The relationship between what we eat and our health is as intimate a relationship as any we ever form in our lives. Food is primary to the survival of human beings, and many factors have interacted over the course of centuries, to determine how we consume our food. David H. Freeman addresses this complex relationship in his article, ‘How junk food can end obesity’. The author adds to the discussion on healthy eating by exploring means that fast foods, and processed foods can be used in the fight against overweight and obesity issues in the American population. The title of the article may seem preposterous, but the author immediately sets the context. In what he calls the most wholesome beverage of his life, the author also notes that a 16 ounce cup carried about three hundred calories, as well as being expensive at $9. While the apple-blueberry-kale-carrot smoothie might have been healthy, it also carries more calories than most junk foods, in addition to being expensive. The whole article runs like a paradox, where the author first comes across as contradictory, but when he explains his reasoning, and placing the information in a new perspective. This style manages to keep the reader hooked to the passage from beginning to end.
In the article, Freeman introduces us to the paradox by recounting his experiences in healthy foods shop. While he admits that the drink might be the most wholesome he has ever had in his life, he also shows that its price is unsustainable for most consumers, in addition to the drink carrying more calories than some often demonized fizzy drinks. This passage shows how pointless it is at times to follow some of the dietary alternatives that are touted as healthy. It is paradoxical how a drink that was made to be a healthy replacement contain more calories than the processed alternative. Further, he builds on his argument by quoting leading voices in the campaign against processed foods such as Michael Moss, the author of ‘Salt Sugar Fat: How the food Giants Hooked Us’, as well as Michael Pollan, a Journalism professor UC Berkley. Further, the author shows how the view that big food processing companies are responsible for many of the food health problems has permeated society. In light of increased demonization of processed foods, the author explains of an emergent generation of entrepreneurs seeking to satisfy these needs. The new generation of businesses aims at re-popularizing simpler shopping and eating habits of past years. However, while most realms of human existence seek the implementation of technology, this new generation of food consumption sees technology as the advent of all evil when it comes to food, and thus sees the solution as keeping off technology as much as possible. While these efforts are applauded, the author wonders whether their opposition to big foods will reverse the gains made in providing affordable, healthier foods for the majority of the people affected by overweight obesity issues.
The title of the article is a paradox, where the proposition that junk foods can be used in reducing obesity sounds ironical. However, the title blends in seamlessly with the rest if the article, the author showing the paradoxical approach to the subject as an apt way of defending junk foods, and their possible use in the fight against obesity. In illustrating the paradoxical nature of the problem, the author utilizes several other rhetorical strategies, including an appeal to logic. In presenting the paradox, the author states of the known truth of the detrimental effects that high amounts of fat and sugar have on our body. While all junk food comprises of high amounts of the stated substances, it therefore follows that everyone is conscious of the harmful effect of fast foods. In this instance, the author uses cause and effect as a rhetorical strategy, by linking obesity and overweight issues directly to fats, problem carbohydrates and sugar. Wherever fats and carbohydrates are referred in the article, the reader can associate them with the occurrence of obesity. In showing the paradoxical solutions that the wholesome foods movement is proposing, the authors shows the presence of problem carbs and fats in the wholesome foods, making them just as culpable to cause obesity as processed foods and junk foods. By illustrating the similarity between the processed foods and the proposed wholesome alternatives, the author is appealing to the reader’s sense of logic, where if both foods contain comparable amounts of fats and carbohydrates, they are both as liable to cause obesity.
Deductive reasoning is widely seen in this article, where the author presents the general facts on the contents of both wholesome meals and processed ones. He then points to specific examples, most being meals he had enjoyed, and showing how they do not contribute a solution to the obesity problem. ‘All the railing about the fat, sugar, and salt engineered into industrial junk food might lead one to infer that wholesome food, having not been engineered, contains substantially less of them .’ This statement is illustrative of the author’s use of deductive reasoning, where he generalizes of the implied message that wholesome foods have low levels of fats, sugars and carbohydrates. In contrast, however, the author disapproves this general misconception by recalling on the essential factors leading to obesity. From the general misconception, the author takes the reader through his reasoning, showing the general misconception in application to specific cases. The case of a corporate stress management seminar, where the coach tells the employees that it is ok to eat fries but not Cheetos completes the circle of deductive reasoning, where the author shows processed foods to be just as unhealthy as some un-processed foods such as fries.
While the author discounts the assertions of many scholars and self-proclaimed professional in the obesity and food discussion, he also utilizes the knowledge and authority of others to strengthen his argument. In countering the argument that processed foods have contributed to the widening obesity gaps between the rich and the less affluent, the author quotes Lenard Lesser, an obesity researcher and physician. Through reference to a person of authority in the field of discussion, the author is employing ethos as a rhetorical strategy. The use of credible and reliable sources to back up the information provided in the article seeks to convince the reader of the author’s diligence in evaluating the veracity of his information before dispatching it. “The difference in obesity rates in low- and high-income groups was evident as far back as we have data, at least back through the 1960s .” This statement by Lesser is used to support the author’s claim that processed foods are not the primary cause of widening rates of obesity in society.
This article succeeds in presenting a difficult problem, and succinctly disseminating it for the reader, that they can understand all the different angles to the problem and make an informed determination. The challenge of obesity has been floated as being contributed by increased consumption of processed foods, a misconception that the author successfully dismantles. The presentation of the issue paradoxically helped the reader understand all the variables guiding an individual’s decision on what to eat, making all these variables work, and eventually showing how it is potentially possible to use big food processors towards promoting healthier eating alternatives in the fight against obesity. While the solution proposed sounds paradoxical, given that the touted advocates for healthy eating are the ones who are deeply implicated in the current state of obesity in the country. The writing is effective as it utilizes various strategies to show how the paradoxical solution of big food to obesity can work.
Works Cited:
Freedman, David H. "How Junk Food Can End Obesity." The Atlantic july/august 2013: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/07/how-junk-food-can-end-obesity/309396/. Web.
