Evelyn Krutoy
Professor Slentz
English Composition
24 September 2020
How Eating Habits Change in Crises – Annotated Bibliography
Eating as an activity is about as mundane as it gets, but what about when the world is going through a universal hardship? When there is a global pandemic, or even a large economic crisis, our eating habits change as a result. What used to be considered normal, like making a quick stop to the grocery to pick up a missing ingredient, or eating lunch at work, becomes a memory of the past. Eating habits and the way they change are some of the biggest lifestyle adjustments people make in times of crises.
In the New York Times article, “Eating is Weird Now. Here’s How to (Kind Of) Get Back to Normal,” the author casually discusses the changes most people have been experiencing at home due to the coronavirus pandemic. The piece written in mid-April begins with a quote from a twitter post making a joke about wearing jeans at home so people realize they’re gaining weight. The language used is very casual and is meant to relate to as many readers as possible, with comedic comments about frequent trips to the liquor or snack cabinet. The author, Tim Herrera, doesn’t have any professional background relating to diet/food intake or epidemiology, which is appropriate for such a casual article. Even so, he quotes reliable sources, like the director of the Center of Human Nutrition and an associate professor of medicine at Columbia University, to ensure his readers trust the information he is putting out. To write about the habitual changes of the general public due to the recent pandemic, he ensures his arguments are relevant with these sources. The overall purpose of this article is to bring up a lighthearted discussion about the diet changes many people have experienced from spending so much time at home, and to provide advice on how to stray away from bad habits under these circumstances.
The World Cancer Research Fund International published a brief article in 2013 on how, “Financial Crisis Impacts Nutrition.” Though the organization is professional and widely recognized, this report isn’t meant for the professional community but rather the general public. This piece is meant to be read by people with interests in the connections between lifestyle and cancer; the tone isn’t casual but it also doesn’t include any field-specific terms regular readers wouldn’t understand. The author, Dr. Sandra Crispim, has a doctoral degree and focuses her career on food security and nutrition, though she doesn’t go into depth about the health effects of nutrient deficiency, so her only purpose is to briefly discuss the impact an economic crisis would have on the eating habits of the public. Some suggestions for the global food market are made towards the end, but the main goal of this report was to briefly acknowledge the relation between a failing economy and its effect on the public’s diet.
TIME released an article at the end of April this year titled, “Our Diets Are Changing Because of the Coronavirus Pandemic. Is It for the Better?” Because this news publisher has a name to uphold, the writer makes sure to include many citations and quotes from professionals. Mandy Oaklander, the writer, doesn’t have a professional background in nutrition or epidemiology, but she continually uses outside sources, unrelated to TIME, to support her claims. She uses an informative tone in a straightforward manner to get the point across to the reader while avoiding inputting any personal opinion. There is a clear effort to be unbiased as she brings up how some patterns she’s mentioned, like cooking more frequently and having a better diet, don’t apply to all groups, in this case only higher income households. She also takes care not to romanticize the concept of cooking at home by accenting issues people may not be aware of. This TIME article objectively discusses the changing eating habits of people as a result of the recent pandemic, while maintaining an acknowledgment that the subject is wide-reaching and there are countless other factors involved.
The scholarly article, “Nutrition amid the Covid-19 pandemic: a multi-level framework for action,” in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, uses a formal tone to appeal to a professional audience. Both authors of this article work at the Department of Nutrition and Food Services at the American University in Beirut, so they have extensive knowledge on the topic they’re writing about. Even so, they cite many sources about nutrition and its relation to immune system strength, to ensure the readers this article can be trusted. The language they use is clearly meant for a professional audience, but they make sure not to use any complex vocabulary so that the information is still accessible to the general population. As this article transitioned to a discussion of government efforts to combat previously mentioned issues, some liberal biases were revealed as they shared their opinion on the role of government. These authors sought to discuss all aspects of diet change due to the pandemic and how the influence has gone beyond the individual and community, highlighting the importance of national and international power over these issues.
“Challenges to the Mediterranean Diet at a time of Economic Crisis,” published in 2016, is also a scholarly article that talks about a similar interpretation of a failing economy’s impact on a population’s diet and eating habits. This article is published in Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases, a professional medical journal, meaning this piece is meant for an audience educated in the field. The authors with extensive background knowledge on public health created an informative piece focusing on the Mediterranean diet in particular because of its common association with a lower risk of chronic diseases, which they also cite. They parallel the study of eating habits with the state of the economy to highlight the economy’s impacts in various ways. As they discuss the general shift of European populations buying more processed foods, they call it “Americanization,” showing a negative bias towards the American diet. Though, they make sure to have all their information backed up by graphs and statistics from reliable sources to point out the direct relation of the economy on the decrease in the Mediterranean diet.
In Encounters in Theory and History of Education, the article, “Altering Cooking and Eating Habits during the Romanian Communist Regime by Using Cookbooks” brings up the use of cookbooks to shape the Romanian diet at a time of food disparity. The author, Ira Irina Ghita from the University of Barcelona, even mentions that she wrote this article about food and its place in the economic history of Romania so that more people can access and understand her research. She doesn’t use any field-specific terms that would only be understood by people familiar with Romanian culture or economics to ensure her writing would be read by the general public; she wanted her information to be widely-spread. Ghita’s goal with this piece was to prove how the communist regime and its food disparity shaped the Romanian food culture by citing multiple versions of a couple cookbooks and discussing Romanian history at those times.
Each of these authors had a goal in mind while writing their work; whether it be to reach a greater audience or share research information with a professional community, they used specific language and formatting to get their point across the way they wanted. As a result, not every community is encouraged or even has access to some of these sources, ultimately changing the way people are informed about nutrition and their eating habits during a crisis. Not all of these articles are important for every community to have access to, but it’s important to note the difference in the spread of information as a result of these authors’ rhetorical strategies.
Works Cited
Bonaccio, M., et al. “Challenges to the Mediterranean Diet at a Time of Economic Crisis.” Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases, vol. 26, no. 12, 2016, pp. 1057–1063., doi:10.1016/j.numecd.2016.07.005.
Crispim, Dr Sandra. “Financial Crisis Impacts Nutrition.” World Cancer Research Fund International, 30 Dec. 2013, www.wcrf.org/int/blog/articles/2013/12/financial-crisis-impacts-nutrition.
Ghita, Ina Irina. “Altering Cooking and Eating Habits during the Romanian Communist Regime by Using Cookbooks.” Encounters in Theory and History of Education, vol. 19, 2018, pp. 141–162., doi:10.24908/eoe-ese-rse.v19i0.6752.
Herrera, Tim. “Eating Is Weird Now. Here’s How to (Kind of) Get Back to Normal.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 15 Apr. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/smarter-living/coronavirus-eating-advice.html.
Naja, Farah, and Rena Hamadeh. “Nutrition amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: a Multi-Level Framework for Action.” Nature News, European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 20 Apr. 2020, www.nature.com/articles/s41430-020-0634-3.
Oaklander, Mandy. “Are Diets During Coronavirus Changing for the Better?” Time, Time, 28 Apr. 2020, time.com/5827315/coronavirus-diet/.
