This section will explore how psychological factors such as motives, personality, and attitudes towards food influence consumer choice. When it comes to food choice, there is a great variety of products on offer, and consumers do not always make rational healthy choices. Often there are other criteria related to the human psyche that determine food choices.
Motives can be rational when they result in reasonable behaviour, and emotional when they result in spontaneous behaviour (Zielinska 2006). One important motive that determines food choice is the desire to obtain a mental comfort after indulging in specific foods prepared in a specific way. Rational motives, for example the desire to be healthy, can result in irrational behaviours, such as going on extreme diets. People with these kinds of obsession believe that preserved food is dangerous for health, and healthy food should be biologically pure (Zielinska 2006).
The relationship between food choice and emotions is complex. People choose certain foods in a particular context with the intent of improving emotional states, such as decreasing depression. It must be taken into account that food preferences depend heavily on the current mood as well. There are certain foods which have been considered to influence mood in a positive way. Some of these include coffee, tea, alcoholic beverages, and energy drinks (Zielinska 2006). The caffeine and carbohydrates seem to have a critical effect for mental freshness. Foods that
Mary Maxfield wrote her essay as a response to Michael Pollan’s essay on the western diet. Maxfield does not believe we should see food as what we can or cannot have, but to trust our instincts that our bodies will know what they need, which is contrary to Pollan’s article. Maxfield says that she does not believe that there is a correlation between weight, diet and health, which is also contradictory of Pollan. She believes that the body will naturally crave what it needs and you should let your body have what it wants because of this. Maxfield is targeting those interested in the real diet issue (possibly writers) and the Americans looking to make a difference in their diets.
In Michael Pollan’s essay “Escape from the Western Diet,” he directly to Americans about the western diet and why he believes they need to escape from it. The reason Americans should escape the western diet is to avoid the harmful effects associated with it such as “western diseases” (Pollan, 420). To support his view on the issue, Pollan describes factors of the western diet that dictate what Americans believe they should eat. These factors include scientists with their theories of nutritionist, the food industry supporting the theories by making products, and the health industry making medication to support those same theories. Overall, Pollan feels that in order to escape this diet, people need to get the idea of it out of their heads.
In “The Pleasure of Eating” Berry suggests people do not take the time to know the facts of what they are eating. People now do not want to take time to cook a meal, but instead want a fast meal to eat quickly in a busy day.(Berry) Not only does this show less appreciation for healthy foods, but it is allowing processed foods to become popular and allowing them to sell more, damaging people's health. And this is exactly what the food industry wants. (E-1)The food industry's main concerns are not the quality of their foods, they do not care about the ways it affects our health, instead they worry about volume and price.(Berry)
Nowadays in America, we are encountering problems with our food system. The way it’s being processed is affecting everyone. From youngest to oldest, farmers to lawyers and smallest to biggest animal. Consumers are made to believe that they are buying and eating healthy foods , but the labels that led them to believe that are not completely honest. The essay “Escape from the Western Diet” written by Michael Pollan is an explanation of the theories of the western diet.
This appeals to our physiological needs because naturally, humans need to eat food and to hear from a professional that there are other influences outside of food that are giving cause to the obesity crisis gives Americans a slight sigh of relief when it comes to the degree of toxicity of our foods. Furthermore, that people eat a more wholesome diet versus those that do not, tend to be healthier than that live on fast and processed foods,there are also stark differences to recognize between these classes that should be taken into account as well such as the tendency to engage in exercise, air quality, and other health considerations such as smoking and
Relevance between Food and Humans with Rhetorical Analysis In the modern industrial society, being aware of what the food we eat come from is an essential step of preventing the “national eating disorder”. In Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma, he identifies the humans as omnivores who eat almost everything, which has been developed into a dominant part of mainstream unhealthiness, gradually causing the severe eating disorder consequences among people. Pollan offers his opinion that throughout the process of the natural history of foods, deciding “what should we have for dinner” can stir the anxiety for people based on considering foods’ quality, taste, price, nutrition, and so on.
Eating is one of the most important process of people’s daily lives. Ingesting the food that provide nutrition and energy to allow people’s growth. Without eating, none of the animals and other omnivores will be able to survive. Humans consume most of other living things on earth. As humans become more civilized, many starts to think about moral consequences of food choices for humans themselves and for other animals or perceive that eating some specific kinds of food is morally and naturally incorrect.
Today’s society is surfaced with various problems, one of them being our diet along with obesity. The health of our country’s people has become a national problem. One’s diet is based upon their choices, but even then there are many controversial views upon what is healthy and what is not. Two essays that I read uniquely present their views on this topic. First, there is “Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating” by Mary Maxfield and then there is “Don’t Blame the Eater” by David Zinczenko.
In his essay "Escape from the Western Diet," Michael Pollan argues that the diet of Western cultures has led to an epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and other chronic diseases. He believes that this is due to our reliance on processed foods, which are high in sugars, fats, and refined carbohydrates. Pollan supports his argument by presenting evidence from scientific studies and historical trends. He notes that the rise of the processed food industry in the mid-twentieth century coincided with a sharp increase in rates of obesity and other health problems. He also cites studies that show that people who eat fewer processed foods and more whole, natural foods have better health outcomes.
Eating food is an obvious necessity to life, therefore many people are mindless with their consumption habits, and do not consider the implications of their choices. Mckay
The sociological imagination on food In this assignment I am going to talk about the sociological imagination on food and the aspects it brings with it. Before starting that large process I firstly will explain what the social imagination is and what the key points of the imagination are in able to fully understand the topic; food and its history, biography, and the relation it has in society. This is my first assignment for the module understanding contemporary society so please bear with me as I will do my best to explain it in a logic manner so everybody can understand it.
The research question is as follows: are there any gender difference in people’s beverage selection of soft drinks and diet soft drinks? The hypothesis is that compared to men, women are less likely to choose soft drinks among all beverages, and if soft drinks are chosen, women are more likely to consume diet soft drinks than regular ones. Relevant empirical works have shown that gender differences in food selection exist as men demonstrate fewer healthy choices than women (Wardle, 2004). In both adolescence and adulthood, men consume meats, dairy products, and carbohydrate- rich foods significantly more frequent than women, and women were more likely to consume fruits, yogurt, tea, and low-calorie carbonated beverages (Rolls, 1991). Health beliefs are hypothesized as one cause of gendered food selection as men rate many health behaviors, including food selection choices, as less important than women do (Wardle, 2004).
The Context: An unhealthy diet can lead to disease. There is a large body of evidence linking poor diet to overweight and obesity as well as cancer and diabetes. Standard approaches to overweight and obesity reduction have assumed that individuals’ food related behaviour is carried out via rational decision making process ( Just & Payne, 2009) . However, inter-disciplinary research in behavioural theory and food choice indicates that people do not behave in a rational manner, and that environment plays a major role in influencing the choice of a person (Stewart Palmer, 2012).
I. Introduction: a. Attention Getter: Nothing can be as satisfying and enjoyable as eating junk food. Is it not? It can be so good! Food is what makes us who we are.
Personal fitness team gets tough on Fat related foods Keeping fit is considered is one of the challenges people encounter in life. It bars them from leading their desired lifestyle. The personal fitness team aims at helping people understand numerous things about keeping fit and specifically about unhealthy related foods. There are numerous cases where people fail to shed off excessive weight despite the number of times they exercise.