In Review of "New York City Health Department Launches Portion-size Campaign"

The blog, Food Science, is written by Marion Nestle, professor in the department of nutrients, food studies, and public health at New York University. Marion's blog is about food and the role of government with food. The post "New York City Health Department Launches Portion-size Campaign" is in reaction to New York City's Health Department starting a poster campaign throughout the city's subway system. The author seems to agree with the campaign as it she states that larger portions have more calories, induce people to eat more calories, and induce people into underestimating the amount of calories they are actually taking in.

Dr. Nestle's message seems to be that most American's cannot be trusted to watch their own diet and therefore it must be the responsibility of the marketplace to do it for them. It appears that Dr. Nestle may be striving for a more science savvy audience as the title and background are
non-enthusiastic. Looking deeper into the article, though, the simple layout including the bullet points, as well as the fact that the reader needs no prior knowledge of the subject makes the article appear to be for the casual reader. Dr. Nestle seems to write this blog at this time because it looks as if America's eating habits are worse now than they've ever been.

The blogs message of American's not being able to be trusted to control their own portion size can go one of two ways. Option one can be that the public mostly accepts this campaign and the marketplaces decreases their portion sizes. In this option the people don't have to be responsible for controlling their own portion sizes. This option gives the government more of a reach into our lives for better or for worse. Option two is that the people of New York react negatively to this campaign and it fails. If this is the case nothing changes. The better option of these two is definitely option one. Though the downside may be the government having a bigger impact in the lives of its people it is for the better. With this option maybe the increase of obesity in New York begins to slack off. The success of a campaign like this will, hopefully, bring a wave of change, and if not, well, at least one city can be considered a little bit healthier.

This article brings up many good questions about American society as a whole, though, it only talks about one city. The article brings up the point that in actuality the American public cannot control its appetite and therefore may have to have it controlled for them. The questions that come to mind are can the American public handle having their portions adjusted for them? How will adjusting portion sizes affect the fast food market and the still struggling economy? If given the power how far would the government go in controlling food portions? Would adjusting portions really help all that much? These are just a few of the questions that are raised from this blog and the answers could really help us to learn more about American society.