Ruben Chavarria

Koch’s Comp II

🌭🍕 🍔🍟
Annotation of First Source

Fixing America's Malnutrition Habits

When it comes to nutritional foods in a nation's common diet America is often found as

the laughing stock, with other nations seeing us as pigs who eat greasy fatty food in cars. This

information leaves questions on the role big corporations have, and whether improvement on

their behalf is needed to fix major health problems. Some think the onest responsibility is put on

these companies, or should it be the consumers own responsibility.

Whether or not these companies are currently playing the right part, a solution to our

malnutrition problem is needed before it is too late to fix things. With changing roles and sharing

the responsibility, taking inspiration from healthy diets in other nations, and utilizing our tools,

these researchers cover a vast variety of helpful changes that need to take place to stop this crisis.

With sources focusing on the role that companies play and roles that they should play, to

sources that depict possible solutions that we fail to utilize, this Annotated Bibliography will

explore changes that need to be made in order to improve our declining population health. In the

form of a documentary, three scholarly articles, and a descriptive list, these topics have many

experts who have done the research to analyze this problem.

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Koch’s Comp II

Annotation of First Source

Dudeck, D. (2023, January 3). Nutritious food could cure the world's major health

problems. World Economic Forum. Retrieved March 22, 2023, from

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/01/nurition-health-food-davos23/

Stating the main cause of death and disabilities as malnutrition, the author, Dani Dudeck,

explores what changes are currently ongoing to improve this worldwide problem. Dudeck starts

off with ranking poor diets being a higher cause of death than any other health risk, being

responsible for around 11 million deaths annually. Proposing that we are in the middle of a

global diet-related chronic disease epidemic, Dudeck states that 1 in 3 people around the world

don't have access to nutritional food. One big topic covered by Dudeck is the possible use of

food to treat the ill, almost as medicine, stating that this opportunity would give food-related

companies the chance to make a good impact in the health field. Although Dudeck states that,

globally, we aren't doing enough bonding between nutrition and health, she points out the recent

advances in technology that are able to give us this nutritious and medicinal combination.

Finishing off her argument, Dudeck compels the healthcare industry, technology field, food

industry, and government to cooperate with one another to make the needed change. Connecting

to Chris Taylor’s “How Corporations Are Ruining Your Health” documentary where Taylor

discusses our past with nutritional food, Dudeck focuses rather on our current state of health and

new technology that could help us invent this healthy food. Besides what is and has been

happening in this food improvement journey, other interesting aspects to take into consideration

are some examples of ingredients/food that excel in our nutritional and tasty desire for food.

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Koch’s Comp II

Annotation of First Source

Jitchotvisut, J. (2018, April 19). The 9 biggest differences between Japanese and American

diets. Insider. Retrieved April 3, 2023, from

https://www.insider.com/biggest-differences-japanese-and-american-diets-2018-4#japanese

-meals-tend-to-feature-more-fresh-items-not-processed-packaged-ones-5

When exploring the improvements we can add to make our foods more nutritional an

influence might give comparisons on what changes need to be made, Jitchotvisut takes this

idea and compares a Japanese diet to an American diet. Starting off the comparison,

Jitchotviut states the main staples in each diet and how they contrast from another,

although she digs deeper to see the other aspects. One of these aspects that Jitchotvisut

goes over are the portion sizes and how America's portion sizes are huge in contrast to

Japanese, and how Japanese people average way less calories than Americans. Aside from

America’s large portion sizes, Jitchotvisut argues that Americans are also shown to eat out

more rather than cooking, with 90% stating they don’t enjoy cooking. Going back to the

staples in the Japanese diet, Jiitchotvisut points out the fish and plant based proteins that

Americans fail to utilize, as well as the lack of fruits and vegetables. Something important

that Jitchotvisut points out is Japan’s use of umami flavor, and how they have finally

utilized a core taste that is found in healthy food that can also be tasty. In Dani Dudeck’s

and Tempels et al. argument it is thought that technology and cooperation could help

population health advance from malnutrition, taking influence from the Japanese diet,

Jitchotvisut’s and Dani’s arguments could work together to form a new healthy way to eat.

Next I will analyze the roles of the commercial food system, and how they should be.

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Koch’s Comp II

Annotation of First Source

Taylor, CT. (2017, Nov). “How Corporations Are Ruining Your Health”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RwIWGkMxrE.

The author, Chis Taylor, states the major problem of obesity in America, followed by the

history of what may have caused this issue. He looks back at our past with food, times when

America was far from obese and when a food's convenience was prioritized over its taste. With

convenience comes a drawback, Taylor states the unhealthy changes made to our foods. Taylor

then explores the changes that have been made to big farmers, and what solutions the people

have made to adjust to these changes, like farmers markets. Along with the changes to the big

farmers' crops, Taylor talks about how the food industry requests all of the over supply of the

farmers' food to make them into unhealthy food. Another big part of these changes Taylor

explores is the Food Revolution, and how people were fighting for a change against the big

industries .Showing how the people are trying to make a change, Taylor gives many examples of

a passion for change from restaurant owners to schools. Throughout this documentary Taylor

digs deeper into the history of how the food industry has tinkered with good tasting food

correlating with healthy food. Although Taylor goes through our food's past, checking our

current progress with healthy and tasty food might show us how far away we are from this goal.

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Koch’s Comp II

Annotation of First Source

Tempels, T., Verweij, M., & Blok, V. (2017). Big Food's Ambivalence: Seeking Profit

and Responsibility for Health. American journal of public health, 107(3), 402–406.

https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303601

Tempels et al. starts off their article with the questionable actions of food and beverage

companies, for example, companies adding excessive amounts of certain ingredients that can be

harmful to population health while also promoting healthy lifestyles. Looking at these big

companies as driving factors in international health problems, Tempels et al. understands how

these companies can be seen as caring more for profit rather than health. Tempels et al. also

brings up the addictive properties that these hyperpalatable foods have, being similar to the

addiction to drugs, and how these companies aim their low nutritional food towards children by

offering free gifts such as toys. Seeing these companies act as only being profit bases, Tempels et

al. states that these companies see the responsibility of the public health up to the people and not

the hyperpalatable food that they market. With these companies not taking responsibility for the

public health, Tempels et al. expresses that in order to have an equally shared responsibility of

public health; companies would have to go beyond their current practices and take-charge in

public health. In Chris Taylor’s documentary, “How Corporations Are Ruining Your Health”,

history on how these big corporations were unveiled, while Tempels et al. discusses why these

corporations are resistant to change and how they could improve their ethics. Both Tempels et al.

and Dani Dudeck explore what changes could be made to improve our public health, whether it

is through technology or improving ethics. Compared to other nations, the U.S struggles with

obesity from malnutrition, looking at other healthy nations and their lifestyles might inspire ideas

on how we could improve our public health.

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Koch’s Comp II

Annotation of First Source

White, M., Aguirre, E., Finegood, D. T., Holmes, C., Sacks, G., & Smith, R. (2020, March

17). What role should the commercial food system play in promoting health through better

diet? The BMJ. Retrieved April 13, 2023, from

https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m545

Starting off their article with the problems in the food industry, White et al. goes over

things such as processed foods, obesity, and companies' drive for profit. Stating that the

food system effectively creates enough food to nourish the population, White et al. points

out two major flaws with this process, the first being that most of these foods are

malnutritioned processed foods, while the second is the uneven distribution of these foods.

This uneven distribution leads White et al. to the fact that in a part of a country there are

undernourished populations, while possibly in the same country there are parts where

people overeat these affordable foods that lead to health problems. White et al. finds other

problems within this system, such as the unhealthy processed foods being distributed to

low and middle income countries, or harmful corporate activities that can be compared to

other harmful industries like tobacco, alcohol, and gambling. Going more into the pros and

cons, White et al. states advantages of processed foods, such as cost, shelf life,

convenience, and endless choices, but with all of these benefits White et al. still clarifies

the overruling downfall of their unhealthiness. White et al. and Tempels et al. share a lot in

common with both of their articles, like changes that could be made to improve population

health, while also stating the self-interest based traditions many companies have, like Chris

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Koch’s Comp II

Annotation of First Source

Taylor in his documentary. Overall White et al. sorts through the role companies play in

our health.