To eat, or not to eat: That is the question
Problem level Wicked: America’s broken food and nutritional education system
“Yes, so you’ve ordered one Wicked Problem. That automatically comes with sides Nutritional Imbalance, Cultural Appropriation, and Environmental Pollution. I’ll be back shortly with your x-large, chemically enhanced drink infused with carcinogens. And your trillion dollar check. No refunds accepted, but I can get you a plastic to-go box that you won’t have to worry about breaking down until we’re both long gone.”
Pardon this dry jokester. There is nothing humorous about this topic, but if I don’t make myself laugh I’ll be too depressed to do anything but eat — and it won’t be healthy food, I assure you.
“Wicked Problem” refers to problems that are systemically complex––no single solution will solve all the issues present. Our broken food system is rife with troubles related to––but not limited to––industrialized food production, insufficient food distribution, commercialism, healthcare, economics, etc.
This wicked problem also affects the human race at large. For my purposes, I’m narrowing my focus to encompass the U.S. In any circumstance, however, there’s a general assumption that education will fix many of the problems within the wicked problem. (Let’s pretend I agree with that for now.)
You may remember the food pyramid from your childhood. It was a project done by the U.S. Department of Agriculture with the Department of Health and Human Services. It was an initiative that aimed to ensure that most American children were taught about basic nutrition at some point in their early education. (Though there is a conspiracy theory that it was crafted to represent what farmers must sell to make profit rather than what’s nutritious for the consumer’s body.) In recent years the departments have changed the metaphor to a plate, which is a thankfully a bit more visually representative of what people should be eating.
I don’t know anyone who actually divides their plate like that. The one time my mom made 8-year-old me a breakfast reflective of MyPlate, I thought I was going to pop like a balloon. It was too much food and we both gave up after that. Too much effort. Even now I have the food pyramid memorized, but I don’t apply it to my daily diet.
We won’t get anywhere until we all start asking the right and raw questions. If we stop at education, we will fall short of solving the very big, very real Wicked problem at hand. No more regurgitating the food pyramid or plate as if we know or practice what we’re trying to talk about. Frankly, most of us don’t. The problem is application. How might we apply our knowledge of nutrition and what is good and right for our bodies? How might we return to our roots and come to appreciate healthier eating habits? Why are we allowing ourselves to passively accept that the food industry at large is lying to us and lining their pockets with our money simultaneously? What would our world look like if companies were dedicated to keeping us healthy?
One of man’s first occupations was farming. Eventually, the Industrial Revolution came along and we realized we could save a lot of time by abandoning our self-sufficient and sustainable lifestyle. We may have gained time in the short run. But somewhere along the way we not only lost something important to our being, but we’re also actually losing our health (despite the fact that many Americans have access to more food than they can consume). We need education, then application. We must protest and abolish the monopolizing giants of our broken food industry until they are nothing but history.
We must EDUCATE.
If this picture shocked you as much as it shocked me, then I don’t need to explain further. But I will go further because graphics are not going to save us. If they were, MyPlate would have done it already.
Instead, the commercial industry is monopolizing graphics to make us think that we prefer the 400 calories of oil or chicken. Children especially are prime targets for advertisement because they don’t acquire cognitive abilities to discern the selling intent of advertisements until they’re 8-years-old, and they don’t understand persuasive intent until around 12-years-old. In particular, they’re using Persuasive Techniques (PTs), or “strategies that increase children’s brand loyalty, recall of advertisements, purchase requests, preferences and consumption of advertised foods” (Vilaro, M.j., et al, p23).
So, yes. It is scientifically proven that it’s almost impossible to reason with a young child making a scene in a grocery store. When mom and dad say “Eat your broccoli because I told you so; because it’s ‘good for you,’” kids don’t care about that. They want what’s fun, what tastes good to them…what they want. On top of that, many kids experience neophobia, or fear of anything new. Getting kids to voluntarily eat oddly-shaped, boring-looking, green-leafy things that remind them of other green-leafy things they already tried and didn’t like is incredibly difficult.
Introducing Edible Education
If MyPlate isn’t the answer, what is? I’ve spent the last two weeks researching scholarly papers on the effects garden programs have on children and their eating habits. As I read paper after paper, I am convinced that edible education is statistically the best known way to get kids before college age to not only eat fresh produce, but get them excited about eating it. Garden programs get real food in kids hands––planting, growing, harvesting, cooking––and they love it.
“When children are scheduled to go into the garden or the kitchen, their attendance is perfect.” — Esther Cook, Head Chef Teacher at The Edible Schoolyard Berkeley
Across the U.S., in-school garden programs are sprouting. However, much more is to be done. California produces the majority of the nation’s fresh produce, and yet not all the schools have garden programs. Several organizations are at work, including local Planting Justice founded by Berkeley grads or more scalable, nationwide The Kitchen Project run by Kimbal Musk, Elon Musk’s brother.
But even then, we must APPLY knowledge…
Research provides evidence that even if everyone became more knowledgeable about food and nutrition, and food companies produced more healthful food products, consumers would still need help making nutritious food choices. Information is not enough (Contento, 5).
Garden programs help because it gives young people (or even incarcerated adults at San Quentin) a sense of personal agency. However, there is still a whole other part of the population that did not have a chance to grow up with edible education. How do we teach them to take ownership of their diets and make the best choices for themselves?
It’s important also to take everything into context. What food is available? Is there a diverse representation of fresh produce and, if not, how might that be supplemented or amended? California has a unique Mediterranean climate which makes it the perfect place to grow plants outdoors. There are movements made by organizations, private or all the way to MIT Lab, dedicated to growing plants in unique circumstances––in greenhouses, indoors on vertical walls, in underwater pods.
Kimbal Musk also points out that much of wasted farmland is owned by older generations who will soon pass that land on. In even 10 years the way we think about fresh produce and how it’s grown and distributed will be drastically different.
Yet still,
We must FIGHT industrialization & commercialism.
What do you do when you realize that the food you thought was food is not food but is still being advertised commercially, publicly as food? You FIGHT.
It’s a sad picture, but the industrial food industry has benefitted from converting us all into addicts––and they’ve gotten away with it so far. Did you know that when we eat enough sugar our brain’s dopamine levels show responses similar to its typical reaction to cocaine? (Shariff, et al, p2) They put chemicals in our foods to make us want to eat more. How is this ok!?
“In a study assessing the use of promotional characters and premiums [in TV commercials targeting children], 75% of unhealthy food advertisements featured at least one persuasive marketing technique compared to only 13% of healthier food advertisements using similar techniques” (Vilaro, M.j., et al, p23).
This is particularly true in neighborhoods primarily comprised of families struggling to make ends meet with low income, low rates of education, and high rates of incarceration (like Oakland, California). These same areas are often specifically targeted by big name companies doling out food, fast and cheap. Sodas, chips, candies, burgers––you name it. It’s a food desert out there and nobody seems to care.
“Food deserts” refers to areas where 500+ families are unable to access fresh produce from a store within a mile of their home. There’s no shortage of food, but the food available comes from heavily commercialized, convenient, chemical-infused fast-food brands that ultimately are leading causes of obesity and other nutrition-related diseases. It’s difficult enough for individuals to work long hours with little pay. Finding, buying, and preparing fresh food is a tall order especially if the nearest fresh produce is miles away, if growing up you didn’t have a parent who cooked fresh food or you haven’t been educated on the importance of having a nutritionally balanced diet.
I believe the focus of my thesis may focus on either applying knowledge or here, in fighting industrialization and commercialism. I’m not looking to redesign already successful garden programs. But it seems that organizations and companies promoting fresh produce and healthy lifestyles could learn from the advertising ploys of their competitors. That, or there may be alternative ways to present healthy foods to young people in a compelling way… Why not teach them about food where the food is? And, if not in the garden, it’s in the grocery store.
In my own way, I will join the people who are already fighting: Kimbal Musk, Alice Waters, Sita Bhaumik. If I will be interfacing with grocery stores, I will need connections and recommendations as grocery stores are like the grunts of the corporations; as long as products sell, stores make a cut. Next week I will start by visiting The Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley.
I will write what I see, hear, and learn every week of this adventure.
Will you join me?
Bibliography
Contento, Isobel R. Nutrition education: linking research, theory, and practice. Burlington, MA, Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2016.
Longacre, Meghan R., et al. “Child-Targeted TV advertising and preschoolers consumption of high-Sugar breakfast cereals.” Appetite, vol. 108, 2017, Abstract., doi:10.1016/j.appet.2016.10.014.
Vilaro, M.j., et al. “Weekday and weekend food advertising varies on childrens television in the USA but persuasive techniques and unhealthy items still dominate.” Public Health, vol. 142, 2017, pp. 22–30., doi:10.1016/j.puhe.2016.10.011.
Davis, Jaimie N, et al. “Sustenance and sustainability: maximizing the impact of school gardens on health outcomes.” Public Health Nutrition, vol. 18, no. 13, 2015, pp. 2358–2367., doi:10.1017/s1368980015000221.
Nury, Edris, et al. “Sowing Seeds for Healthier Diets: Children’s Perspectives on School Gardening.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, vol. 14, no. 7, 2017, p. 688., doi:10.3390/ijerph14070688.
Shariff, Masroor, et al. “Neuronal Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor Modulators Reduce Sugar Intake.” Plos One, vol. 11, no. 3, 2016, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0150270.
