A notably unhealthy people obsessed by the idea of eating healthily?

Michael Pollan, writing in the 17 Oct edition of the New York Times Magazine - Our National Eating Disorder - argued that the Americans are "a notably unhealthy people obsessed by the idea of eating healthily."



He cited a survey by Rozin and Fischler which found that Americans worry more about food and derive less pleasure from eating than people in any other nation they surveyed.



"Compared with the French, we're much more likely to choose foods for reasons of health, and yet the French, more apt to choose on the basis of pleasure, are the healthier (and thinner) people. ... The French eat all sorts of 'unhealthy' foods, but they do it according to a strict and stable set of rules: they eat small portions and don't go back for seconds; they don't snack; they seldom eat alone, and communal meals are long, leisurely affairs. A well-developed culture of eating, such as you find in France or Italy, mediates the eater's relationship to food, moderating consumption even as it prolongs and deepens the pleasure of eating."



"He [Rozin] and Fischler suggest that our anxious eating itself may be part of the American problem with food, and that a more relaxed and social approach toward eating could go a long way toward breaking our unhealthy habit of bingeing and fad-dieting."



Join the debate on the "paradoxical American food culture.