'Why Do We Overeat?' By Margaret Mead

“Why Do We Overeat?” written by Margaret Mead is about Americans’ attitude of choosing food and eating habits. The author is trying to debunk the normal phenomenon in the United States --- obesity. At first, she questions the reason why not a few number of Americans is obese from their occasions of eating, such as having festival fever in Christmas. But then she realised that daily abundance of food is the main factor contributing to the problem of obesity in the United States. In the rest of Mead’s essay, Margaret explains the logic of the America culture and attitude which causes and increases the number of obese Americans due to excess daily consumption of food and drink.

The idea of treating the obese as the sinners is interesting because freedom is the Americans’ core value, meanwhile, choosing to consume abundant of food is at one’s will and it is not a crime. A popular mantra, “Don’t tell me what to do.”, represents the American’s attitude, thus judging people by being obese is peculiar …show more content…
Westerns intake the food according to scientific research (food pyramid) and elements of food. For example, westerners divide food in different categories (grains, vegetables, meat, fish and milk, oil and sugar) and their daily consumption is based on that. Also, they see human body as a dissection of functions. Hence, food is the fuel for different body parts to function well physically. In contrast, the Chinese view food not only as a fuel for the whole body but also as a source of prolonging lives. They think that every food has a “qi/air” (氣) inside which is a kind of energy of lives and not all the foods have an identical “qi/air”. Westerners have the food pyramid while the Chinese have a concept of “Five elements”. Basically, foods can be categorised into five attributes, such as wood, fire, earth, metal and water. The Chinese balance their diet according to five elements which have a generating