The Politics of Fat: Food and Nutrition in America - Softcover

Sims, Laura S. S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 076560194X ISBN 13: 9780765601940

Publisher: Routledge, 1997

Synopsis

Politics pervades every link in the food chain from the farm to the fork. It influences what foods we eat, how much they cost, what we know about them, and how safe they are. This book brings the point home by focusing on the vexing issue of dietary fat content - known to be a health menace but also an ingredient in many or most of our best-loved foods. Through this prism, Dr. Sims explores the politics of food assistance programmes (with a case study of the National School Lunch programme); agricultural policy (for example, the price premium paid to farmers for milk with high butterfat content); food content (with case studies of food labelling and the approval process for fat substitutes); and dietary change (with a case study of nutrition education programmes). The book concludes with consideration of the costs and benefits of government intervention and nonintervention in food policy from the supply side to the demand side and its consequences for human health (and happiness). "The Politics of Fat" shows how government policy affects not only breakfast, lunch and dinner, but also our between-meal snacks; explores the nexus of health policy and agricultural policy from price supports to trade policy; and is written in an accessible style enlivened by discussion-provoking case studies.

About this title

About the Author

Laura S. Sims

Reviews

Author and activist for nutrition education, Sims (human nutrition, Univ. of Maryland) focuses on federal public policies concerning nutrition and dietary fat in food. She argues that the government is more responsive to the producers of high-fat foods than to the advocates of health-promoting foods and that strong anti-consumer groups further government promotion of health-damaging foods. She also highlights the politics of fat in several federal programs, including food labeling, the USDA food guide pyramid, and olestra, and concludes by advancing a program for the government to institute a health-promoting nutrition policy. Her thesis will not startle informed readers, but she provides new facts and figures and has the credentials to persuade the general public that a problem exists. Given the seriousness of her approach, however, the question is whether the public will want to listen. Recommended primarily for academic and large public libraries with nutrition education and government-consumer relations collections.ACharles L. Lumpkins, Pennsylvania State Univ., College Park
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 076560194X
• ISBN 13: 9780765601940
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 328