PBS documentary FAT

In my class, we finished the semester watching a PBS documentary called FAT. It highlighted our nations acceptance of discrimination of obese people and how this affects the daily lives of many Americans. We constantly label obese people as lazy and unmotivated, but is this fair? Hearing the responses of many overweight Americans made me reevaluate our approach to fighting childhood obesity. Instead of labeling it with negative terms, we should provide the support that our nation needs to fight this epidemic.

Wegmans taking a step in the right direction for healthy change

In my nutrition class this Monday, a head nutritionist came to discuss what Wegmans is doing to make healthy changes in the public. The family owned business has a strong connection to their communities and want to make eating healthy as easy as possible. Check out their website, its basically a free diet plan. It includes nutritional facts, special diets and the eat well. live well. challenge.

http://www.wegmans.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?storeId=10052&identifier=CATEGORY_546

Much more than one thing...

“One thing to do about food: a forum” presents multiple solutions to our nation’s current food industry. The overall trend away from industrialized farming is a solution shared by many of these authors. The three main issues that are focused on are eliminating the purchasing of factory farm products, making the public aware and increase desire to become involved in the policy, and ultimately finding a solution to the childhood obesity epidemic. To have the public reduce their consumption of factory food, they need to become aware of the processes associated with industrialized food production. Due to the billions spent on marketing the taste benefits of the product, little attention is placed on the conditions in which the products are made. But does the public even want to know this? Does the public even care? We have authors like Schlosser emphasizes the importance of knowing what is behind what you are eating, but does the public really want to know? Some of the public is fully content with trusting the FDA and keeping the rest of the details in the dark. Our society has created documentaries and novels describing the secrets of industrialized food industries, but has this caused a significant change in the people of America? Even after watching Supersize Me, I am still guilty of my craving for McDonald French fries. So maybe public awareness isn’t the solution.

Similarly to the beliefs of Wendell Berry, there needs to be a label on the problems associated with food. The most common terms we here associated with food are hunger and obesity. Even though they are opposite problems in many ways, there ability to gain public attention is significantly similar. When people hear of such a problem, especially dealing with children, they feel a sense of responsibility to change. Even though there are many more problems just these two, I believe that our society needs to label food problems with an issue that they are compassionate about. Maybe it needs a label like childhood obesity that will eliminate the advertisement targeted at children who do not know the difference between fact and persuasion.

Hunger is not a result of food scarcity.

As the number of people hunger in the world continues to increase, people place blame on a number of different factors. One cause of hunger that is constantly emphasized is the issue of food scarcity. This belief stems from the idea there isn’t enough food to feed the amount of people living in the world. “The Scarcity Fallacy” by Stephen J. Scanlan places hunger in a larger theory of “food security” rather than scarcity. There isn’t evidence showing that our food production does not supply an adequate amount for our population size. Instead, food production actually grew much faster than our exponential population growth.
By defining the problem of hunger with food scarcity, it has allowed our policy makers to create a “supermarket revolution.” This emphasizes larger corporate agriculture businesses and long commodity chains. While there is an easier access to food at supermarkets, the long list of middle men increases the cost of the food, which in turn makes them less attainable to the lower class. “Scarcity is largely a myth.” Today, there is enough food, but it isn’t easily accessible or equally distributed. By solely focusing on the scarcity issue, we continue to not fix the problem by missing many key factors. The attainability of the food is connected with poverty, sex and ethnic background. With a limited income supply, priority usually goes to electric bills, transportation and prescriptions with hope of the government providing food assistance. Females and ethnic minorities are more likely to suffer from hunger. How do we fix these inequalities? We need to see food as a basic human right. We need to eliminate the corruption and ensure that the people who are hungry get the food that they need.

I do agree with the myth that scarcity of food is the cause of world hunger. There is enough food for the people to consume, we just need to take the next step and make sure it gets to these people. During high school, I volunteered for Island Harvest, which focused on bringing excess food in the community to the people in need. These people included low income after school centers, families facing economic problem as well as battered women’s shelters. The problem is the accessibility that our policy makers need to change.

Similarly to how our previous reading labeled poverty with hunger, hunger is now labeled with food scarcity. If you had one label for hunger, what would it be? How would this label change enact different changes from the government?

It's much more than just hunger.

Janet Poppendieck’s “Sweet Charity” helps provide the reader with a better understanding of “emergency foods.” When does our nation classify it as an emergency to have food? Poppendieck describes how these emergency needs were first addressed as a response to the early 1980s economic recession. First, she describes what types of people qualify for this emergency food. Some people are at higher risk for needed this assistance such as females, minorities, single parents and the elderly. But the way that people get this food assistance is determined by our government’s definition of poverty. The government’s outdated definition does not take into account the “new poor.” These are people who used to be employed and could afford dinner for their family, but no longer cannot. With people losing their jobs as well as the standard of living costs increasing, more people do not have enough money to provide food for their family. Where we used to see “derelicts and alcoholics” at food pantries, now we are typically seeing “mothers and small children.” More people need assistance but our government, especially during the Reagan presidency, is reducing the rate of growth of these programs that our country needs. But with economic problems, there are many more issues that just hunger. What about shelter, health coverage or employment? Poppendeick describes the “social constructionist” perspective of defining these problems as solely hunger. The social constructionists believe that our society labels the problem, instead of fixing the underlying conditions. So why did we define the economic problems with hunger? First, even though there are other needs, “the need for food arises sooner.” Another reason is people are more willing to ask for food than other needs. For example, someone will ask you for money to get dinner, but they aren’t going to ask you to stay in your guest bedroom. One positive result from identifying the problem as hunger has been the abundant amount of food drives and pantries, increasing the attention for anti-hunger support. But is this enough? We are trying to feed the people, but are we taking any policy changes to prevent this hunger? What changes need to be taken in our society?

It is hard to say that food drives and pantries aren’t a good thing. They focus on the now problem, but I do agree with the readings that they aren’t looking to make permanent changes. This is something that requires a broader definition of what the problem is. It isn’t just hunger; it is much more than that. If the government is going to implement policy change, they need to look at all aspects of this problem in order to correctly address it.

Can we really blame Ronald?

What has McDonald’s done to our culture? According to George Ritzer’s, The McDonalization of Society, fast food chains like McDonald’s have caused trends in what drives our nation. The people of the United States place value on rationality, efficiency and speed, which are values that are perfected by McDonald’s campaign. We want our food quick and cheap, but Ritzer argues that we apply these values to much more than just food. Ritzer connects his idea of rationalization through fast food chains to Weber’s description of how bureaucracy was shifting societal views. One component he focuses on is our nation's need for efficiency. Americans don’t have time to cook their own dinners, instead they rather go through a drive-thru and not even have to get out of their cars. This efficiency of McDonald’s is connected to its predictability. You go to McDonald’s knowing exactly what number on the value menu you are going to order. The limited menu options allow the customer to receive the same product every time they go there. Ritzer uses a camping example to highlight how our society has removed the uncertainties by having specific camp grounds that are enclosed with fences. This is an example of turning uncertainties into predictabilities. One of the most important aspects in my mind was his argument on calculability. We want quantifiable results. We want to know how much food we can get for that buck, aka the dollar menu. All these options of what you can get for $1. Ritzer describes the damaging effects of McDonaldization. I think this is best illustrated through our academic emphasis on grades, rather than the importance of understanding the knowledge. We have huge, money making business for standardized testing such as Kaplan and Princeton Review that take advantage of our society’s value on calculability.

While Ritzer did highlight other aspects of his theory, these three were the most important to me. I do agree with Ritzer that McDonald does provide an example of the American lifestyle, but I do not think it is McDonald’s fault for the way that America is run. Sure, McDonald’s does give other companies an example of successful marketing and business strategies, but it’s the public that drives demand. I don’t believe you can put all the blame on the fast food structures in our society. Are we really going to say that Ronald McDonald should be accounted for SAT and MCATs?

How has McDonaldization influenced your life? Why can’t we blame other organizations such as Wal-Mart for our societal values?

Eating Disorders in Male Athletes?

We constantly hear about eating disorders in females, but what about the men?

Eating disorders have been under the radar for men, especially the macho athletes.

Are athletes taking it too far to have a competitive advantage?

Here's an article describing the current eating disorder problem in male athletes:

http://www.fitsugar.com/Male-Athletes-Struggling-Eating-Disorders-2674219