The Extraordinary Science Of Addictive Junk Food

In “Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food” by Michael Moss is about the rising numbers of obesity in both adults and children throughout the United States. On the Evening of April 8, 1999, some of the biggest food industries CEO’s ad company presidents come together for a rare, private meeting. Discussing the emerging obesity epidemic and how they should deal with it. Big time companies food is lacking the nutrients that a person needs and is more concentrated on how to make it more desired. Keeping the customers coming for more. While the industries are gaining a profit, the customers are gaining a big belly.

Food is an essential part of our life, to stay alive. Food is necessary for our bodies to develop, replace, and repair cells and tissues; produce energy to keep warm, move, and work; carry out chemical processes such as digestion of food; and protect against resist, fight infection, and recover from sickness. Food is made up of nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, protein, and fat. The body cannot function properly if one or more of the nutrients are missing. It has been common today to dismiss that, the earlier a person starts to eat healthy foods, the more he or she will stay healthy.

Michael Moss a investigative reporter for New York Times also the author. The Extraordinary Science of Junk Food was first appeared in the New York Times Magazine on February 24, 2013. On April 8, 1999, C.E.O from Nestle, Kraft and Nabisco, General Mills, Procter and Gamble, Coca-Cola, and Mars gathered to talk on the obesity epidemic. The vice president of kraft named Michael Mudd. Mudd gave a presentation about obesity, he told them to cut the use of sugar, salt, and fats. Also to change the manner they advertise their products. After the presentation was over the C.E.O of General Mills rose and said that people chose freely that if they wanted a healthy product then there it was.

Michael Moss, an investigative reporter who enjoys reporting on food, wrote: “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food” (pages 471-494). This article reports on the ways that prepackaged food, especially junk food, is being designed to fit the customers’ needs and wants, as well as being something that the body craves. Moss provides multiple accounts throughout the reading in which people who have worked for or created corporate companies design foods just so they will sell. Moss expresses his thought in a clear manner to the reader so he or she will understand that Moss worries about the growing obesity in America and places the blame on junk food corporations. Though junk food corporations have a great part in the growing obesity,

Throughout the articles, each one discussed the author’s perspective on food industries. Two articles argued whether the food companies should be blamed for the health epidemics or it should be a personal responsibility for consumers. While others discussed how food industries manipulate consumers into buying more of their food. Along the same lines, all the articles mentioned how the health epidemic is increasing and who must be fault for the growth. As well as finding a solution and who should help. Although the articles emphasize how obesity rate has grown, the public seems to blame food companies for manipulating consumers and others insist it is a consumer’s personal responsibility.

In the article “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food”, the writer Michael Moss mentioned that growing weight problem happened in America has become a major health crisis issue. While people are talking about obesity, they care more about how much sugar, salt and fat they consume during a day, which kind of processed food does harm to their body. It seems that food companies have an inalienable relationship with consumers’ health conditions, because they provide us with what we eat. These companies made their food taste better (putting sugar, salt and fat in product) for attracting more customers, and also tried to protect their individual customers from the “obesity epidemic”, which is named by Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Moss, 260), without losing market share. It put them a moral judgment of creating food that customers like or be good to customers’ health. However, another writer Ethan Watters describe a story in his article “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan” that in the market of the depressant drug in Japan, pharmaceutical companies faced a dilemma. They found it so hard to construct a Western-view concept of “depression” among a large-scale demographic of Japanese people, to contribute to their mental health problem, and to make a profit for sure. In the former case, food companies applied multiple marketing strategies to collective demographics to create more individuals’ desire of consumption, while they were striving to protect

Childhood obesity has become an epidemic in the United States in the past three decades. In 2012, roughly 17% or 12.5 million children and adolescents are overweight or obese” (“Childhood Obesity Facts,” 2014). According to the Centers of Disease Control and

In this article, “The Extraordinary Science Of Addictive Junk Food”, written by Michael Moss there are several sources used to try and prove that the junk foods that we consume on a daily basis aren’t healthy for us and have become addictive. Moss tackles the argument in a way of using rhetorical devices and figurative language to get his audience, which would be the consumers, to understand that the big companies that we’re giving our money to don’t care about our health, just whether or not we’re still eating their products. Moss’ association when dealing with diet and nutrition is his prime topic. According to the New York Times, Moss is the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning book Salt, Sugar, Fat and also a Pulitzer-Prize winner investigative reporter. When I read this article Moss really had me drawn in because of his credibility.

In America childhood obesity statistics show that almost 60 percent of children are obese. This statistic continues to grow at an alarming rate. 70 percent of obese adolescence become obese adults. This means when these children grow into adults they will have more health problems than they already do and their quality of life will decrease. The amount of children who are obese between ages 6-11 years old has risen from 6.5 percent in 1980 to 19.6 percent, in 2008. In adolescents ages 12-19 years old the obesity rates risen from 5.0 percent in 1960 to 18.1 percent in 2008. Last year the United States government stated that obesity and type 2 diabetes have become a national epidemic.

Over the past three decades, childhood obesity rates in America have tripled, and today, nearly one in three children in America are overweight or obese. (“Data & Statistics.” Childhood Obesity in America, childhoodobesityinusa.weebly.com/data--statistics.html). The reasons why the numbers are increasing are because children are eating more empty calories than ever before. Instead of healthy fruits, veggies and nutritious snacks and lunches, parents are packing and serving processed snacks that contains high fructose corn syrup. If this problem is not solved, one third of all children born in 2000 or later will suffer from diabetes at some time in their lives. (National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration, letsmove.obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/learn-facts/epidemic-childhood-obesity). Childhood obesity should be prevented because it is a risk to kids' health, low self-esteem, and they can be bullied because of it.

A drive down the road in any given American city and one can observe at least one reason that the United States is struggling with obesity. One would be hard pressed to find a community that is not teeming with fast food restaurants. However, it might surprise some that the obesity epidemic in our country has reached the most vulnerable population of all and they aren’t even capable of driving themselves to these bastions of unhealthy food. The childhood obesity level has reached 34% of children in the United States (SHUMEI, 2016).Obesity is caused by consistently consuming more calories than are needed for the level of physical activity one has on a daily basis. Although there are several indicators of obesity, the CDC and The American Academy of Pediatrics use the body mass index (BMI). Childhood obesity is defined as a BMI at or above the 95th percentile for children of the same age and sex (Perpich, 2011). Childhood obesity has been linked to an increase in Type 2 diabetes mellitus, asthma, hypertension, increased risk for cardiovascular disease and even affects children in psychosocial terms with low self-esteem and fewer friends than their non-obese contemporaries (Hispanic Health Care International, 2011). There are a variety of causes that work together for contributing to childhood obesity from the income level of the home to gender to even the location of the child’s home. Although there are many factors that can cause childhood obesity, we

America is facing a rigorous obesity plague that is endangering the health of millions. Moreover, we are passing our bad practices down to our children. Obesity is a stipulation in which anomalous or excessive fat buildup in adipose tissue that damages health. Obesity is defined in adults as a body mass index (BMI) exceeding 30 (kg/m). Obesity is one of the most discernible, but until recently, most deserted public health problems. The present high pervasiveness of obesity and the brisk increase in pervasiveness in the last twenty years has been referred to as an endemic (Johnson SJ, Birch LL. 1994). Children all through the U.S. are getting fatter and less fit, through potentially treacherous enduring consequences. The figure of

There is a giant threat looming over the United States, a catastrophic event of epidemic proportions which is threatening to capsize the health care system and that epidemic is childhood obesity. The awareness of this epidemic as a national problem developed in 1999 with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) publication of a compilation of yearly state-based maps that indicated the increase in the levels of childhood obesity. There were earlier studies done by the CDC regarding this epidemic, but the maps gave physical proof of the dramatic increase for this pressing issue (Dietz, 2015).

Forty years ago in America childhood obesity was rarely a topic of conversation. A survey done in the early 1970s showed that 6.1% of children between the ages 12 and 19 were overweight. Eight years later the same survey was done and 17.4% were considered overweight (Iannelli). “Childhood obesity epidemic in America is now a confirmed fact since the number of overweight or obese children has more than tripled during the last 30 years” (Childhood Obesity Epidemic). “Over the last 20 years, the prevalence of obesity in children aged 6 to 11 years has tripled from 6.5% to 19.6%” (Childhood Obesity Epidemic). As a nation statistics should be alarming. Why are American children today so obese?

In order to impede the epidemic of childhood obesity, the actual causes of the problem need to be evaluated and dissected. Obesity in children is becoming a huge problem in American society. In the past three decades, the rate of overweight children has increased by 300%. This is an alarming rate that is only climbing higher. Every member in society should take steps to becoming healthier. This would help the present generations as well as future generations to come. The lifestyle of Americans keeps us too busy to be a healthy society.