| January
30, 2008
Food & Weight
Interview
with Barry Glassner, author of The
Gospel of Food |
Mike
Carruthers:
The obesity epidemic in this country is often blamed on the fast food industry.
Barry Glassner:
In fact the fast food industry blossomed
and really took off way before the obesity epidemic. Sociologist
Dr.Barry Glassner, author of the book The
Gospel of Food… People
forget that it was in 1966 that signs outside McDonald's restaurant said over
two BILLION sold. But it wasn't until much later - the beginning of the 1980's
and 1990's and then much more recently in this decade - that we really had an
obesity epidemic. Dr.
Glassner says there are other interesting and surprising factors that have contributed
to the obesity epidemic. For
instance the success of anti-smoking campaigns has a lot to do with the obesity
epidemic. Now the anti-smoking campaigns are a great thing but when people give
up smoking, they typically gain ten to twenty pounds. And the anti-smoking campaigns
happened at the same time that weight went way up. So
there is no one single villain responsible for people being overweight. There
are several different factors that vary from person to person. What
I'm urging is a sense of proportion and realism here. We've lost all the enjoyment
of eating and that's very sad because eating is one of the great pleasures. It's
also unfortunate because people get more out of a meal, not just emotionally but
also physically, when the food is a pleasure to eat and that's been shown in several
studies. At somethingyoushouldknow.net
- I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.
| 
