Too Much Defense of Food

In Michael Pollans In Defense of Food, Pollan discus’s how the change in America’s diet has led to the increase in obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease and overall poor health in the past fifty years, and has spread these diseases wherever the western diet is consumed. Pollans argument that the western diet is the sole source for the increase in these diseases is insufficient, due to the fact that Pollan leaves out exercise and physical activity as any sort of contributor to the increase in health problems.
First of all, one important change in America’s lifestyle and that of the countries that accept the western diet is the development of a less strenuous, more sedentary lifestyle, thus cutting down on the average exercise and physical work that a person must do every day. It is widely known and accepted that daily exercise and frequent physical activity help reduce the chance of cardiovascular diseases and related illnesses. Yet, Michael Pollan never discus’s how the changes in diet over the past 50-60 years have also been accompanied with changes in lifestyle. Yes, Americans have gone from eating the foodstuffs and diets of their native homelands and have switched to a diet heavy on grains and processed nutrient enriched food products, but as an industrialized nation we have also cut down on the amount of time we spend doing any sort of physical activity. Cars have become more common place and newly developed machines and technology have replaced much of the strenuous work and activity that previous generation’s faced. Furthermore, the increased number of sit down office jobs has contributed to America’s sedentary lifestyle, and has led to a less active generation. So, not only has are food changed but the amount of daily activity has also changed over the past several decades and could be even more important to our overall decline in health than what we eat.
Furthermore, countries who have accepted the western diet would have most likely accepted western lifestyle. One of the advantages of the western diet is increased specialization of labor, meaning that less people and workforce are required to produce the amount of food needed by the community, leading to a greater amount of sedentary, sit down, exercise free, office jobs. One example that Pollan uses to support his claim that western diet is the cause of western health problems is a research study in which a group of aborigines, who had been stricken with diabetes and other modern western diseases, after switching to the western diet, decided to venture back “into the bush”. Pollan explains that after several weeks of resuming their aboriginal diet, they were essential cured from all the westernized diseases they had previously suffered. What Pollan forgets to detail, or purposely leaves out, is the dramatic lifestyle changes other than just diet associated with going back “into the bush”. Essentially these aborigines went from living a lifestyle requiring a lot of work and strenuous exercise in order to obtain the daily supplies and food required to live, to a sedentary westernized lifestyle where food is merely bought and possibly cooked, back to their previous lifestyle involving constant exercise and physical exercise. Yet Pollan does mention anything about how the aborigines changed their lives, other than what they ate. So in reality this example, one of Pollans key arguments, does not provide any real concrete evidence to support his theory.
Pollans argument that the change in western diet has led to an overall decline in health in the United States is ineffective because Pollan fails to address the change in daily exercise that has accompanied the change in diet over recent history. Pollans case would be more effective if he addressed this issue instead of avoiding it, as in the case of aborigines. In all, it is Pollans tendency to stir away from all possible counter arguments that subtract from his overall message.