Culture and Obesity

Social Research, Spring, 1999 by Raymond Sokolov

In every society known to me, there has always been a conflict over defining the good diet. Ancient Rome had sumptuary laws and an inherited predisposition against what it saw as excess at table. But Latin literature is nonetheless full of descriptions of what we still call Lucullan repasts. If Cicero inveighs against degenerate dining, Horace celebrates drink. Petronius gives us the locus classicus of a gourmet event in a spirit of mockery. In the Satyricon, the Banquet of Trimalchio includes a zodiacal platter with twelve compartments and food nominally appropriate to each sign: Virgo gets the vulva of a sow and so on.

Catullus makes fun of himself for having nothing to serve except his own wit.

In France, this polarity expresses itself with Gargantua at the Epicurean end of the scale and, to pick a poignant modern example, with Pierre Mendes-France on the side of self-restraint. His recommendation that his people drink milk instead of wine lost him the premiereship as much as anything else.

In our own originally Puritan society, overtly based on frugality and sobriety, the pre-eminent holiday is an unstinting feast based on exotic ingredients--exotic for the Pilgrims: turkey, cranberry. This paradox is not a contradiction: the flip side of highmindedness is self-indulgence. Neither position makes sense without the other.

Today, in this society, the American paradox continues in full spate. Weight reduction through manipulation of diet is a national preoccupation. Weight gain, on the other hand, is an accelerating national trend. I am not a nutritionist, nor have I made an analysis of current statistical evidence about weight and food consumption. So I will not be offering you an early glimpse of the miracle diet that will make millions of technically obese Americans technically thin--and me rich. Instead, I want to sort out the various elements that constitute a nouveau Puritanism at the table in an attempt to see what makes us feel so guilty at the trough we tend to wallow in despite our misgivings.

At the center of this fundamental conflict in our daily lives is the concept of diet itself. I don't mean diet in the neutral sense of nutritional science. I am talking about the everyday meaning of diet: a radical departure from normal eating to achieve a medical or, usually, a cosmetic, result. A salt-free diet is prescribed for some cardiac patients, because normative diet in our world invariably includes salt. For ostensibly healthy people, however, a diet is a disciplined divergence from normative eating patterns in order to produce weight reduction. Such regimens are notoriously ineffective. The dieter suddenly eliminates sugar or fat or whatever the offending nutriment may be, possibly loses some weight, but then returns to normal food consumption and puts the weight back on. We are told that the only effective way to diet is to change our eating patterns for life. The nutritionists or doctors or faddists may or may not think they are advocating a cultural revolution. But of course they are. They want us to abandon the whole panoply of culturally inherited eating, of traditional cuisine, if you will, for something new and healthier and more ecological, kinder to animals, in tune with our karma, balancing yang and yin, free of pesticides, untyrannized by agribusiness and soulless supermarket chains and taking a stand for sustainable agriculture. Some people do in fact become vegetarians or cook only with organic food or reduce their consumption of carbohydrates to almost nothing--for life. But most people are not so strong and zealous. They dabble in these nouvelle cuisines and return to their bad old ways. Why?

Recently, I embarked on such a diet to see how I would carry through with something completely sensible, cheap, delicious and completely different from any other naturally occurring cuisine or invented diet. I went on the all-frozen-pea diet. I love frozen peas, even without butter. Peas also contain no cholesterol, no saturated fat, and a fair amount of protein. Sources vary on this, but for someone of my advanced age, 63 grams of protein per day are widely supposed to be optimal. It should be clear that I am not a pregnant or lactating woman. Peas, according to the label on the package, contain 5 grams of protein per 89 gram serving. So to achieve my daily recommended amount from peas alone, I need to consume 12.6 servings or 1121.4 grams of frozen peas. That works out to 2.47 pounds of peas, worth 882 calories. This means I could eat almost 50 percent more than I need before I begin to get into the hypercalorific zone.

I will not go into the other calculations I made about vitamins and minerals needed to supplement amounts not provided by peas, but my local sports steroid store sells everything necessary in pill form. Thus armed, I went into pea high gear. How was it?

First, I want you to know I did not eat the peas with a knife. I prepared them as the package indicated. I did not add butter or anything else except a little salt. I did drink coffee at breakfast and lots of diet Coke. I felt fine throughout, did not get green around the gills and was able to continue with my hour of punishing exercise without noticing any decline in my awesome performance on the Stairmaster. But God, did I hate life.