Not Buying It

When I was out of town last week, I feared that I was going to run out of reading material, especially for the flight home.  (Any reader will understand this fear.)  So while I was picking up a few items at the grocery store, my eyes fell on the latest issue of Prevention magazine.  Between Valerie Bertinelli being on the cover and the promises of greater health and fitness in the headlines, I decided to pick it up.  Growing up, my mother subscribed to Prevention and I owe a lot of my healthful ways to the things she learned in this magazine.  However, in a recent conversation, my mother said she didn't buy the magazine as it was just "junk."  I wasn't sure what she meant by that comment.


As I left Tampa and settled into my seat on the plane, I pulled out my copy of Prevention and started reading.  It had some good articles and I did learn some new things.  But what startled me was the sheer number of advertisements for pharmaceuticals.  I counted nine; not just nine small ads, but nine multi-page ads, some will pullout mail-in postcards.  One advertisement covered six - yes, six - pages.  I was stunned.  It seems that the drug companies are supporting this magazine.  As someone interested in and studying health and wellness, I just felt it to be wrong that a magazine emphasizing a healthier life-style and called "Prevention" would be supported by those companies.  To me it seems to be a conflict of interest.  How can you simultaneously promote preventative medicine and at the same time, sell pharmaceuticals that don't take prevention into consideration.  The drugs are promoted as the magic cure - that life choices aren't important.   Seeing that obvious conflict, I've decided I won't be buying that magazine again.