Please Tell Me: Have I Been Blindsided By Wrappings?

I had occasion to order a “Happy Meal” the other day and when the sales person asked me, “would you like the toy to be for a boy or girl,” my mind went immediately to the hullaballoo of a year ago when the nation’s politically correct brought to light the “horribleness of bribing children with toys in exchange for unhealthy food.”  So, taking my Happy Meal bag back to my little office space, and eating the four chicken nuggets, a handful of fries, and two apple slices, I did a “browsing session” in my document file and reacquainted myself with a study included in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine where children were shown to overwhelmingly prefer the taste of food that comes in McDonald's wrappers.  The study had preschoolers sample identical foods in packaging from McDonald's and in matched, but unbranded, packaging.  The kids were then asked if the food tasted the same or if one tasted better.  The unmarked foods lost the taste test every time.  Even apple juice, carrots, and milk tasted better to the kids when taken from the familiar wrappings of the Golden Arches.  In a Forbes, August 6, 2007, article, entitled "Foods Tastes Better With McDonald's Logo, Kids Say," says “"This study demonstrates simply and elegantly that advertising literally brainwashes young children into a baseless preference for certain food products," said a physician from Yale's School of Medicine.  "Children, it seems, literally do judge a food by its cover.  And they prefer the cover they know."

The science of advertising is often about convincing the world that books can and should be judged by their covers.  These kids were not merely saying they preferred the taste of McDonald's food.  They actually believed the chicken nugget they thought was from McDonald's tasted better than an identical nugget.  From an early age and on through adulthood, branding is directive in telling me what I think and feel, who I am, and what matters. 

But lest I blame television and marketing entirely for the wiles of brand recognition, I should recall that advertisers continue to have employment simply because advertising works.  That is, long before marketers were encouraging customers to judge by image, wrapping, and cover, I was judging by these methods anyway.  When the ancient Samuel was looking for the person God would ordain as king, he had a particular image in mind.  In fact, when he first laid eyes on Eliab, Samuel thought confidently that this was the one God had chosen.  But on the contrary, God said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him.  The LORD does not look at the things man looks at.  Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7).

I think that I kept and remembered the study with the preschoolers, in my files, because it was startling at the time and still is, as a grandfather, I can see clearly that an apple slice in a McDonald's bag is still inherently an apple slice.  Yet how often I, too, am blindsided by mere wrappings?  Is the mistake of a child in believing the food tastes better in a yellow wrapper really any different than my own believing I am a better person dressed with the right credentials, covered by the latest fashion, or wrapped in the right belief-systems?  Covered in whatever comforts me or completely stripped of my many wrappings, I am the same person underneath. 

According to the apostle Paul, there is one exception.  Paul writes of a kind of clothing that changes the one inside them.  "[F]or all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:27-28).  Clothed in the righteousness of the man Jesus, I am wrapped in the identity of one without sin.  I have been given new packaging, new life, new robes worn only by Christ, and thus, like him, I am fitted to approach the throne of God. 

Unlike the costliness of well-marketed wrappings, the robes Paul describes are free.  Christ requires only that I come without costume or pretense.  The many robes I collect, the wrappings with which I judge the world, I must be willing to give him.  He takes from my shoulders my robes of self-importance and false security.  He tears from my grasp my garments of self-pity and shame.  And then he clothes me with garments of salvation, arrays me in robes of righteousness, and reminds me that I wear his holy name. 

After reflecting,  I opened the plastic bag with some type of put together figure, and played with it for awhile, all thanks to McDonalds!