Current Blog Review: FoodAnthropology The Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition. 2012.
Weight.
Weight.
The word ‘weight’ itself carries a lot of, well, weight. Americans seem to be obsessed with weight loss and gain, Reality TV shows about trimming down, the latest fad to finally lose those extra pounds; anything and everything about weight always seems to be on the tip of our tongues.
Which to me is fascinating.
And probably why I was drawn to a blog post from this past November. Diana Mincyte of NYU, a contributer for FoodAnthropology (the blog of the Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition [SAFN]), wrote a post titled, “Diet for a Big Storm: Reflections on Food, Waste and Hurricane Sandy” (11/24/2012) based upon a New York Times article discussing the ‘Sandy Five.’ To briefly summarize, the situation presented by the NY Times is that during and after Hurricane Sandy, people were gaining the ‘Sandy 5,” a few extra pounds due to the stress and power outages that the hurricane brought on; People resorted to either eating all their food at once, or throwing it away. Mincyte looks at the ‘darker side’ of the situation, not the fact people were gaining weight, but the revealing of a ‘complicated relationship’ with food and waste management in modern societies.
This post is a great example of why anthropology matters because in order to fully assess situations, such as the poor management of food and waste during and after Hurricane Sandy, people qualified to understand the greater implications of the situation are needed; And I think anthropologists are those people. Anthropologists are equipped with the skills and tools necessary to conduct ethnographic research on impromptu situations, many that could reveal how to better prepare or change for the future. If there had been research done previously (by anthropologists) on disaster food and waste management, much of the panic Sandy brought, could have been avoided.
Waste management can be directly related to food consumption. Because of the great amounts of food consumed everyday in the US, and around the world, tons of waste is created. New and effective ways to manage this waste need to be formulated, and anthropologists can definitely play a part in that process.
I plan on discussing waste management and it's relationship to food consumption in the future, as well as a greater focus on the rise of obesity in America. So stay tuned!
-Holly
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