When my girlfriend gains weight, she gets very upset because society tells her she is no longer pretty. Because I do not like my girlfriend hating her body, I influence her to go to the gym and eat healthier. This is a common example of a social norm dictating what someone eats. The common social norm here is that overweight men are considered undesirable by society, and, in the case of women, women that do not have large breasts while simultaneously being so thin that they’re often anorexic, are considered undesirable by society. This social norm leads to avoidance of junk foods and high calorie foods such as potato chips, chocolate, cake, etc. When these foods are not avoided, the social norm causes guilt and similar, negative attitudes.

I feel the origin of this social norm is related to the large number of undernourished people throughout the world while we are simultaneously eating so much food we are becoming obese. This is the nutrition social issue on obesity discussed in this module. The book says 1 billion people are undernourished in the world and there are 500 million obese people in the world. If those obese people were not obese and instead, the food they ate was allocated to the undernourished people of the world, we could potentially solve world hunger. I somewhat disagree with the paragraphs on obesity in this module: I do think the cause of most obesity is overeating. You will not find an obese person in an undernourished part of the world unless they are in the wealthy class that can afford to eat all day. Though other things, like genetics, affect how rapidly someone becomes obese and how hard it is to lose the weight after being obese, I think food eating food is the reason people become obese.