The Truth Behind Fattening Food

The Truth Behind Fattening Food

Society as we know it is collapsing under the weight of fattening food. In the essay “Escape from the Western Diet” by Michael Pollan and Judith Warner’s essay “Junking Junk Food”, both Michael Pollan and Judith Warner provide insightful details behind fattening food and the world that makes them go round. Michael Pollan and Judith Warner discuss obesity issues in today’s food crisis. Even though they argue on the same issues, Michael Pollan and Judith Warner provide a different outline on the problems. Their points and views address health risk on fattening foods, the government’s big fail to change unhealthy food, and the change that needs to be done to the culture of food.

            To start with, Michael Pollan discusses the health risk we face when there is too much to eat. We all know how fast food can be mouth watering at the sight of a juicy burger and somehow we can’t get enough of it. Pollan argues that a person who only eats processed food from an animal that has consumed various chemicals created by the Western diet has a high rate of developing diseases such as “diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol”, just to name a few (436). Since processed food is also considered fast food and cheap, it will do more harm than good. The diseases won’t stop there. The more weight we accumulate, the more likely we are prone to getting sick. Pollan maintains that, “people eating a Western diet are prone to a complex of chronic diseases”(435). After the body has become a victim to the Western diet, it will be best to put that greasy burger down and go for an apple instead. Though it’s easier said than done. Pollan’s best final advice is to: “stop eating a Western diet” (435).

The numbers don’t lie and today’s statistic shows a high rate of overweight people. Judith Warner’s Junking junk food essay gives numerical facts for portly people and their health risk. Warner writes that a “two-thirds of American adults are indeed fat (overweight or obese)” and also a “17 percent of children and adolescent are obese”, too (Warner 401). These numbers must be serious because the Obama administration has declared “war on unhealthful eating” and can be held responsible with “fraught with political liability” for their effort not having any effect on the effected individuals (401). And then Sarah Palin showed up in Bucks County, Pa. to defend the occasional cookie treat from being ban at a private school. She made her appearance there to give “a paid speech at a fund raiser” for a cookie ban debate (Warner 400). Palin went there because of a “high-minded anti-sugar edict from the board of education” (Warner 400). The administration is waging war on fat and sugar because they are focused on fighting obesity on the “central aspect of the American lifestyle” and that lifestyle is making the body fat and unhealthy, which most likely could give us diseases (402).

             The involvement of live animals being raised with industrial waste and various chemicals surely shows a change to fight obesity. With the help of those chemicals, they are able to supply the demand of an obese nation. How are we going to have change when they profit well from that cheap stuff that they sell? They rather entertain the food industry, as Pollan writes, by “tweaking the Western diet instead of making any more radical change to its business model” (436). However the medical community responds with sympathy to the diseases cause by the Western diet. But also profit good for helping aid the diseases cause by the Western diet. Pollan writes that they profit well from “new theories ” that “ treat diabetes, high blood pressure, and cholesterol” and many other critical diseases (436). I don’t think there’s going to be much of a change with greed in mind. 

            The government with the responsibility they have taken on to change how Americans eat and make their nation healthier is a mock. The involvement of their aid is seen as caricature. Glenn Beck, a political commentator, found a formula for mocking “Americans to live less fattening lives”(Warner 401). The mocking involved “health inspectors shutting down a 7-year-old’s lemonade stand”(Warner 401). The Obama administration responds, “left to your own devices, you’re going to eat too much, you’re going to be a big fat fatty” (Warner 401). They even circulate nutritional advice. With the help of the departments of agriculture and health and human services, the government revises every five years a nutritional guideline. But the problem is, says Judith Warner, is that “there has, however, been no concerted parallel attempt to create more pointed and sophisticated approaches to changing how Americans think and feel about food”(403). So revising the nutritional guideline is hopeless because they miss out on the cultural change that has happen over the years.

Change is what society needs. And is going to take lots of hard work to reduce diseases caused by obesity. Denis Burkitt, an English doctor, suggested that “the only way we’re going to reduce diseases, ‘he said’, is to go backwards to the diet and life style of our ancestor” (Pollan 437). “The answer” argued Pollan, “seemed straightforward, if daunting”(437). Another alternative Pollan suggest is to “allocate a far greater proportion of … income to food” because we tend to spend less than 10 percent on food (439). In order to have a good nutritional guide, we need to invest a greater amount of time, and a big effort is required in order to provide for our substances. Other nations are doing in it and in far they are healthier. Our nation needs a solid nutritional guide like World War II had and used it effectively with its member overseas.

            For some, food is just more than the daily meals the body needs. It is a way to respond to any and all stimuli we face psychology. Judith Warner argues that “you can’t change specific eating behavior without addressing the way of life” and the culture of food (402). Culture change is what Americans need. Cigarettes once where consider “sexy and cool” and now they are considered “a terrible disgusting and addictive product”(Warner 404). Can we do the same for unhealthy food? Probably not, Judith Warner writes, “because of the unique emotional power of food, it’s hard, if not impossible, to similarly stigmatize unhealthy eating” (404). Lets hope Michelle Obama Knows how to make “field greens and strawberries as comforting, satisfying, and hearthwarmingly Americans as apple pie” (Warner 404). It is going to take a great amount of dedication to change what is considered to be good to be bad and unhealthy.

Michael Pollan and Judith Warner agree on the same subject that we have a food crisis. The health risk that includes of consuming fattening food are just too many and dangerous, and the rates for those diseases are dramatically increasing to new levels. The Obama administration does not have a clue how to raised awareness on the issue. They should probably start by making a shift to the culture of food and then connected to today’s way of life. The road to healthy eating may be treacherous and nearly impossible to escape to, but it’s not impossible to eat a healthy grape, too.

Pollan, Michael. “Escape from the Western Diet.” They Say/I Say with Readings. Eds. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel Durst. NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009. Print. 434-440.

Warner, Judith. “Junking Junk Food.” They Say/I Say with Readings. Eds. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel Durst. NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009. Print. 400-404.

 
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