1. A time in which my food choice was influenced by a societal norm was growing up going to other children’s birthday parties. Most commonly in America, it is normal for a birthday party to end with pizza and cake.  Many times I would eat pizza and cake despite the fact that I did not want to. This was mostly due to lack of another option but also a result of not wanting other people to see me as weird or not normal. I developed a strong interest in eating healthy as I grew older. From a young age, I began to enjoy living a healthy lifestyle. I liked to eat nutritious foods and go running because it made me feel good about myself, gave me energy, and helped with my gastrointestinal problems. I would most often continue to eat pizza and other unhealthy foods at these birthday parties though because there were very rarely any healthy alternatives.

Most often it is normal for our society to not provide healthy options for children and young adults. When feeding mass groups of people, there are seldom healthy alternatives. This can be for cost saving reasons or for the fact that people are usually more inclined to pick the unhealthy foods. People, more specifically children, are forced into these unhealthy food choices like pizza and cake due to society’s acceptance of these foods as what is normal.

2. One of the issues that the situation I mentioned above addresses is our society’s obesity problem. The scenario I spoke about in the prior question is just one of the situations in which societal pressures can cause serious problems. The issue of nutrition is one that is crucial to any nation. America specifically is seeing the massive side effects of growing obesity. Obesity has reached so many parts of the world that it is being considered an epidemic. I believe a lot of this problem starts with the ideas and nutritional values we pass on to our children. If a child’s parents do not monitor in some way the food the child is eating, those unhealthy habits continue into adulthood. By setting an example of healthy living for society’s youth, I believe this problem can improve. Our society is very dependent on the industrial agricultural system in which high calorie crops are the largest quantities.

Another issue that the above mentioned scenario brings up is the matter of monoculture. As I have mentioned, our society is very dependent on high caloric crops such as maize. Producing so much of one crop can be good for the present in cost effectiveness of machinery, but this type of agriculture cannot be sustained forever. Some of the disadvantages include depleting the soil of one set of nutrients and reduced yield stability. Our culture being dependent on high-calorie foods makes us more dependent on a specific set of crops. This causes our agricultural system to become a monoculture.