The Modern Diet And Michael Pollan's Escape From The Western Diet

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Waist sizes are expanding, everyone is on a diet of some sort, and a large majority of the population is under the care of a physician for some disease that can be attributed to the modern diet. Information on the origins of this epidemic, potential cures both magical and old-fashioned, and who or what is to blame for this crisis are everywhere you look. Two authors that offer their opinions on this vast subject are Michael Pollan author of the book Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual and Mary Maxfield, graduate student in American Studies with degrees in creative social change and sociology. Pollan offers in his essay, “Escape from the Western Diet” that the problem with today’s society is the confusion over what we should be eating to optimize …show more content…

The amount of information on what a healthy diet and weight are is almost limitless, and health standards continue to change as more research is completed. Adding to the confusion in the general populace, many different industries further muddy the waters with unrealistic body image standards, massive portion sizes, and food choices that have substandard ingredients that perpetuate obesity and poor health. Although many diet experts will offer that simply changing what we eat and reducing our weight will improve our health, the issue is more complex and confusion about proper nutrition, its links to disease, and diet failures will persist until the food industry and so called food experts focus on actual science and not their financial bottom …show more content…

Turn on your television and ads filled with beautiful fit people will promise that eating the newest diet will get you ready for bathing suit season in a matter of days. Many of these types of advertisements are offered by celebrities with absolutely no nutritional or exercise credentials, and the public buys into these claims spending $40 billion dollars on diet products a year. Unfortunately, these methods are not working and Americans are getting larger and suffering more weight and diet related diseases despite all of these healthy diets being offered. Often the research that supports these fad diets are sponsored by the very corporations that will be selling these diet products, leaving many consumers at a loss about what a healthy diet is. Michael Pollan, author of the essay “Escape the Western Diet”, opposes these trendy diets and offers that the Western diet is causing the obesity epidemic and its related disease processes. Pollan offers that the experts that hawk these diets cannot agree on what is or is not healthy and will entrench themselves in their beliefs at the peril of the everyday consumer. Pollan states in his essay, “while everyone can agree that the flood of refined carbohydrates has pushed important

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