Nunn, Brandon
English Brooks
English 1010
4 October 2015
Mark Bittman’s “The Food Industry’s Solution to Obesity” For decades, obesity has been a major problem in American society. Some attribute this to the laziness or lack of ambition of Americans. Others blame the marketing strategies of big name food companies. Mark Bittman attributes it to big name food companies not distributing “healthy” food to the public. He insists that they instead distribute food that is terrible for you. Loaded down with excess amounts of sugar, calories, and fats, the food companies have begun to appear to be selling “better” food to society. In his article, “Parasites, Killing Their Hosts: The Food Industry’s Solution to Obesity,” he dives deeper into the corrupted world of public health versus company profit. Published in the New York Times on June 17, 2014, his article covers the world of obesity and how the food industry contributes to this dystopia we’re working towards.
Mark Bittman is an American food journalist, columnist for the New York Times, and author of 14 books and cookbooks. One of these books was awarded the James Beard Award for General Cooking. Working for the New York Times since 1996, Bittman has slowly worked his way up to the current lead food writer for the paper. He has been featured on NPR, The Today Show, and PBS’s 2008 American food and travel series “Spain…on the Road Again."
As Bittman writes his article he begins to analyze how little the food industry really cares about its consumers. He states that he sees little to no change in how the food industry “attacks” obesity as a problem. Stating that the food industry is really attempting to make a healthier market for its consumers is something that “only the naïve would believe.” He makes it clear that he is out for justice against the food industry.
Targeting Americans as a whole and also the government, he aims for making a change in the industry. He does this by targeting even the government for trying to ignore the problem. Saying “The government’s rightful role is not to form partnerships with industry so that the latter can voluntarily “solve” the problem, but to oversee and regulate the industry.” Bittman wants anyone who has the ambition to help, to do so. He points out that food companies won’t change as long as one of them stays in the same vicious cycle they have been in. Saying that as long as one remains the same non-caring entity that they started as, the others will never change the way they market food.
Bittman opens his article noting that most people buy food that is marketed by corporations in the food industry. Stating that while you can buy food from farmers and organic companies, it’s just easier at the supermarket. “It’s hard to market fruit and vegetables without adding value” says Marion Nestle. Here he brings in the point that most of this food is “processed beyond recognition.” Stating that profit isn’t the only gain for the industry when marketing this “food”, he says that it creates a much longer shelf life as well. This point is important because it almost sounds as if it contradicts what he is arguing in this article, but it’s not. He then jumps to the next sentence showing what each of these natural and healthy items are being turned into to increases the shelf life and value. This shows that these people are still in it for profit and not concerned about the public’s health.
As the article continues, he jumps into a more logos appeal in the next paragraph. He states that diseases like diet related Type 2 diabetes, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, and NASH are beginning to become more common. Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis is a liver disease that closely resembles alcoholic liver disease, but is caused by a bad dieting plan. This appeal allows him to hit a more factual basis with his article. Bittman relates these to the fact that “even a parasite knows that if it kills its host the party’s over.” He states that the food industry is full of stupidity because they promote unhealthy products that are killing their market slowly. Mark even says that “food companies are well aware of the health crisis their products cause, and recognize that the situation is unsustainable.” He even goes into a reference to how a parasite knows not to kill its host. Saying that “only the naïve, however, would believe that Big Food is generally working towards this.” Covering the topic again, they have no concern with changing if it might damage their profits. Bringing in Marion Nestle again as a reference, he brings more source information into the article. She believes that they care not about the public interest of America, but only about the corporate interest.
In reality, I believe that Bittman does a mediocre job at stating his position on this subject. It seems that he really cares throughout the entire essay, but it lacks appeals to many different audiences. While he does target the government specifically, he never actually takes into consideration that not a lot of people are worried about the bigger picture. He hits the rhetorical points of Pathos and Ethos throughout the essay. However he manages to completely miss the Logos appeal. If more numbers and statistical data were involved in the essay, he would convince people in a more effective way. Understandably however, he used ethos and pathos very well. Quoting various important authors and using different ways to make me feel emotionally involved with the problem. It’s as if he creates a bubble that you immerse yourself into when reading this article. He does however, seem to be passionate about the topic itself, therefore making his side of the argument clear. At one point he even makes it seem as if he contradicts himself, but ends up spinning the idea into anther indecency the food industry does.