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PSYC 123

The Psychology, Biology and Politics of Food

Undergraduate · Historical course

Fall 2008

Topics

  • Introduction: What We Eat, Why We Eat and the Key Role of Food in Modern Life
  • Food Then, Food Now: Modern Food Conditions and Their Mismatch with Evolution
  • Biology, Nutrition and Health I: What We Eat
  • Biology, Nutrition and Health II: What Helps Us and Hurts Us
  • Biology, Nutrition and Health III: The Psychology of Taste and Addiction
  • Culture and the Remarkable Plasticity of Eating (Presentation by Ashley Gearhardt)
  • Hunger in the World of Plenty
  • Nutrition Transition and Global Food Issues
  • From Ancient to Modern Farming: The Green Revolution and the Prospect of Feeding the World
  • Sustainability I: The Impact of Modern Agriculture on the Environment and Energy Use
  • Sustainability II: The Impact of Modern Agriculture on Biodiversity, Genetic Modification and Animal Welfare
  • Public Health vs. Medical Models in Nutrition Change: Saving Lives One or a Million at a Time
  • Eating Disorders and Obesity (Guest Lecture by B. Timothy Walsh)
  • Perspectives of the Food Industry (Guest Lecture by Derek Yach)
  • Economics, Nutrition and Health: Subsidies, Food Deserts and More
  • Everyone but Me: The Pervasive Reach and Powerful Influence of Food Marketing on Food Choices
  • The Politics of Food I: How Politics Affects National Nutrition Policy (Guest Lecture by Rogan Kersh)
  • The Politics of Food II: The Issues, the Fights and Who Controls the Frame
  • The Law and Opportunities to Improve Nutrition and Health (Guest Lecture by Stephen Teret)
  • Schools and Nutrition: Where Health and Politics Collide (Guest Lecture by Marlene B. Schwartz)
  • The Morphing of the Modern Diet (Guest Lecture by Brian Wansink)
  • Sustainability and Health Food Access (Guest Lecture by Melina Shannon-DiPietro and Jennifer McTiernan)
  • Success Stories, Innovation and Change from the Grass Roots

Readings

  • Main Texts
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  • Brownell, Kelly D. and Katherine B. Horgen. Food Fight: The Inside Story of the Food Industry, America's Obesity Crisis, and What We Can Do About It. New York: McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Books, 2004.
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  • Pollan, Michael. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. New York: The Penguin Press, 2008.
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  • Course Packet
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  • Anton, Anthony and Lane Hoss. "Trans Fat Plan Would Be 'logistical nightmare.'" Seattle Post Intelligencer, 17 July 2007.
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  • Beckman, Mary. "A Matter of Taste: Are You a Supertaster?" Smithsonian (August 2004).
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  • Berman, Richard. "Should Government Ban Trans Fats? Con: Bans are Hysterical - but not Funny (OpEd)." San Francisco Chronicle, 18 October 2006, p. B8.
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  • Bittman, Mark. "Rethinking the Meat Guzzler." New York Times, 27 January 2008.
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  • Brownell, Kelly D. and David S. Ludwig. "Fighting Obesity and the Food Lobby (OpEd)." Washington Post, 9 June 2002, p. B6.
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  • Brownell, Kelly D. and Derek Yach. "The Battle of the Bulge." Foreign Policy (November-December 2005), pp. 26-27.
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  • Brownell, Kelly D. and Marion Nestle. "The Sweet and Lowdown on Sugar (OpEd)." New York Times, 23 January 2004, p. A23.
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  • Brownell, Kelly D. and Robert R. Friedman. "We Need to Know What We Ingest (OpEd)." Seattle Post Intelligencer, 14 February 2008.
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  • Brownell, Kelly D. and Walter C. Willett. "Should Government Ban Trans Fats? Pro: Choose to Remove Trans Fats (OpEd)." San Francisco Chronicle, 18 October 2006, p. B8.
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  • Casagrande, Sarah S., Youfa Wang, Cheryl Anderson and Tiffany L. Gary. "Have Americans Increased Their Fruit and Vegetable Intake? The Trends Between 1988 and 2002." American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 32 (2007), pp. 257-263.
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  • Council of Better Business Bureaus. "Changing the Landscape of Food and Beverage Advertising: The Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative in Action: A Progress Report on the First Six Months of Implementation," (July-December, 2007).
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  • Darmon, Nicole and Adam Drewnowski. "Does Social Class Predict Diet Quality?" American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 87 (2008), pp. 1107-1117.
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  • Davies, W. Paul. "An Historical Perspective from the Green Revolution to the Gene Revolution." Nutrition Reviews, 61 (2003), S124-134.
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  • Eaton, Boyd S. "The Ancestral Diet: What Was It and Should It Be a Paradigm for Contemporary Nutrition?" Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 65 (2006), pp. 1-6. Faiola, Anthony. "The New Economics of Hunger." Washington Post, 27 April 2008, A01.
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  • Falbe, Jennifer L. and Marion Nestle. "The Politics of Government Dietary Advice." In A Sociology of Food & Nutrition: The Social Appetite, 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 127-146.
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  • Gearhardt, Ashley N., William R. Corbin, and Kelly D. Brownell. "Food and Addiction. Evidence from Emerging Science." Journal of Addiction Medicine.
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  • Hamm, Michael W. "Linking Sustainable Agriculture and Public Health: Opportunities for Realizing Multiple Goals." Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition.
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  • Horrigan, Leo, Robert S. Lawrence and Polly Walker. "How Sustainable Agriculture Can Address the Environmental and Human Health Harms of Industrial Agriculture." Environmental Health Perspectives, 110 (2002), pp. 445-456.
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  • Institute of Medicine. Executive Summary from Nutrition Standards for Foods in Schools: Leading the Way Towards Healthier Youth. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2007, pp. 1-15.
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  • Jenkins, David J.A., Cyril W.C. Kendall, Augustine Marchie and Livia S.A. Augustin. "Too Much Sugar, Too Much Carbohydrate, or Just Too Much?" American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 79 (2004), pp. 711-712.
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  • Kersh, Rogan and James A. Morone. "Obesity, Courts, and the New Politics of Public Health." J ournal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, 30 (2005), pp. 839-868.
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  • Kher, Unmesh. "Target: Trans Fats -- How Foodmakers Are Scrambling to Rid Their Tried-and-True Recipes of an Artery-Clogging Fat." Time, 24 October 2005.
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  • Kluger, Jeffrey. "The Science of Appetite." Time, 11 June 2007, pp. 49-61.
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  • Lappe, Frances M. "Hunger Is not a Place. The Nation, 23 January 2006.
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  • Mead, Margaret. "The Changing Significance of Food." In Food and Culture: A Reader. New York: Routledge, 1997, pp. 11-19.
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  • Meigs, Anna. "Food as a Cultural Construction." In Food and Culture: A Reader. New York: Routledge, 1997, pp. 95-106.
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  • Mello, Michelle M., David M. Studdert and Troyen A. Brennan. "Obesity - the New Frontier of Public Health Law." New England Journal of Medicine, 354 (2006), pp. 2601-2610.
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  • National Institute of Mental Health. "Eating Disorders." Washington, DC., 2007.
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  • Nocera, Joe. "Food Makers and Critics Break Bread." New York Times, 25 March 2006.
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  • Norum, Kaare R. "Invited Commentary to Yach Editorial: PepsiCo Recruitment Strategy Challenged." Public Health Nutrition, 11 (2008), pp. 112-113.
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  • Pomeranz, Jennifer L. and Kelly D. Brownell. "Legal and Public Health Considerations Affecting the Success, Reach, and Impact of Menu Labelling Laws." American Journal of Public Health, 98 (2008), pp. 1578-1583.
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  • Popkin, Barry M. "Global Nutrition Dynamics: The World Is Shifting Rapidly Toward a Diet Linked with Noncommunicable Diseases." American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 84 (2006), pp. 289-298.
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  • Raschke, Verena and Bobby Cheema. "Colonization, the New World Order, and the Eradication of Traditional Food Habits in East Africa: Historical Perspective on the Nutrition Transition." Public Health Nutrition, 11 (2007), pp. 662-674.
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  • Rozin, Paul. "The Meaning of Food in Our Lives: A Cross-Cultural Perspective on Eating and Well-Being." Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 37, 2 (2005), S107-112.
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  • Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. "Menu Labeling in Chain Restaurants: Opportunities for Public Policy." (2008).
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  • Sachs, Jeffrey D. "Act Now, Eat Later." Time, 5 May 2008, p. 44.
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  • Schwartz, Marlene B. "The Influence of a Verbal Prompt on School Lunch Fruit Consumption: A Pilot Study." International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 4 (2007), pp. 1-5.
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  • Shetty, Prakash. "Achieving the Goal of Halving Global Hunger by 2015." Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 65 (2006), pp. 7-18.
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  • Silver, Lynn and Mary T. Bassett. "Food Safety for the 21st Century." JAMA, 300 (2008), pp. 957-959.
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  • Sobal, Jeffrey and Brian Wansink. "Kitchenscapes, Tablescapes, Platescapes, and Foodscapes: Influences of Microscale Built Environments on Food Intake." Environment and Behavior, 39 (2007), pp. 124-142.
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  • Swinburn, Boyd, Gary Sacks, Tim Lobstein, Neville Rigby, Louise A. Baur, Kelly D. Brownell, Timothy Gill, Seidell Jacob and Shiriki Kumanyika. "The Sydney Principles for Reducing Commercial Promotion of Foods and Beverages to Children." Public Health Nutrition, 11 (2008), pp. 881-886.
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  • Time Magazine Debate. "Are You Responsible for Your Own Weight?" Time, 7 June 2004, p. 113
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  • Toenniessen, Gary, Akinwumi Adesina and Joseph DeVries. "Building an Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1136 (2008), pp. 233-242.
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  • Uauy, Ricardo. "Invited Commentary to Yach Editorial: Do We Believe Derek's Motives for Taking His New Job at PepsiCo?" Public Health Nutrition, 11 (2008), pp. 111-112.
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  • Vartanian, Lenny R., Marlene B. Schwartz and Kelly D. Brownell. "Effects of Soft Drink Consumption on Nutrition and Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis." American Journal of Public Health, 97 (2007), pp. 667-675.
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  • Walker, Polly, Pamela Rhubart-Berg, Shawn McKenzie, Kristin Kelling and Robert S. Lawrence. "Public Health Implications of Meat Production and Consumption." Public Health Nutrition, 8 (2005), pp. 348-356.
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  • Wardle, Jane and Lucy Cooke. "Genetic and Environmental Determinants of Children's Food Preferences." British Journal of Nutrition, 99 (2008), S15-S21.
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  • Weber, Christopher L. and H. Scott Matthews. "Food Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States." Environmental Science and Technology, 42 (2008), pp. 3508-3513.
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  • Willett, Walter C. and Meir J. Stampfer. "Rebuilding the Food Pyramid." Scientific American, 288 (2003), pp. 64-71.
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  • Wilson, G. Terence and Roz Shafran. "Eating Disorders Guidelines from NICE." Lancet, 365 (2005), pp. 79-81.
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  • Wilson, G. Terence, Carlos M. Grilo and Kelly M. Vitousek. "Psychological Treatment of Eating Disorders." American Psychologist, 62 (2007), pp. 199-216.
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  • Yach, Derek, David Stuckler and Kelly D. Brownell. "Epidemiologic and Economic Consequences of the Global Epidemics of Obesity and Diabetes." Nature Medicine, 12 (2006), 62-66.
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  • Yach, Derek. "Invited Editorial: A Personal View: Food Companies and Nutrition for Better Health." Public Health Nutrition, 11 (2008), pp. 109-111.
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Sources