For the past couple of years, I’ve become increasingly interested in understanding how and why we choose to consume certain foods over others. I believe this research is important because our food choices are both personally and socially relevant to issues such as our physical and psychological health, the environment, social justice, our economy, and our political structure.
Perhaps the most obvious impact of our food choices is on physical health, and this tends to be what most people focus on. In the past 25 years, we’ve seen huge changes in obesity rates. In fact, less than 10% of our population was classified as obese in 1985, and nearly 30% falls within that category now. Nearly 7 out of 10 American adults are classified as either overweight or obese. Everyone likes to pick on Americans, perhaps because we started the trend, but obesity is a global crisis. And obesity in children is even more alarming, because we form many of our food preferences and eating habits during early childhood, and rates in the Americas exceed 30%.
So, what’s going on? Well, it’s a complex issue but I think we are gaining some insights. While it’s certainly the case that we’re not getting enough exercise, that fact hasn’t changed in the past 25 years. Approximately 20% of adults got the recommended amount back in 1985, and that figure hasn’t changed. So if we’re not expending fewer calories, we must be taking more in than our bodies can use. We’re eating more processed foods, which are calorie dense and nutritionally poor. And we’re taking in more sugar and fat than ever before. The average 10-year old is consuming 46% of their daily recommended calories from added sugars and fats, when only 5% is recommended by the USDA.
This lifestyle is reeking havoc on our bodies, with 4 of the top leading causes of death being attributed to our diets, or lack thereof. In fact, obese individuals are 2-3 times more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than their slimmer counterparts, and are at a much greater risk for developing Type 2 diabetes.
Let’s move beyond health, which is something we don’t often do. Our food choices are depleting essential resources necessary for maintaining life and are environmentally costly in a number of ways. For example, agriculture is responsible for nearly 70% of all water usage. It takes a lot of water to grow and produce the food that we consume, with some foods like meat and dairy requiring substantially more than others, such as peas.
And the type of agricultural system that we have perfected in this country is creating a toxic environment. What water isn’t utilized by our crops and livestock is often polluting the water we need for drinking—97% of our waterways contain detectable amounts of agricultural pesticides.
Let’s talk social justice for just a moment. Often the farm workers growing and harvesting our food suffer the most, and many of these workers are poor minorities. Research funded by the National Institute of Health blames occupational chemicals for increases rates of prostate cancer in farm workers.
Food also requires a great deal of energy to produce and transport. I heard Michael Pollen say that it takes 7 liters of oil to produce 1 Big Mac, and we’re certainly using more than our fair share of oil. In fact, we use nearly twice the amount of oil as other developed nations.
We fight wars for black gold so that we can create food-like products that require much more energy than we get out of them. It takes 2200 energy calories to produce 1 calorie of a diet soda. Does this make any sense? Is anyone else asking themselves this question right now? What do we do… stay tuned!
