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

Portion size, then vs. now

Here is an article showing the changes in portion size over the years. Just another example of how external cues have impacted our food choices.

http://www.divinecaroline.com/79975/49492-portion-size--vs--now

Our loss of control

Today our daily lives are indirectly influenced by the different external cues that we encounter. Through the impressive work of marketing and advertisement companies, our society has lost control over their eating habits. We no longer listen to internal hunger signals, instead our food choices are persuaded by external cues from our environment. This phenomenon is what Wansink refers to as “mindless eating.” Not only do we eat when we aren’t hungry, we also eat food that isn’t appealing to us solely because it is around us. But has this always been the case in the United States? I believe that there has been a dramatic increase in mindless eating, evident through our current obesity epidemic. Why are people continuing to gain weight, when they are aware of the health conditions associated with obesity? Maybe it is because they have lost control over their eating habits, or maybe it is our environment’s fault. If you compare the size options at McDonald’s today to 50 years ago, there is a significant increase. But whose responsibility is to change this? Business is driven by consumer demand. If consumers want more food, the companies are willing to give it to them. Now the question for the future health of our country is, do we focus on controlling external cues or help the public regain their power to use their minds when eating?

No food nation

The perils of eating in America are the abilities to each all different types of cuisines. One night you can each Asian food and the next night you can have Mexican. No problem. Our access to different cultural foods symbolizes the melting pot that our nation represents. But when you eat “American” cuisine, what types of food come to your mind? Sidney Mintz’s “Eating America” emphasizes the reasons to why our nation does not have a typical cuisine. Mintz questions why our nation feels the need to have our own cuisine. Shouldn’t we be proud that we represent all different types of cultures, not just one? The history of our country provides many reasons to why we do not have typical American food. The United States is heavily populated with immigrants from all over the world with a majority of descendents from Europe. While these immigrants bring their culture to America, many of the aspects are lost due to the strong pressure to change to their surroundings. But to become American do you really need to give up your cultural values? Does our nation not believe that you can be who you want here? Most immigrants gain a significant amount of weight when they move to America. This is due to the change of diet in America. While many older generation immigrants try to maintain their cultural values, the “cultural identity of their children…is changing rapidly.” There are many social influences that have changed the cultural identities of immigrants. When the world thinks of American food, ice cream, pizza, hot dogs and hamburgers come to mind. And we wonder why there is currently an obesity epidemic. Most of our citizens rather eat out or go to a fast food chain than cook a well- balanced meal at home. Are we too embarrassed to acknowledge that these foods are our national cuisine? I surely am.

Are you ready for cloned meat? Unfortunately, you have no choice.

Ben Paynter's "The Other Other White Meat," makes the reader aware that it is possible they have eaten cloned meat without knowing it. Supporters of cloned meat believe that “God gave man dominion over animals,” which has led to the entrance of clones into our food chain. Many farmers want to maintain the beneficial traits that their current animals posses, and in order to do so they turn to artificial cloning. While we hear about all these tight regulations of the FDA, where are they in their stand against cloned meat? In 2002, the FDA described cloned meat “as safe to eat as food from conventionally bred animals,” but at the same time requested to keep these products out of supermarkets. But why does the FDA care about keeping cloned meat out of supermarkets, if there isn’t any harm with consumption?

The scary part of this issue is the FDA’s inability to police the regulation of cloned meat into our food system. Paynter’s trial of cloned products revealed that he couldn’t tell the different between the traditionally raised meat and the artificial product. Since consumer’s cannot tell, “the likelihood that anyone could credibly say ‘our animals are not descended from clones’ is zero.” While different public health groups ask the FDA to ban the artificial cloning of animals, the FDA has little control over this. Besides seeing the health problems with the cloned animals, such as sudden death syndrome, there hasn’t been enough time or research to evaluate the effects of artificial meat on humans. If eating cloned animals have the ability to make the consumers sick, who is responsible for fixing this issue?