336 Diet and Health
campaigns to convince government officials, health organizations and nutrition
professionals that their products are healthful or harmless, to undermine any sug-
gestion to the contrary, and to ensure that federal dietary guidelines and food guides
will help promote sales.
Issues and Themes
Over-abundant food and its consequences occur in the context of increasing cen-
tralization and globalization of the food industry and of altered patterns of work,
welfare and government. The food system is only one aspect of society, but it is
unusual in its universality: everyone eats. Because food affects lives as well as liveli-
hoods, the situations discussed in this book generate substantial attention from the
industry and the government, as well as from advocates, nutrition and health pro-
fessionals, the media and the public at large. In this book’s discussions of specific
topics and incidents, several themes occur. Some of these themes touch on matters
central to the functioning of democratic institutions and are worth noting as they
emerge in the chapters that follow.
One such theme is the ‘paradox of plenty’, the term used by historian Harvey
Levenstein to refer to the social consequences of food over-abundance, among them
the sharp disparities in diet and health between rich and poor.^26 Wealthier people
usually are healthier and they choose better diets. They also tend to avoid smoking
cigarettes, to drink alcohol in moderation if at all and to be better educated and
more physically active. Health habits tend to cluster in patterns, making it difficult
to tease out the effects of diet from that of any other behavioural factor. Most
paradoxical in the presence of food over-abundance is that large numbers of people
in the US and elsewhere do not have enough to eat. The economic expansion of
the 20th century differentially favoured people whose income was higher than
average and provided much smaller gains for the poor. As noted earlier, when peo-
ple in developing countries go through a ‘nutrition transition’, they increase the
intake of meat, fat and processed foods, gain weight and develop risk factors for
diseases of over-consumption. In the US, low-income groups seem to have about
the same nutrient intake as people who are better off, but they choose diets higher
in calories, fat, meat and sugar, and they display higher rates of obesity and chronic
diseases. The income gap between rich and poor can be explained by the functioning
of economic and related educational systems. The gaps in diet and health are eco-
nomically based, but they also derive in part from the social status attached to certain
kinds of food – meat for the poor and health foods for the rich, for example. Food
and beverage companies reinforce this gap when they seek new marketing opportu-
nities among minority groups or in low-income neighbourhoods. The alcoholic bev-
erage industry is especially adept in marketing to ‘disenfranchised’ groups.^27
A second theme is the conflict between scientific and other kinds of belief
systems. Although most scientists view scientific methods – testing hypotheses by