Nowadays, people pay more attention to their health with the improvement of our life quality. Nutrition science is popularized on newspaper, online websites and many other social media. In the essay” The American Paradox,” Michael Pollan, a professor of journalism at University of California, Berkeley, argues that Americans have an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating because we care more about the health consequences of our food choice instead of eating with pleasure. Pollan claims that the food marketing machine, nutrition science, and journalism are main forces for Americans to change their diet. Pollan uses the conflicting reports of scientific studies of low-fat diet and dietary fiber as examples of bad influence of journalism and the …show more content…
Even though there are same products on the shop shelves, people prefer to buy the food that has the labels of low fat or more nutrition. But these labels can be a big factor that causes people to live in an unhealthy way. According to the study published in Food Quality and Preference, it claims that people are more easily influenced by the labeling highlighted on the front of food packaging, particularly nutrition claims. For example, the obese people prefer the low-fat coke rather than other coke with regular sugar. This kind of nutrition claims gives people psychological comfort that makes them eat without worrying about being obese and unhealthy. But this kind of mental comfort is precisely what lead the obese people remain in an unhealthy obsession with nutrition scientific data because they will rely on what the labels tell them and drink or eat more than they eat the regular food. The nutrition claims make people trust what they eat is healthy, so they release their desire of eating that food with nutrition labelings. But they forget every food has a constant amount of nutrition remained in the food. If they eat that food everyday without controlling, then they will never lose their weight. Above all, the nutrition claims provide a psychological comfort for the people who are eating in an unhealthy which is the main reason makes American people remain in sub-health
In turn, he provides his own rules for escaping the western diet as well as the idea of nutritionist set forth by scientists. Then Pollan explains that scientific theories of nutritionist focus on individual nutrients rather than foods as a whole. He further goes on to refute this claim mentioning that these scientific theories contradict with one another. Pollan explains “the scientists who blame our health problems on deficiencies of [micronutrients] are not the same scientists who see a sugar soaked diet leading to metabolic syndrome and from there to diabetes, heart disease…” (Pollan, 421).
As consumers, we might feel disappointed and angry after reading Moss’s essay. Most of the food companies don’t care about consumers’ health. For them, following the market strategy and earning profit are the most important things. Food companies even change the nutritional profile to make those food products look healthier. Consider that, before food companies employees going to work in the food company, they might not know about all these secrets about food
This appeals to our physiological needs because naturally, humans need to eat food and to hear from a professional that there are other influences outside of food that are giving cause to the obesity crisis gives Americans a slight sigh of relief when it comes to the degree of toxicity of our foods. Furthermore, that people eat a more wholesome diet versus those that do not, tend to be healthier than that live on fast and processed foods,there are also stark differences to recognize between these classes that should be taken into account as well such as the tendency to engage in exercise, air quality, and other health considerations such as smoking and
Relevance between Food and Humans with Rhetorical Analysis In the modern industrial society, being aware of what the food we eat come from is an essential step of preventing the “national eating disorder”. In Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma, he identifies the humans as omnivores who eat almost everything, which has been developed into a dominant part of mainstream unhealthiness, gradually causing the severe eating disorder consequences among people. Pollan offers his opinion that throughout the process of the natural history of foods, deciding “what should we have for dinner” can stir the anxiety for people based on considering foods’ quality, taste, price, nutrition, and so on.
In “How Junk Food Can End Obesity,” by David H. Freedman, he claims that processed foods can help fix the obesity crisis in a more realistic manner, rather than whole-some foods. The popular opinion emphasizes whole-some foods because they aren’t informed about the similitude between processed and unprocessed foods. The essence of the essay is that people believe processed foods are bad and unhealthy for us, therefore whole-some foods are highly recommended for the health of an individual. Freedman mentions many prominent authors who wrote books on food processing, but the most influential voice in the food culture Freedman makes a point of is, American journalist, Michael Pollan. The media and Michael Pollan indicate that everything should be replaced with real, fresh, and unprocessed foods, instead of engineering in as much sugar, salt, and fat as possible into industrialized foods.
In conclusion, Mary Maxfield’s major point in her essay, Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating, is that instead of limiting what is eaten, the focus should be on meeting the needs of the body. Moralization of food is only going to be detrimental because in a way, it makes something so simple, such as eating, more complicated than it should be. Health and weight are not correlated, although many believe it is. As Maxfield stated at the end of her essay, “Trust yourself.
The Naked Truth of the Western Diet Americans generally associate their own country with enthusiastic words such as patriotism and freedom or activities like football and barbecuing on a hot and enjoyable summer day. However, the rest of the world knows America for its westernized culture and controversial diet that generally consists of large food portions high in saturated fats and sugars. In the published piece written by Michael Pollan, Escape from the Western Diet, he explains and convinces his readers about numerous diseases and other health risks that all stem from the western diet in one way or another. From constant eating of fried foods to the staggering increase of heart disease and diabetes, Pollan goes in depth of how the adapted
Michael Pollan’s Escape from the Western Diet connects well with what Mary Maxfield says in her article. Both Pollan and Maxfield talk about the ways that dieting is taking over American people’s healths and causing them to become even unhealthier. In Mary Maxfield’s argument she talks about how people believe everything that diet industries say, even though they know that the information they give you is false. This connects really well with what Michael Pollan talks about in his article, which is that people know that these theories that are used for the Western diet are not accurate, but yet they still decide to use the Western diet to help them become healthier.
Junk food is responsible for the growing rate of obesity. This is outlined by David freedman in his article of “How junk food can end obesity.” David Freedman has credited the “health-food” motion, and followers of it along with Michel Pollan. Freedman claims that if the America desires to stop the obesity epidemic, or at least reduce its effects, they must shift to the fast meals and processed meals enterprise for assist, now not the “health-food” movement.
On a differing take on the solution, “Escape from the Western Diet” by Michael Pollan provides the complete change of our diet and way of life based around cooking and eating meals. however creates a more powerful and logical argument against the “Western Diet” in his article, He uses a combination of his credibility from his publications on health and foods, evidence against the practices of the medical community, along with his solution to the issue of obesity to create an article that draws in audience’s emotions and rationale. Pollan’s strongest points in his article was the use of credibility and his ability to bring logic and reason to most of his points against medical society and the publics solution to obesity. Pollan comes in with a stronger
In both David Zinczenko’s “Don’t Blame The Eater” and “ Radley Balko’s “What You Eat is Your Business”, the argument of obesity in America is present and clear from opposing viewpoints. Both articles were written in the early 2000’s, when the popular political topic of the time was obesity and how it would be dealt by our nation in the future. While Zinczenko argues that unhealthy junk food is an unavoidable cultural factor, Balko presents the thought that the government should have no say in it’s citizens diet or eating habits. Zinczenko’s article was written with the rhetorical stratedgy of pathos in mind.
“Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food” (Hardy, 2006). The Greeks followed this idea by the philosopher Hippocrates, but today’s society does not take the message seriously. A majority of people eat harmful foods and do not receive the nutrition they need to stay healthy. There are a number of reasons why nutrition is lacking. A lot of teens and college students eat snacks that are not healthy such as chips, pop, candy, etc.
Hi Deonna, Great information on how unnoticed factors can affect one’s overall nutrition status. While we are all familiar with the poor choices and unhealthy habits and lifestyle, I agree that our exposures to drugs, chemical exposures that alter our gut functioning, and junk food marketing are influential enough to follow the current unhealthy trends of eating. It is true that public education is necessary, but I also think the attitude of individuals has to be addressed as well. In a way, modernization of the society favors the automation versus the manual labor. This is manifested by our choice for fast, efficient way of doing most of our daily routines: fast foods vs. home foods, car vs. walking or bicycling, drugs vs alternative
I’m not a nutrition expert or a scientist, just a curious journalist hoping to answer a straightforward question for myself and my family.” About his researches, he said, “The deeper I delved into the confused and confusing thicket of nutritional science, sorting through the long-running fats versus carbs wars, the fiber skirmishes and the raging dietary supplement debates, the simpler the picture gradually
Why do food companies have so much power to influence our health? Food Production Companies may lure consumers unaware of these risks into buying more significant portions of unhealthy food at a lower price, leading to overconsumption and adverse health outcomes. This phenomenon has been dubbed the "portion-size effect," and it has been well-documented in research. To address this issue, food companies need to prioritize the health and well-being of their customers.