I feel social norms are a huge factor in whether a person tries a certain food or not.  If you see a bunch of other people eating a certain food and really enjoying it, it is natural to want to try this over a random, less well known dish.  For me, this meal was sushi.  My family was never really into sushi, so I had never tried it up until a few months ago.  All of my friends had been raving about how good it was and were so surprised that I had never tried it before so, of course, I gave it a shot.  When I finally got my plate, I was really excited to see what all the hype had been about.  After a few bites, I came to the realization that I really wasn’t a huge fan of this food.  I now realize that I had bought into the hype of sushi that had been going around, even though almost every person in my family didn’t like it.   This shows how social norms and expectations can influence you to try something you may not have tried before.

While giving into to social pressures may seem harmless at times (like in the example above), sometimes it can lead to negative consequences.  In todays society obesity is a huge problem that seems to be growing more and more every year.  Part of the problem is that millions of healthy Americans are eating at places like McDonalds or Burger King.  While this may be a well deserved treat if left to a few times a month, it becomes a problem when it is happening multiple times a week.  When people that already have trouble controlling their eating habits see all these people eating this terrible food and turning out fine, it puts an idea in their head that the food is really not that bad.  Societies outlook on nutrition can be very persuasive in whether someone eats a certain way, whether for better or for worse.