So... why obesity?
Food is a big and important part of my life. My mom loves to cook, and I love to eat. My family usually has at least one meal a day together, and ever since I can remember my parents were always helping me make healthy choices. Because of this, I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what “eating healthfully” means (whether or not I now choose to follow that all the time), and I have never really worried about counting calories, diabetes, or dieting (blessed with a fast metabolism and a semi-well rounded diet from day one).
In my time at Conserve School, food was something I really became more and more interested in. I was eating three meals a day out of a Sysco-based cafeteria with many people who were vegetarian, vegan, raw, and gluten free. Because of all the different arguments, lifestyles, and backgrounds I was being introduced to, I began to do some research of my own on food and it’s politics. While I learned a lot about vegetarianism, veganism, and sustainable eating, I became particularly fascinated by the obesity epidemic. I wanted to know why all of a sudden we as a country have seen such a drastic rise in obesity and diabetes. There has to be someone to blame for this big problem (pun not intended.) My goal was to find out who is to blame. In researching this topic extensively for my Capstone Project, I hoped to learn about the medical, economical, and political aspects of obesity and food’s all-influencing power in our lives, or in other words--food politics.
The first step I took in answering my big question of whether or not the government is making us fat was reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore's Dilemma. Pollan addresses the relationship between food and our society and how it has become so confused. He follows each way food is brought to us (industrial, organic, and home-grown) while critiquing the American way of eating. I found the book very fascinating to read (also heavy and frank.) It sparked a lot of new questions I want to answer, and introduced new arguments to me.
