You would think after an intense couple of decades of news stories, “Dateline” specials, advocates like Richard Simmons, Jared and Oprah, and declaring obesity an epidemic in America, the dead horse named national health could stop being beaten. But then came the prophet, Michael Pollan, to take a few more swings and reenergize the debate.
For all of you who have had it with this issue, believe me when I say that I know. I know it’s been covered. People have been talking about this for years now.
I’d like to think I’m creative enough to come up with a fresh, original topic, but here we are.
What bothers me, however, is exactly that. This topic, though obvious and flat, will not go away. And like any issue that becomes oversaturated by the media, an imbalance between the issue and reality is created. This imbalance is currently leading to people being stripped of their right of personal choice.
If you have just recently come out of a coma and don’t already know, spearheading the reemergence of nutrition awareness today is Michael Pollan, author of “In Defense of Food.” He repeats the same mantra about fruits and vegetables that we’ve all been hearing on “Sesame Street” since we were 4. To him I say: Michael Pollan, you son of a bitch, leave my food preferences alone. That’s all I need is for intellectuals to judge me on something else. They’ve already taken the Hummer and gym shoes made by children away from me. Let me at least eat my genetically altered, fat-filled meals in peace.
Modern food is a cheap, delicious solution to Mother Nature’s inadequacies, the metaphorical formula to her breast milk. I liken a just eaten, gigantic apple loaded with hormones to Rambo-era Sylvester Stallone and late ’90s baseball. Would any one of them have been as good as they were without the supplements? No. I want pumpkins so big that, after I hollow them out, I can use them as a tool shed. Trans fats and partially hydrogenated soybean oil are the ingredients of my happiness.
One need only drive a few miles to the nearest McDonalds to enjoy one of mankind’s tastiest creations and pay homage to modern food. Let’s see Mother Nature make a McGriddle. Forget about it.
Modern food may, for some, carry with it the stigma of carcinogenic additives, which ignores the benefits of food science and the modernization of agriculture. If we were to try to do without the advances in food science and pesticides, herbicides, irrigation, and cultivation and rely solely on organic farming, the amount of the earth that would need to be devoted to agriculture would be immense, converting already limited amounts of natural ecosystems and habitat to organic farmland.
Americans haven’t suffered from a severe crop loss caused by disease or insects for decades. Pesticides not only allow farmers to live more comfortably but also prevent famine.
Not that the benefits of organic farming should be disregarded entirely, but it, like most anything, still has negative side effects that should be understood.
What it comes down to is personal choice. If I want to be unhealthy and eat these empty, cancer-causing but gratifying types of food, no one, not Jared, not a doctor, not a university, not a recent reader of “In Defense of Food,” should be able to tell me otherwise. It’s like telling a smoker that cigarettes are bad for them. What am I, an idiot? A person has the right to put any legal substance in their body regardless of its effects.
The idea of personal rights in regards to the food we eat would seem elementary but, perhaps like the thousands of others caught up in the rebirth of this nutritional nonsense, it’s this right that one university is taking away from its students.
According to an article posted on Insidehighered.com, at Lincoln University in Oxford, Pa., obese students are required to have a body mass index less than 30, the standard for obesity, or take a semester-long “Fitness for Life” class before graduating. Currently, 24 seniors are in danger of not graduating because of their health.
This is outrageous. Personal health has nothing to do with academics. An individual’s or institution’s concern for somebody’s health should never supersede that person’s right to disregard their own weight.
A good number of people in America are overweight, the result of our sedentary lifestyles and abundance of unhealthy food. I can only imagine our forefathers dreamed of a world like this as they hauled their asses across the Oregon Trail. If too many people are fat, that must mean things are going well. Once people in Houston start to starve, then we should really start to worry.
The current state of America’s health is the expression of personal choice and national wealth. We should all be allowed to eat how we want; while farmers and the food industry should be allowed to try to turn the largest profit they can while still meeting USDA and FDA standards.
Let’s not let this current perspective on modern food and national health turn us into irrational people, willing to take away others’ rights. Instead, let us think of obesity as a celebration — not an epidemic — of America’s wealth and technological advances.
I implore all of you opposed to modern food to grab a bag of Cheetos and remind yourselves just how wonderful life can be.
David Carter ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in forestry.
