Republic Of Fat Analysis

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As standards of living have risen, more and more people realize the importance of health. Food and health both are very serious topics and have strong relationships with people’s living. One of the major concepts of that is eating healthy which means we should eat healthy food with good eating habits. However, this is not easy for us at all. With the development of technology, our food industry has also entered a new era. For example, processed foods have occupied a large proportion of food market; and fast food restaurants have sprung up all over the place. As the result of these facts, our country has become a “Republic of Fat” At this point, government plays a significantly important role to help people achieve the goal of eating healthy. …show more content…

As we know, Government’s policies often will result in the change of price on agricultural products accordingly affect people’s dietary under their budget constrains; in order to promote healthy food to the public, government should set up price floor on certain agricultural products, such as corn and soybean. In the book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan raises the concern of obesity as a health risk to our nation. According to the surgeon general, “obesity today is officially an epidemic; it is arguably the most pressing public health problem we face, costing the health care system an estimated $90 billion a year (102)”. Cheap corn price is the main culprit that leads to this nationwide obesity. Food industries are willing to transform cheap corn into value-added consumer products, such as McDonald’s chicken nuggets and Big Macs, in order to maximize profits. This will make our dietary contains much more calories than before. In addition, the byproduct from corn, such as high-fructose corn syrup, has become the leading source of sweetness in food industries since it can provide same level of sweetness with a low cost. Simultaneously HFCS improves the taste of the foods, thereby increasing our consumption on those high calories foods. All these factors eventually lead us to a Republic of Fat. Government’s policies have put a very negative repercussion on people’s dietary. Because In 1970s, the US government embraced a cheap-food farm policy and dismantled the prevent overproduction policy (103). After that, American farmers were producing far too much corn, which directly causes the price of corn decreased in the next few years. As a result, the price of unhealthy foods and drinks decrease significantly since

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