The Scarcity Fallacy

Today's reading, named "The Scarcity Fallacy", talks about the current world hunger problems and includes some possible solutions. It first starts of by looking for the root of the problem. The author argues that failure to produce enough food to our increasing world population is not the problem. Indeed, food is more plentiful today than any other time in history. The real problem is ensuring access to this food and distributing it more equitably.  This task is negatively affected by different factors such as poverty, health crises, political instability, social inequalities, conflicts and corruption and finally "the supermarket revolution".  For example, the problem with our modern industrialized food system is that while it may increase food yields and ship food to more places more efficiently, the increased prices that often accompany such a system makes food less affordable for those in need. Oxfam International, for example, argues that the developped world should not dump cheap, subsidized food aid that undermines local food production and markets in the developing economies it tries to help. A better solution would be to provide money directly and promote local farming. This approach would transmit money directly to those in need, rather than making the global agri-businesses and shipping companies profit from the current system. Other solutions include making food a human right, improving the efficiency and corruption of food aid, and solving social issues such as ethnic and gender inequalities.


This text made me realize that solving world hunger is an extremely hard task to do. It is probably the reason why we still have this important issue in our modern world.  The problem of hunger comes from so many different factors and ties in with so many other problems that it makes fixing it very challenging. For example, a big part of world hunger comes from political instabilities and conflicts. This makes our world hunger problem way bigger and difficult to solve since we are adding other problems on top of it. A vicious cycle can even be produced according to the author. More precisely, established poverty can contribute to further conflict and environmental destruction. This limits food access and reinforces a feedback cycle causing more conflict, which in turn creates more scarcity, and so on.

I'm happy to know that there are multiple organizations trying to make a difference about world hunger. Organizations such as ONE and Heifer International can make a big difference in someone's life.  However, I believe that international policy makers, agri-businesses, people of power, will have to step up and help the best they can because they are the ones who can make the biggest difference.

Questions:

Can we ever end world hunger?
How can I make a difference as an individual?
Is it moral to grow corn for energy purposes when people are starving in other parts of the world?
Can you limit the corporations' influence in poor countries while keeping our lifestyle.

Food Stamps

Today's reading, an article from The NY Times titled Food Stamp Use Soars, and Stigma Fades talks the increasing use of food stamps by our population and the decrease of the stigmas associated with it. The demand for food stamps is currently at record high going up every month and strikingly 1 in every 8 American and 1 in 4 children is fed by the use of food stamps. Thirty six million Americans are now using food stamps in order to help them survive. The reason for this sudden increase, the current recession we are facing which is making a significant number of people to lose their jobs. Unemployment is actually the number reason for someone to use food stamps. The minorities are also most likely to use food stamps. In fact, 28% percent of the entire black population uses food stamps, 15 percent of the Latinos and 8% of whites.  The use by children is also especially high.  For example, 46 percent of the children living in the Bronx live on food stamps. Support for the food stamp program reached a nadir in the mid 1990s but with efforts from Clinton, Bush and now Obama, the food stamp program is now bigger and stronger than ever. One of the steps taken for diminishing the stigma associated with food stamp was to change the name of the program to "the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program" or SNAP.


I was shocked to learn that such a high number of people are now using food stamps. I have actually never seen a food stamp nor heard about anyone using them. This could prove the point that there are still stigmas present with using them. I am glad the SNAP is now working better than ever because without those food stamps, people could use the federal aid for things like cigarette or drugs. At least, we know that people will only use the money for survival purposes. I now wonder what the effects of the increasing food stamp use now has on our country. How long will it continue increasing? Are people now getting too dependent on those stamps? How is it affecting our economy and our tax money?

Never too rich...or to thin

This weeks reading called "Never Too Rich... Or Too Thin: The Role of Stigma in the Social Construction of Anorexia Nervosa" written by Karen Way, tries to bring more light about what is "normal" dieting behavior and weight concern and what is anorexia. Many psychologist and social researchers agree that there has been a trend toward a feminine ideal of unstopping slenderness over the last 30 years. This is becoming a very serious societal issue. One of the reason might be that woman are scared of being overweight since it may lead to social rejection. Studies show that overweight people are often attributed to be morally and emotionally impaired, socially handicapped, lazy, and less intelligent. It even lessens the chances of a woman to get married.  Many industries such as the corporate beauty industry, fashion industry, beauty magazines earn profits by taking advantage of the cultural obsession of thinness.  If they are able to undermine a woman's self-esteem, induce high anxiety in respect to a "feminine" appearance, the product will sell itself.  Another problem is that these companies have so much influence on society that they now define what is a "normal" physical look. As time goes on, they portray woman being slimmer and lighter as being normal and this physical aspect becomes almost  unattainable for a woman unless she has an eating disorder.  Saddening facts, 1 in 25 American females have an obsession with thinness that turns into a life-threatening eating disorder such as bulimia and anorexia.


I found this reading to be very interesting even though I was already aware of most of its content.  I have to point out that most of the citations and studies are from 20 years ago which means that it is probably not the most reliable source of information since our society changes extremely fast.  The writer mentions that "there has been no official response to the problem of eating disorders by a governmental agency, institution, or other influential group, no official investigation and no proposal for reform". I do believe that steps have now be done into solving this problem.  The fact that I am already well educated about this eating disorder proves my point.  A lot of work have been done into making anorexia and bulimia into the required topics covered by most of our public high school's health classes.  Informing young girls (and guys) about the negative aspects of these eating disorders at a young age is a very good measure for solving the problem. I also believe that actions have been recently taken in the modeling industry to stop the trend of ever-increasing thinness.

Questions:

Is anorexia today as frequent as in the 1980s and 1990s or has it slowed down by recent measures taken?

How is the increasing obesity in our country affecting eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia? Are the cases of these eating disorders decreasing because we see more fat people around us and view our normal weight as being more acceptable?