In class, we discussed the concept that power is the main
determinant of health. In global health, we look at power in the international
realm, but I want to take a look at the more domestic side. The world has many
health concerns that many organizations are trying to tackle, but there are
also many issues in our own backyard. The United States has a lot of power,
debatably in different forms, but it is no doubt a dominant power in the world.
So, if power is a main determinant of health, like we discussed in class, what
does that mean for the health of one of the most powerful nations?
One of the largest health concerns in our country deals the
food system. The United States is the most obese country on the planet (1). We
are going through what is being classified as an “obesity epidemic,” where
there are a record number of people with excess fat and chronic health diseases
dealing with that amount of weight. I have heard people simply say that it is
up to the individual to eat healthy and it is their fault if they are
overweight and unhealthy. But, is it really? How about in that mindset of power
being the main determinant of health?
Sure, I think individual choice has some to do with this
prime health concern. You don’t get obese running marathons and eating from the
local farmer’s market and you don’t get in Olympic shape eating fast food and
watching Lifetime movies all day. But if someone sincerely wants to be healthy
and there are no farmer’s markets around, let alone an actual grocery store, it
has become a much larger problem than individual choice.
Those with less power, less income, and fewer rights are
going to be less healthy. A CDC data collection showing obesity rates by
ethnicity group showed that the minority groups, Hispanic and non-Hispanic
black, are more obese than non-Hispanic white Americans (2). A similar graph
compared obesity rates and income levels, which concluded, especially in women,
obesity being more prominent in lower income individuals.
If these individuals had more power, they could make their
“food deserted” neighborhoods rich with grocery stores and accessible to
healthy choices. If all areas had equal opportunities to get fresh, unprocessed
foods, then I think obesity would be more of an individual issue, but since
there are towns with the only possible means of getting food is at the Taco
Bell or gas station, it is a play on power.
So who is behind all of this? We know who doesn’t have
power, but who are the ones with it? Big corporations are monopolizing our food
industry behind our backs and making what they want to sell what we have to
buy, regardless of the health effects. Whether it is Monsanto overtaking small,
family farms with their genetically enhanced corn and pesticides or businesses
being in charge of the food pyramid to communicate what we should be eating,
the American food system is all about profit for the powerful.
I would like to think that for the majority of our
population, health is an important aspect of life. For me, I know that being
healthy is being happy. A big problem our country faces are these powerful
corporations controlling the food pyramid and knowledge the public absorbs
regarding healthy foods and overall wellness. Are sugars okay to eat? How about
carbs? Fats? It’s all so confusing because it is all business! Monsanto’s
influence on community awareness of health food is a great example of this. We
all find reassurance when we see “FDA certified” or a mark of a well-known
association’s approval, but we don’t even know who the people are or what the
standards are specifically. Most of the government’s food and health regulators
have ties to Monsanto (2). Whether it is the former U.S. Secretary of
Agriculture, Anne Veneman, also serving on the board of Monsanto’s Calgene
Corporation, or the former U.S. Secretary of Health, Tommy Thompson, being a
large donator to Monsanto, there are clearly conflict of interests with our
government and powerful monopolies. These influences have already corrupted the
information being communicated with the public. Monsanto’s products include “a wide range of corn, soybean, cotton, wheat, canola, sorghum
and sugar cane seeds” (4). I can’t think of a processed product that doesn’t
have at least one of these ingredients critical to their production.
The Future of Food, a documentary, is
a very stirring film regarding this situation and biopower in our food system.
It explains how “the people
who run the USDA, EPA and FDA are the very same people who occupy top positions
in the most powerful agricultural organizations in the world” (5). There is no
doubt there is outside influence on food labels from the powerful ones in our
country.
I get
really frustrated by this because it seems so selfish. I try to keep in mind
another concept that we discussed in class, which was perception. I think this
ties into things here too. Perception is built by life experiences and history.
Different levels of power have had different life paths; therefore will have
different priorities, views, and motives. In the article from class, The Social Fabrics to Health: An
Introduction to Medical Anthropology, John M. Janzen makes a strong point
that “class power and knowledge strongly shape particular though, expressions,
formulations, and behaviors” (P. 42). I
strongly believe that this much conflict of interest in something so vital to
our country’s wellbeing, personal health, and a market that affects essentially
every single person is absurd, but I am trying to place such a phenomenon in an
anthropologist’s outlook and possibly start to believe that they don’t realize
the affect and impact they are having in our society. Their mind is in their
career and viewpoint is simply from a business standpoint.
I chose
this picture to illustrate the power it seems like we, common people, have with
our food choice. We are basically being handed what to eat as a result of
businesses. It seems like we are being fed from the company who wins the battle
of who can advertise better. The food industry has become a corporation for
profit, rather than an industry to feed people fuel and nutrients for their
body. Our
perception of the food system depends where we are in it. If we are the ones
being fed, we may not even realize it is corrupt. We may not even think it is corrupt, as long as we have food on our plate. If we are feeding the people,
we are either satisfied with it or not depending on how much profit we are
getting. For example, small family farms are outraged, but Monsanto is loving it. Of course, this is also my perception of it, growing up in California
and living in the Pacific Northwest, food awareness and politics is a very open topic and recognized.
I think
power is a determinant of health if you have none. Having more power
doesn’t necessarily mean you have good health, but you have more of the
opportunity to be healthy. Without power, you are like a puppet being played by
the corporate world of food and being stuffed with the root of their money.
Work Cited:
3. http://www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/monsanto.html
4. Monsanto.com
6. Janzen, John M. The Social Fabrics of Health: An
Introduction to Medical Anthropology. The University of Kansas,
Monica,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very big issue for the US and I’m glad you brought up the power plays behind the obesity epidemic! I also think it is so incredibly unfair how these deeply ingrained health problems occurred because making money was more important, though I also agree that the people making the profit didn’t necessarily know what they were doing. I think you brought up an important point when you described how confusing it is to eat healthy because health messages all come from business. I know I’ve gone into grocery stores looking for healthy food and only come to hours later surrounded by yogurt granola natural real cheese lo fat crunchy wafer wrappers or whatever it is I grabbed. Companies cannot help anyone make healthy choices because there is no way for them to represent a holistic diet when they can only market one product at a time. Sure, they might be able to argue that their product is healthy, but that can only really be true if a person is eating their product in appropriate amounts and supplemented with a healthy diet overall.
The same problem occurs at restaurants, fast food joints, convenient stores, and anywhere you can get food. The place will have a few healthy options and a person looking to be healthy will go for them without knowing what makes them healthy or by what standards of health they have been judged. So where do we get our health knowledge if just showing up at food providers and looking around isn’t enough? I vaguely recall some health classes in public school going over the food pyramid but that’s not really what I think about planning my meals. Also, since the food pyramid was introduced in the 70’s, people have been basing their diets on the base of the pyramid: wheat products. Wheat is important, but only non-processed wheats and only in certain amounts. So the food education provided by the government through public schools hasn’t been the best.
If the sources of food and public education are not providing health awareness, are there any other ways to be healthy? I know I didn’t really understand healthy food until I learned about the diets of people who survived before “civilization” in my Anthropology classes. I had to first learn about the basics of what the body needs before I understood why certain foods are healthy. If people got by on very basic food before money existed, it seems like we should be able to feed the poor of the wealthiest country pretty easily. But how to get the message across? How to create an environment such that most people are aware of and able to access what they need to eat well? In fact, the NIH is studying the diets of other countries to help improve ours. It turns out the some of the poorest people of the world (no electricity or running water, etc.) eat healthier than the poorest Americans. Well I don’t know what the solution is, because corporations are so important in the US, but it looks like a step back might be the best way to improve nutrition overall.
-Molly Reid
Corporate greed certainly is something to be concerned about. Everywhere we look these days, we see stories about a large company coopting a private citizen’s invention or a sleazy insurance conglomerate failing to pay a legitimate claim. There is no doubt that these offhanded and oftentimes underhanded ploys by the rich and the powerful need to be more closely regulated. Laws should absolutely be made to benefit the little guy, and there should be greater separation between the interests of those who govern and the interests of those who sell. I am not disputing that. However, is it fair to blame America’s obesity problem on the selfishness of major corporations? In order to answer this question, I first intend to investigate the claim that power is the reason for the bodyweight disparity between the haves and the have-nots. Secondly, I will discuss the biological reason why Burger King and Pizza Hut will not be replaced by Salad Shack and Tofu Tower anytime soon.
ReplyDeleteThe author of this post cites surveys that say Hispanic and black Americans have a higher prevalence of obesity than whites. The author claims a direct causal relationship between this and the supposed excess of power enjoyed by white Americans as compared to minority groups. I have a somewhat different hypothesis: cultural distinctions. In many white households, there is a shocking lack of family values displayed in the daily routine. Kids are allowed to sleep late and skip breakfast. The family eats snacks for dinner, scattering themselves around the house. The familial habits of, for example, Mexican Americans are wholly different. Their family gatherings are common, the atmosphere is warm, and the food is plentiful. Traditional Mexican cuisine is also very high in fat and starches. I have also been told, while attending a Mexican American family dinner as a guest, that to leave food on my overloaded plate would be an insult to their abuéla, who had prepared the meal. Later, the men told me that to turn down a few beers in favor of a slimming ice tea would be an insult to my own machismo. So, as you can see, culture can play a large part in dietary habits. As to why lower income people have higher rates of obesity, I would point to a simple choice of lifestyle. Some people live to work, while others simply work to live. Where does the corporate grease-machine come into play? That is all about supply and demand, and demand is all about biology. Human beings, like all species, have evolved in a way that favors procreation. In addition to avoiding poisons and maintaining a minimum intake of minerals, working men, pregnant women, and growing children also need a lot of calories. To facilitate these needs, five different kinds of taste buds evolved. The taste buds that trigger a positive response are sensitive to salty, sweet, and umami (a taste characteristic of meats and cheeses). Salty takes care of the minerals; sweet and umami take care of the calories. Negative responses are triggered by sour and bitter taste buds, both of which are historically indicative of poison and presently indicative of health food. Biology says that any restaurant chain to replace its burgers and shakes with eggplant and kale will not succeed, at least not in as large a market. The hard truth about capitalism is that it has to function in real life.
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ReplyDeleteThe American food industry is a very interesting topic when it comes to power. It involves so many various types and aspects of power. Not only does it pertain to the industrial power that certain entities have over the control of certain aspects of the food industry but there are also the social and economic variations of that power that come into play in this situation.
ReplyDeleteWith our advancements in technology today it is pretty discouraging that we are still so dependent on the forms of power that we are using during the process of producing enough food for our nation. There is such a disconnect with the knowledge that is available to consumers about where their food comes from and how it is produced. For reasons easily identifiable given enough education on the topic. Today the food industry used roughly half of the oil that is used by the United States. The amount of energy that is used to produce the products we consume is absurd. Here is a quick statistic taken from an energy input to food energy output article: Lamb - 57:1 , Beef cattle - 40:1 , Eggs - 39:1 , Swine - 14:1 , Dairy (milk) - 14:1 , Turkey - 10:1 , Chicken - 4:1 , Corn - 1:4. As we can tell from those summarized numbers Corn is the only food that is being produced somewhat energy efficiently. The problem with that is corn is what is processed and used in the many harmful processed foods that were mentioned in the original post. This is simply not a sustainable way to go about food production yet, as you touched on before, these are commodity products that are found profitable to produce for major companies like Monsanto giving them the power to dictate how our food is produced.
With massive companies like Monsanto producing their foods and sending them out to their numerous corporate consumers it becomes less of a wonder why certain populations are robbed of something that should not be able to be taken; their access to wholesome, nourishing food.
Like you mentioned, there are low income populations that are not even given the option of being able to have access to a standard grocery store. What they are granted access to usually consists of small-scale food marts that may have a small stack of fruit as their only form of produce. The issue here seems to not just be food access but food sovereignty. As we climb up the ladder of power to the sources that produce our nations food we can start to see where some of the problems lie. The distribution of power among the food industry is terribly skewed and the capitalistic mindset that seems to run through it with companies trying to gain more power by who brings what to consumers is a big issue. However, I feel that the ‘slow food’ movement that is bringing more farmers markets to certain areas is a step in the right direction but when it comes to the major production of food that feeds our nation there is a daunting, complex web of issues that seem very difficult to solve. It brings about the idea of who should really be given the power to produce the food that we put in our bodies.