By Carly Hoilman
America is the land of liberty, of freedom, and of prosperity, as reflected in the attitudes and lifestyles of its citizens. More than enough food and resources are available sustain the American population, and it has become a nation of consumers. Food is readily available in large variety and quantity. With all of the choices out there and with all of the confusing nutritional propaganda, it is not hard to make nutritional mistakes. It appears that the more nutrition-focused America has become, the more confused, unhealthy, and overweight its citizens have become.
Obesity has become a central problem in American children and young adults. This problem is puzzling considering the abundance of health fads among Americans involving dieting, exercise routines, videos, supplements, and general exaltation of healthy living. Where did we go wrong? After all, other overseas cultures don’t seem to be affected nearly as much by obesity.
This essay will attempt to get to the bottom of the issues influencing and galvanizing obesity in America. Understanding topics such as how humans have corrupted food, America’s take on food and nutrition, American obesity, misleading nutritional claims, and how people should treat food can get us closer to reversing this deadly epidemic.
One way humans have corrupted food is through nutritionism, a term that describes the scientific branding of food. Once nutritionism came into play, familiar names for food were changed. All of a sudden foods were being labeled and their names were being reduced to the sum of their nutrients (ex. Diet Coke). Michael Pollan, a renowned nutritionist and author of several nutritional handbooks, characterizes this sudden change as “our evolutionary relationships with the seeds of grasses and fruit of plants (giving) way, abruptly, to a rocky marriage with glucose and fructose” (114). With the evolution of food science, people became convinced that fake foods could be manipulated and processed to become even more nutritious than the original foods (32). Scientists (knowingly or unknowingly) were able to convince the ignorant masses that the future of science could lead to a healthier America. This “Nutritional Industrial Complex” made up of scientists, food marketers and propagandists gained a strong grip on eaters, who were made available for exploitation (8).
Supermarkets are playgrounds for food science and phony advertising. While modern grocery stores don’t lack variety, the number of actual food (not food products) is slowly disappearing (116). Processed, dyed, and refined foods are dominating the shelves, while traditional grains, fruits, and vegetables are left in the dust. What makes processed foods so valuable is their ability to be morphed in accordance with the change in the nutritional weather (38). The sale of whole, natural food however depends on its popularity at any given time.
With all of this uncertainty surrounding food—what is safe to eat and what isn’t—people became obsessed and paranoid about food. After all, everyone has to eat, so constantly having to pay attention to what goes into one’s body can be a persistent struggle. Diagnoses of diseases such as anorexia and orthorexia grew in the United States as a result. Although anorexia involves depriving oneself of food, it is still triggered by a desire to control food, an element that plays a central role in everyone’s life (Hopkins 428). Orthorexia, a disorder not yet recognized by the DSM-IV, involves picking apart one’s diet and cutting out certain foods until the dieter is so limited that they are unable to obtain proper nutrients.
At least thirty percent of Americans aren’t getting enough vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin E, and magnesium. According to Pollan, this has more to do with our increased intake of processed foods, not the fact that real foods do not supply us with adequate nutrients (119). When people stopped eating traditional foods and began listening to nutritional advertising, that’s when the real problems began. “Thirty years of nutritional advice have left us fatter, sicker, and more poorly nourished” (81).
The food system is concentrated on one main objective: selling large amounts of calories as cheaply as possible (121). Cheap food materials such as corn, soybeans, rice, and wheat are incorporated into various food products and advertised as “nutritious” even though they fail to supply sufficient amounts of real nutrients (118). Traditional names of foods such as eggs and cereals were labeled with scientific terms like “cholesterol”, “fiber”, and “saturated fat” to make them more “marketable” for companies (19).
Companies try to cater to the desires and concerns of the masses through propaganda. For example in the 1950’s, when fat and cholesterol were believed to be the cause of rising heart disease in the twentieth century, food labels began to read “low cholesterol” and “low fat” (23). The danger in this nutritional propaganda was that it did not encourage people to lower their intake of certain foods, but it rather encouraged people to increase their intake of “new-and-improved” foods.
Another way to solve diet-related health problems is through governmental intervention. For example, the 1938 federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act imposed strict rules requiring that altered or processed foods read ‘imitation’ (34). This however was too broad of a law to impose, as many foods including white bread, white rice, and white sugar could technically be considered “imitation” foods. Many people believe that the government shouldn’t have any say in what people eat. Republican Representative Paul Broun declared government intervention concerning the American diet to be “Socialism of the highest order” (Lithwick).
Even though America could be seen as a nation obsessed with “nutrition”, it lacks an element that many other countries possess: a nutritional philosophy. America doesn’t have any established beliefs concerning food, such as why or when people eat. Pollan reasons this lack of philosophy to be related to the fact that Americans have always had a problem taking pleasure in eating (54).
As mentioned before, a major result of the American nutritional dilemma is an increase in obesity. Causes of obesity can be tied to the economic and technological advances made during the past several decades (Pi-Sunyer). Labor-saving technologies (even simple ones such as the remote control, the electric can opener, snow blowers, and clap-on clap-off lights) have reduced the amount of physical activity that used to be a part of everyday life (Pi-Sunyer).
The distributions of BMI (Body Mass Index) values in the United States are not normal but reflect a large percentage of people who are overweight or obese. According to a survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the prevalence of obesity between 1991 and 1998 increased in all 50 states, in both men and women, and across all age groups (Pi-Sunyer).
Many factors that determine weight gain. Metabolic factors such as low adjusted sedentary energy expenditure, high respiratory quotient, and low levels of spontaneous physical activity have been reported to be predictive of weight gain. Other factors such as sex (obesity is more likely among women), age, race, and socioeconomic status can determine a person’s likeliness to become overweight or obese (Pi-Sunyer).
Obesity is deadly in that it increases one’s risk for multiple disorders such as diabetes (increasing BMI increases risk of type-two diabetes), hypertension, coronary heart disease, dyslipidemia, gallbladder disease, and certain malignancies (Pi-Sunyer). As Pollan points out, many people date the current obesity problem to the late 1970s, when Americans began to increase their carbohydrate intake, assumingly as a way to avoid “fatty foods” (50). Since then, cancer and heart disease have become so common in Western society and modern life that it’s hard to see why this was not always the case (Pollan 93). Men and women who are at least 40% overweight were 33% and 55% more likely to die from cancer than those of an average weight (Pi-Sunyer).
A major source of food-related confusion for many is the plethora of nutritional claims out there designed to appeal to consumers. One way to ease this confusion is by eating real foods that don’t have any health claims—health claims on a food product should serve as a warning that it is not really a food (Pollan 2). For example, oranges don’t have stickers on them that say “high in Vitamin C” because this is a universal fact. A package of gummies claiming to be high in Vitamin C however suggests that something was added to this food substance to appeal to consumers.
One may debate that there are laws against wrongful nutritional claims. Although these laws do exist, there are always ways to get around certain claims, which means that many of these foods are not necessarily a healthy choice (Gopal). Dark chocolate, for example, is a great source of iron and zinc (and it is perfectly legal to advertise it that way), but it is also very high in saturated fat and sugar. Therefore look beyond the claims a product makes and look into where it comes from, what the ingredients are, and how it is made.
Wrongful claims lead to confusion not just about what to eat but how much. The United States Dietary Guidelines were revised in 1977 and 1982 and put in terms of “good” and “bad” nutrients, confusing many into abandoning the idea of eating less of any food and thus interpreting the guidelines as this: eat more low-fat foods (Pollan 51). What people did not consider is that excess calories in the form of any food (low-fat or not) can and will lead to weight gain. Just because a food is low in fat does not mean it is low in calories (Gopal).
For most people, avoiding weight gain is a matter of understanding food and how to eat it. People are made to think of food as simply “fuel”, but humans are not by any means machine-like; we are much more complex (Pollan 63). A key truth then in understanding food is that a whole food can be more than the sum of its nutrients (111). Plants are very complex, but as Pollan puts it, when comparing eating “foods” with “nutrients” “you don’t have to fathom a carrot’s (or any other food’s) complexity in order to reap its benefits” (66).
After realizing that there is more than meets the eye with food, one must then be aware of where danger lurks in the food world. Certain things to avoid in general include saturated fats and high cholesterol products, which immediately get stored in the blood vessels and cells, leading to weight gain and contribute to disease (Gopal). Foods to avoid include alcoholic beverages, deep fried items, highly processed foods, and foods with high fat or sugar content (Gopal). Places to avoid when possible are the supermarket, fast-food outlet, and convenience store (Pollan 158). While it is not realistic to avoid these places altogether, one should look to local, fresh markets as the safe havens of the food world.
“The whole point of eating is to maintain and promote bodily health” (29). Considering this statement, it makes sense to choose foods that supply your body with nutrients like protein, good carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals, and essential fatty acids (Gopal); in the same respect, it makes sense to avoid the foods mentioned before that offer no nutritional benefits. Special food combinations, such as peanut butter and a bagel (the fat in the peanut butter allows the carbohydrates in the bagel to be absorbed slowly for lasting energy), that affect how the food is metabolized (Pollan 66).
Once one knows how to eat, a bigger problem to be tackled is how much one should eat. In the words of Michael Pollan: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.” (1). Eating “food” means reducing one’s intake of processed foods and regarding nontraditional foods with skepticism (176). People can reduce the risk of weight gain by being aware of what they are eating. It is important to read labels and ingredients and to seek variety in the diet (Gopal). Pollan advises eaters not to “eat anything you great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.” (148). This parallels nicely with regarding nontraditional foods with some suspicion.
Americans have multiple reasons to be confused about what they should eat. Factors to blame for this include propaganda, nutritionism, and excessive dieting. An essential solution for obesity prevention simply involves eating less and eating healthier, not eating more of healthy things. The American mentality concerning food must transform dramatically before the problem of obesity is solved.
WORKS CITED
Christina, Gopal. "Nutrition Articles." Common Misconceptions with Low Calorie Foods: Do They All Offer Nutrtional Benefits? 2008. Web. 8 Feb. 2011. <http://drivefitness.ca >.
Hopkins, Katherine. "Food for Life, Love and Hope: an Exemplar of the Philosophy of Palliative Care in Action." Proceeding of The Nutrition Society 427-429 63.3 (2004): 427-29. Print.
Lithwick, Dahlia. "The Dreaded Broccoli Uprising and Other Nutty GOP Nightmares. - By Dahlia Lithwick." Slate Magazine. 20 Dec. 2010. Web. 6 Feb. 2011. <http://www.slate.com>.
Pi-Sunyer, Xavier F. "Obesity - The Obesity Epidemic: Pathophysiology and Consequences of Obesity." Nature Publishing Group : Science Journals, Jobs, and Information. 2011. Web. 7 Feb. 2011. <http://www.nature.com/oby/journal >.
Pollan, Michael. In Defense of Food: an Eater's Manifesto. New York: Penguin, 2009. Print.
