Coulibaly 1
Orenda Coulibaly
Ms. Harris-Barnett
English 101
25 January 2017
Word count: 1281
Health Consciousness on our Culture.
Culture is how we live. Culture affects everything we think and do, from how we act with
our elders, to who we permit to be a doctor, to what we do when our children are sick. Culture
acts on our health and the way we define ourselves culturally either by ethnicity or religious
belief or even politics… affects what we will do for their health. Eating well balanced and
healthy food can help us reduce or maintain our weight, and it can also reduce the risk of
diseases. Food amount and variety has a big influence on our health. That is why, when some
people realize their poor diet, they want to change their menu. They will be looking for menus
that will be good for their health and they would do everything they can to get what they want
This fact of being aware is called “health consciousness.” But by changing their menu, they are
copying other’s people culture, which can make some change in their own culture too. It is in
this sense that health and culture are connected. Health consciousness pushes people to change
their diet so they can benefit of a good health and avoid certain illnesses.
In her article “Food and Culture: Interconnections” Margaret Visser discusses how food
and culture are related. She talked about several factors that influence food and culture including
health. She reports that people want to eat but they don’t want to get fat. For her, the fact of
Coulibaly 2
maintaining both self-indulgence and health are contradictory but can meet the culture demand.
Also, she claims that since the hunt for health is expanding, all people can do is select a healthy
culture and eat the food they eat. Visser states that margarine and olive oil have powerful virtues
even though olive oil is not that affordable as she writes “Olive oil may be expensive, but, we are
told, although it is an oil it is one that’s good for us. Visser explained that the Mediterranean diet
is somehow an American phenomenon and that vegetarianism is a modern and northern trend.
For her, the fact of eating other’s culture diet may have some consequences: “People have to be
fed, but a new food may feed them differently, and may feed them more poorly.” She made a
research on the origin of sugar and discovered that sugar was not a good nutritional answer as the
British worker Sydney Mintz said.
Society today is increasingly becoming more health conscious with the ever-growing
