The Consumption Of Westernized Diets

In the article “Escape from the Western Diet”, Michael Pollan suggest to the people that they should stop eating a western diet because western diet is also responsible for western diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and many more. In his article he said that “People eating a Western diet are prone to a complex chronic diseases that seldom strike people eating more traditional diets.” He also gave the solution of this problem by telling people to stop eating a western diet. New theories made new treatments to treat different diseases. In his point of view, if people want to escape from western diet they need to stop eating western food daily. He thinks that if people want to stay healthy they should eat food, not too much,

Shifts in the “Food Marketplace” have greatly affected our food choices and habits in the last 40-50 years. As one woman stated in the film The Weight of the Nation, “It’s so hard to combat with what the tv is telling you to feed your kids”. Advertising has come to a whole new level in our generation; you can’t turn on the television without seeing an advertisement for fast food or something equally as unhealthy. As another woman put it, “you are taught that you can eat anywhere, anytime of day, and that eating is a glorious thing”. Another shift that has occurred is an economic one. If you go into a poor neighborhood corner store like they did in the film, you would see chips, sugar, sweets, etc. All of these unhealthy foods are cheap, incredibly cheaper than fresh fruits and vegetables. Obesity rates in these poor areas are much higher than in areas with a higher average income. Culturally, our country is changing to one that is always moving; we don’t have time to prepare a meal for the whole family. It’s much quicker to buy unhealthy fast food that you know your family will enjoy than to prepare a healthy meal that they will grudgingly consume. The film mentioned that our bodies were originally built for scarcity. We are wired to react to things that are sweet and contain a lot of fat because when an animal was killed we had to be able to eat as much of it as possible. The signals telling us to stop eating had to be overridden. Now, we consume so much fat and sugar not

In order to not only identify but solve our problems regarding food we must acknowledge the origin of those problems. In this paper I will be examine the S.A.D. (standard American diet) Within the context of history and culture and perhaps determine the causes of our relatively sudden and unhealthy turn in terms of production and consumption. The main reason behind examining the western diet in a historical context is the fact that diet is proven to be a key determinant of chronic disease risk and if we understand the origin of our eating habits, we have the opportunity to correct some of or past mistakes. I will be covering a period of about two centuries, acknowledging anything I

In this article “The Deadly Noodle “Michael Hasting, Stefan Thiel and Thomas show American cultural imperialism as relates to diet, food preparation and lifestyles is making the world fat. The authors point out that diet and exercise habit is complex such as increasing number overweight. On other hand, they provide that using different sources to increase calories in the body such as grains and cooking traditional.

The health of both overweight and obese people lies in jeopardy due to the extra stress placed on the body, especially the heart, due to the high amount of excess fat they carry with themiv. Being overweight or obese increases a person’s risk for diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, some types of cancer, stroke, and several other devastating ailments. The percentage of the obese population in the United States has risen from 23% to its present day rate of 30% in only eight yearsv. This skyrocketing trend is most likely related to the increase in portion sizes and calories at many American restaurants, the rising level of stress and expectation during the average workday, and the logarithmic increase in fast food restaurant options over the last 20 years. To understand how the Japanese diet supersedes the typical American diet in numerous health issues, several aspects of the diets must be evaluated.

In Michael Pollan’s essay “Escape from the Western Diet,” he informs Americans about the western diet and believes they need to escape from it. The reason Americans should escape the western diet is to avoid the harmful effects associated with it such as “western diseases” (Pollan, 434). To support his view on the issue, Pollan describes factors of the western diet that dictate what Americans believe they should eat. These factors include scientists with their theories of nutritionism, the food industry supporting the theories by making products, and the health industry making medication to support those same theories. Overall, Pollan feels that in order to escape this diet, people need to get the idea of it out of their heads. In turn he

Apart from healthcare issue, the country has adopted the fast-moving life style, which has pushed most of our citizens to succumb to obesity as a result of fast foods. In fact, a recent report by the UN has ranked the United States as the most obese country in the world. Parramore (2012) outlines that, “Obesity is currently being considered as a national crisis in the United States and that it contributes 100,000 to 400,000 deaths per year. Statistics at the CDC and Prevention in 2010 indicate that 35.7% of the American adult is obese.” Many input trends exist in the American society, “First and foremost, people are highly used to fried foods, sugary drinks, and processed meats among others. There is also the sedentary lifestyle that has been adopted by many,” (Huffington Post, 2013). In fact, most of us love relaxing without exercise and too much television watching. These are some of the factors that contribute to obesity. The result is health complications problems such as diabetes, stroke, and heart disease just to mention but a few. These affect the longevity of life.

There are more ways to shun obesity. Michael Pollan, who wrote “Escape from the western diet”, claims that the fast food industry is one of the main reasons why people struggle with their health. He believes that the processed food we consume gives us harmful deceases. Pollan urges us to listen to his words to avoid the western diet, he preaches that we should start eating healthier and to put more time and effort when it comes to buying food. Pollan provides us with his rules as well and claims that it will help us plot our way out of the western diet. Also, Pollan informs us that when it to the intake we tend to over eat, thus it becomes a huge threat to our health. The government has also made an attempt to put a stop to obesity by inverting an array of food options. By focusing on the main causes of obesity, Pollan overlooks the deeper problem of the lack of insufficient information, thus he leaves us with a lot of question marks .

In Michael Pollan’s essay, “The American Paradox”, Pollan argues that American’s hold falsified ideas if one is more focused on nutrition. Americans have too much going on in their head with trying to be healthy, that they do not actually become healthy. The notion that “a notably unhealthy population preoccupied with nutrition and the idea of eating healthy” (Pollan 268) is what Pollan defines as the “American paradox”. The amount of time spent focusing on healthy eating habits decreases the joy one contains. Pollan identifies many issues that contribute to what is wrong with the way Americans think about eating today. For instance, we spend too much time and money trying to be healthy, we have strayed away from the past as new inventions occurred and last being we listen to “flawed science”. Despite the fact that many may say they see positive results from focusing on nutrition and health, Americans actually receive negative outcomes from nutrition and health.

The state of the American Health in the U.S has become an increasing concern of many Americans. An article entitled “11 Facts about American Eating Habits,” addresses the state of food in the U.S by stating, “Healthiness of the food we eat decreases by 1.7 percent for every hour that passes in the day.” Experts and scientists in the U.S has raised questions about regarding the different ways food is now being produced. While individuals are usually not aware of the ingredients that food contains, many people continue to have unhealthy eating habits. In the past few decades, food production has included numerous artificial ingredients that are said to be the cause of various health problems. Various artificial ingredients that are commonly

However, Michael Pollan, in his article “Escape from the Western Diet” states that both the food and health industries are partially to blame. He talks about how he wants Americans to leave behind the western diet. Pollan claims the fast food business is to be faulted in light of the fact that they utilize these distinctive wholesome hypotheses to discharge new items, and that the wellbeing business is to be faulted on the grounds that they utilize these speculations to grow new solutions and strategies. He’s not just opening up about the unfortunate western eating habits, but additionally how the health care buildings are charging at this issue, however they are profiting from the results. He wants Americans to avoid this diet because of the harmful effects it could bring, such as “western diseases”(Pollan 423). Pollan claims that utilizing reductionist science, which concentrates on individual gatherings as opposed to entire nourishments, is unavoidable to attempt to make sense of what isn 't right with the Western eating routine. Pollan believes that it is because of the huge amounts of salt and sugar, put into foods that cause obesity. In that statement I agree with him because I personally don’t use a large amount of salt in my food, but I see peers just pour so much salt and sugar in their meals like it’s nothing and then complaining about how they 're getting fat. He additionally clarifies that these restaurants and markets

Over the last several decades, the diet of society has been continually changing. This has resulted in different formulas for nutrition and the proper portions of foods that must be consumed. To fully understand the various arguments requires looking at numerous viewpoints. This will be accomplished by focusing on Michael Pollan's Escape from the Western Diet in contrast with Mary Maxfield's Food as thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating. These views will highlight how diet and nutrition is based upon individual opinions. This is the focus of the thesis.

Many Americans are concern about the increment of disease and obesity caused by the limited options of healthy food, “since America is saturated with junk food advertising”(Khullar 135). However, in consequence of the absence of an American cuisine, fast food restaurants and foods high in fats offered by supermarkets, has become the first option to Americans. After all, Pollan’s argument that the lack of a stable traditional cuisine is the consequence of America’s national eating disorder and the steady national diet is reasonable since there are many factors that support his claim. For example, Mary Roach, in Liver and Opinions: Why We Eat What We Eat and Despite the Rest, claims that the food we eat is influenced by people’s cultural background; in other words, people are used to eating what their parents feed them when they were kids. “In addition, Americans have a conflict with having a stable eating habit; they tend to change their diet often”(Roach 123). Overall, Pollan’s is comprehensible while he argues that Americans do not have a stable culture of food, which causes an instability in people’s

There are so many issues that this world is currently facing but hardly anyone of us is actually trying to solve these issues. Many of our fellow human beings are suffering from some sort of health issue ranging from diabetes to heart disease. Not only are we slowly killing ourselves with our poor diets but we are also killing our environment by creating more and more waste and pollution. The third issue that we are currently facing is our economic issue due to our excessive spending and lack of money and income. The issues that we are currently facing can be resolved by decolonizing our diets because our health will improve, it will save the environment and it will provide the economic growth that we need.

In this this reading “Escape from the Western Diet” by Michael Pollan, Pollan talks about a variety of scientific nutritional theories that are believed to be responsible for the numerous number of people that have been plague by diseases due to following the “Western Diet”. But Pollan believes that these theories are invalid and states that the food and health industries are the ones to blame. He believes that both the food/health industry are to blame because when the food industry decides to release new products they use nutritional theories while the health industry does the same when creating new prescriptions and treatments. His solution to this problem is follow what Denis Burkitt suggested which is to revert and follow the diet of our