Michael's Pollan Paradox Analysis

Decent Essays
The American paradox or the science around food? In Michael’s Pollan essay “The American Paradox”, he depicts what he sees as mistakes in the way Americans think about, produce and eat their food. Pollan’s notion because as he stated no people on earth worry more about the health consequences of their food choices than we Americans do because we are becoming a nation with people with an unhealthy obsession with health. Happiness and nutrition are two different ideologies that should never be correlated to each other. Moreover the definition of the American paradox can be defined as the unhealthy population preoccupied with nutrition and the idea of eating healthy. What people tend to confuse a lot is being healthy and weight. When people start

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In Michael Pollan’s article “Escape from the Western Diet” the author reminds us of the many different studies that tell us that what is considered healthy for us, changes like the shifting wind. Pollan goes on to say that there are three groups that gain from the confusion what is a healthy diet, the food industry, nutritional science, and journalism. Pollan claims the food industry is to blame because they use different nutritional theories to release new products, and that the nutritional science industry is to blame because they use theories to develop new prescriptions and treatment methods. A journalist writes the articles pertaining to all the different ways that are claimed healthy eating. Pollan says “eat foods that are less processed”.…

    • 546 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Omnivore's Dilemma is a book which modified the way people looked at their food and also what they ate. In Chapter 8 “The Omnivore's Dilemma”, Michael Pollan explains that omnivores like the modern day American can eat just about anything, but the problem is that they are uncertain of what should be eaten. Americans obtain a variety of choices when in a supermarket, but do they recognize what is good for them? Michael Pollan also argues that the reason we experience so many diet fads is that Americans have no food culture to fall back on. So, according to Pollan, the omnivore's dilemma is that the modern-day American doesn't know what to eat because we have no food culture to fall back on.…

    • 478 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “The way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000” (Food, Inc). This really is true, because, before fast food and processed canned foods, people used to have to hunt for their food. Now, we have 24-hour fast food restaurants, and we have over 47,000 food products to chose from in our supermarkets. Since 1980, the percentage of obese children has gone from 5.8% to 17.5% (Obesity Rates 1). 38% of adults in our nation are considered obese, but 33% of the people who are obese didn’t graduate from high school (Obesity 3).…

    • 1262 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Escape from the Western Diet,” was an article written by Michael Pollan to inform Americans about the dangers of the western diet and believes that it would be beneficial to escape from it. In Mary Maxfield’s essay “Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating” she talks about the important reason why people in America are overweight. She explains the mistakes that Americans make about how to…

    • 531 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In his book, Pollan confronts the mystery around the American diet and analyzes the…

    • 626 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Michael Pollan expresses the need to address and fix the problem with the western diet. He starts by reminding the readers of all the nutritional theories that try to explain the health diseases that are affecting American people. The author challenges these theories by placing the blame on the health and food companies, because they create new products and medicines instead of looking at the root causes. Although an easy solution would be to not eat as much processed foods, the author points out how even nature things like soil condition and livestock feed can make that task harder than it should be. Michael Pollan suggests that the consumers are part of the problem because they do not spend enough time or money on our food preparation because…

    • 158 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Obesity is a common theme, research point, epidemic running through America. People everywhere are trying to justify, understand, and eradicate this epidemic. Hungry for Change works to expose obesity and why it is so widespread through America, and how it can be attacked and removed from our mainstream media. Obesity is more complex than common knowledge and surface level understanding that one is overweight; there is much more to it. There are factors and society helping to promote obesity.…

    • 1005 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Pollan writes, “ Most researchers trace America’s rising rates of obesity to the 1970s. This was, of course, the same decade that America embraced a cheap-food farm policy and began dismantling forty years of programs designed to prevent overproduction” (Pollan 285). Pollan argued that the reason America began being unhealthy was because of the fact that America embraced overproduction of food. Although the most of the food produced with corn syrup are good and cheaper, it is unhealthy. In America 17.5 billion pounds of high fructose corn syrup is being…

    • 653 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Pollan believes supersized meals are bad. Supersized meals are making us fat. In addition people are eating “30% more”(82) than what they in the early times, which means that people are eating more and are getting fatter . Also “ our instincts tell us to eat sugar and the fat”(82) when you eat enough sugar your body becomes addicted and craves sugary food every minute of the day every minute in their day . Otherwise “they had to hunt for their food”(82).…

    • 161 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Pollan’s essay “The American Paradox”, he defines the American Paradox and discusses how to fix the American diet. He explains how too many unhealthy Americans are preoccupied and obsessed with nutrition facts and the idea of eating healthy. He also mentions that the food industry, nutrition science, and journalism are the parties that have been the cause of this confusion about eating healthy. He thinks that worrying about nutrition facts and living a so called “healthy” lifestyle is the wrong way Americans think about eating today. I agree with Pollan’s argument because focusing on nutrition facts and dietary foods can mislead the consumer and create some health problems.…

    • 722 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In modern day America, it 's practically impossible to go anywhere or do anything without the latest dietary fads being shoved down your throat. We 've all heard notorious claims such as:“Avoid carbs at all costs,” “Count your calories lest you 'd rather count your days,” “Gluten is the Devil in your dish!” Being a country where obesity thrives and its people 's lives are virtually consumed by the media, it 's only to be expected. The controversy latched onto what Journalist Michael Pollan calls the “Western disease” known as obesity is a goldmine for the American industry, but is it only that? (Pollan) Is obesity really as big an epidemic as we 're making it out to be?…

    • 784 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Michael Pollan’s article “Escape from the Western Diet” has provided the knowledge on effects of consumption of western diets which is mostly a processed food and how to change a diet from processed food to wholesome food. In contrast, David Freedman’s article “How junk food can End Obesity” compares the nutrition level and healthiness of wholesome food and processed food and also discusses the obesity issues and how to tackle it through processed food. According to pollan, the nutritionist or scientist published many theories on food which leads to chronic diseases, but such theories have not used to make a healthy diet, instead they have used by food industry and medical community to improve their profit margin. Pollan suggested that the…

    • 1248 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    From being named on Time Magazine’s top 100 Most Influential People in 2010 to writing many books about food and eating Michael Pollen goes on to explain how to escape the Western Diet in his essay “Escape from the Western Diet”. Pollen points out how the food and health industries impact peoples diets, how to escape the Western Diet and the 3 rules he proposes. Pollen has many great points but lacks convincing evidence in many of his arguments. Although Michael Pollen lacks some strong evidence he is still able to lure the readers in with solid points such as the two industries, so therefore making his argument somewhat convincing to the readers. Pollan succeeds in pointing out how industries should be blamed for people not being able to…

    • 762 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Although I concede that “[w]hatever happened to personal responsibility” (David Zinczenko, Author, “Don’t Blame the Eater,” 391) is a legitimate statement when it comes to eating, I still maintain the fact that many Americans eat what is available and accessible to…

    • 1091 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Every day we interact with food; we consume food, grow food, purchase food, play with food, and throw out food. Food is something that consumes our lives, and plays a big part on how we live. Because of the big part it plays in our lives the media has taken food then has made it into something else that is going to affect our body negatively. We are persuaded to eat healthy, eat fast, eat cheap, and still have that perfect figure without breaking the bank. Some eat because they are “too skinny”, some eat because they can, some don’t eat because they are “too fat”, or because they can’t afford to eat.…

    • 1272 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays