan Page Publishers.
Kotler, Philip and Armstrong, Gary. (2007). Principles of Marketing. New Jersey: Pearson,
Prentice Hall.
