あとは楽な日だった。笑
統計学のテストのために勉強してたんだけど、
ファイナルの練習問題をやっている限り、そんなにハードじゃないっていう。
そんなわけで、お昼には勉強を切り上げて
オーシャンサイドでサーフィンしてきた。
サンディエゴはまだ５月だけど、日焼けしている人が大勢ますね。
実際海には一年中人がいるんだけど、日曜日のこんな風に快晴だと
みんなとりあえずビーチ行くっていう習慣がついているんじゃないかと思ってしまう。
もう海の水はそんなに冷たくなく、逆に気持ちいくらい。
だけど、やっぱり来年には海のないところに引っ越すのがすごい寂しいなー。
一生ここにいたいわ。笑
それから、今日はまた家族と寿司に行きました。
今回はホストブラザーのジョニーの働いている寿司レストランに！
アメリカでは寿司が大人気でそこらじゅうに寿司レストランがあります。
アメリカ人はあまり生の魚を食べるという習慣がないようで
ロール系や独自に作られたカリフォルニアロールというのが主流。
実際すごいおいしいので大好きなんだけど、
今回行った寿司屋は完全にアメリカ系の寿司。
RB suchi
場所はサンディエゴダウンタウン。
そして、ロール寿司はこんな感じ。
日本みたいにシンプルではなく、いろいろトッピングされていて意外とおいしい。
今回は一番年下のホストシスター、イボンさんのおごり。笑
自分１人で６ロールくらい食べてしまいました。笑
１巻き１０００円くらいなので、食いすぎた。はは
ってことで、ごちそうさんです。ｗ
イボンさんとはすごい前から話が合うんですよね。
一度日本でホームステイした経験もあるそうで、
僕みたいな日本人にもすごい面倒を見てくれる人。
帰り道は食の話とかで盛り上がってました。
ってことで、ファイナル前ですが、あまり緊張感がないまま週末を終えてしまった。。。
ちょっと反省。
明日は、最後の社会学のクラスがあるんですが、もうAがほぼ決まっているので行くつもりないです。
だから、代わりに統計学の勉強していよう。
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
今日、もう一つ、前回英語の授業の時に書いたリサーチペーパーが帰ってきたので、
紹介しようかなと思います。
正直、語学学校とかではなく、アメリカの大学での留学において、
おそらく英語力が一番試されるのはリサーチペーパーなのではないかと思うんですよ。
いろいろな書式とかに則って書かないといけないので。
この日記を始めた理由は完全なる自己満だったんですが、
アメリカのカレッジライフをつづっている今、いずれアメリカ留学したいなって思う人のための情報にもなっていると思うんですよね。
だから、とりあえず、今回リサーチペーパーがどんなものなのかなーっていう意味で
例を載せてみようと思います。
今回は自分自身初めてリサーチペーパーを書いたので、結構慣れない作業だったんですが、
雰囲気だけでも感じてもらえたらいいかな。
メインアイディアはなぜアメリカ人が太ってるか。笑
Japanese food and American food
I was
yearning to go to the United States following the great influence of Hollywood
movies and American TV shows ever since I was a young child. I have been attracted
to modern American culture, tradition, and music. When I was a high school
student, I began to study English in order to study abroad in the U.S.,
throughout this period of time I was really looking forward to living in
America. My current life in San Diego, which is surrounded by the great
treasures of nature; the ocean, mountains, and beaches are totally different
from those in Japan, and I live my life with pure joy without feeling any
stress or pressure ever. However, I have one concern relating to this big
change in my life: Obesity. It is pretty common to see people who’ve spent a
certain length of their time here in the U.S. come back to Japan with extra
pounds around the waistline. In fact, I gained 22 pounds when I moved to San
Diego a year ago. After living for several months eating mostly junk food, such
as hamburgers, fries, burritos, as well as pizza with huge fountain drinks to
wash every thing down with, I realized that I often tended to eat too much.
Every time I followed up one of these meals where such unhealthy eating took
place, I would feel something wrong with my body, low energy and fatigue would
often set in in ways they had never struck before in Japan. Therefore, I
started to avoid eating junk food and began to make better decisions regarding
my diet. It is very difficult to find Japanese homemade meals in the U.S., so I
tried to eat more vegetables and fruits. Now I feel totally different from
the period of time when I lived on oily junk food and learned the importance of
good eating the hard way. Thus, I decided to research about the
characteristics of American food culture and their influence on people’s body
and the physical health of the being carrying around the body. After
identifying the difference between American and Japanese food culture, it is
clarified that food affects our health tremendously and it is very significant
for us to choose what we eat wisely in order to live a healthy life.
First of
all, the following statistics show some of the differences between the rates of
Americans and Japanese in regards to the statistics of health related matters. According to the data
from the International diabetes foundation, the percentages of diabetics in
each population are 6.8% in Japan versus 17.7% in America (IDF Diabetes Atlas).
Moreover, according to the list of countries with life expectancies
performed by the United Nations, the Japanese life expectancy is 79 years old
for males and 86.1 years old for females which is the longest life expectancy
of women throughout the world. On the other hand, Americans have a life
expectancy of 75.6 for men and 80.8 for women (Enagic
USA, Inc). Finally, what I was surprised by the most is the
difference in the obesity rate between Japan and America. In “Diets of the
world,” a scholar mentions that while the
Japanese rate of only 3 % is the smallest in the developed world, America has
an obesity rate of over 32 % which is one of the highest rates in the world (Kovacs).
However,
there is no evidence to explain the above statistical numbers as directly
explained by just the diet. Since Americans and Japanese include great variance
of ethnicities, races and roots of origin, genetic differences do come in to
play. The health factors which differ are indicated though the data might
not be a reflection of the diet alone. Of course, I think that an
anthropological factor has to be taken into consideration because the body
types of Americans and Japanese do look very different. For example, the
author of “the history of the white race” mentions that, “20,000 years ago,
during this closing ice age, which was called the Upper Paleolithic period, the
ancestors of the white race lived as hunter gatherers in Europe” (The history
of white race). According to a Japanese scholar, the hunter gatherers have
never stayed in one place rather they have contiued moving and living in
different places while hunting animals along their travels. The problem
with the hunter gatherers is that on some days they found animals for hunting
in plentiful supplies, but then on other days they could not find anything to
eat at all. Therefore, hunter gatherers needed to load up with as much fat as
they could store in their body for the days when they would not have enough to
eat. Otherwise, there was a risk that they would starve to death. As
a result, it is said that white people are relatively adept at gaining fat. On
the other hand, Asian people were agricultural tribe people. They have
continued to stay in the same places. They also acquired and developed ways to
effectively preserve foods harvested in the fields for a long stretch of time,
and they ate these foods as they desired. As a result, because they did
not need to save nutrients or fat stores in their body, it is said that Asians
are typically slender figures (Inose screen2).
However,
I believe that there are other reasons why Japanese are thin and have low
disease rates; foods and the culture. In 300 B.C., a culture began to develop
around the Japanese with food. Rice agriculture was developed, and it
spread all through various parts of Japan. Since then, rice has become one
of the main food staples for the Japanese, it has been passed down from generation
to generation until now. The formative period of the Japanese food culture
was from AD 500 to 1500 (Hosking 2). The
influence of Chinese food was strong during this period. Furthermore, from 1500
to 1640, Japanese food saw big changes because there were many different kinds
of foreign foods that Europeans introduced, especially, the Portuguese who
offered various cakes and deep fried foods such as tempura. From 1640 to
about 1860, when Japan deliberately and strictly cut off all contact with the
outside world, the maturing of traditional cuisine took place. Then, many new
dishes and ingredients were introduced from abroad when Japan was once again
open to the world (Hosking 3). As we
could see from the background of Japanese food, modern Japanese food is mixed
with traditional dishes and foreign dishes from many countries. Also, the
geographical characteristics of Japan have had a large impact on their diet.
Taking
advantage of geographical factors surrounded by oceans and abundant mountains,
the Japanese people have continued eating large quantities of fish and seaweed
as well as nutritious vegetables and fruits from the mountains. Since
Japan has four distinct seasons, people have chosen seasonal ingredients and
prepared many different foods in accordance with the seasons. Moreover,
traditional Japanese meals have consisted of small amounts but wide
varieties of dishes that have provided various nutrients. For instance,
According to the Japanese food book, “At the Japanese Table,” the author
introduces famous foods such as Sushi with fish, Oyako Domburi with Chicken,
Codfish and vegetable soup with fish, spinach and dried mushhcrooms, and
Japanese noodles (Griffin 53). When we see characteristics of Japanese food
culture, we can recognize different patterns from those introduced by
Americans. In Japan, unlike America, people often eat food that mothers prepare
at home except when they celebrate something. Furthermore, we have the word,
Hara hatibu. This means filling a stomach at 80% is optimal. Therefore we often
avoid eating too much, which keeps us from overusing our organs (Buettner). Due to this culture, people are
more likely to focus on the quality rather than quantity. In other words, very
important to Japanese people is how fresh and delicious the food they are
eating is. A scholar who has been to Japan surprisingly mentions, “The
ideal is fresh and raw, with the ultimate of freshness and rawness, being a
fish that is still alive” (Hosking 7).
When people eat something, they enjoy the food with every sense, such as the
appearance, smell, and the taste (Kovacs).
People also like to eat desserts with modest amounts of sweetness. The
refreshments after the meals are usually made with minimal amounts of
sweeteners. Though I have eaten a lot of desserts in Japan, they are
hardly ever too sweet. In addition to the dessert after the meal, people eat
snacks between lunch and dinner. They like to eat salty tastes rather than
sweet, such as Osenbei which is a rice cracker seasoned with soy source. In
fact, my family likes to eat this with bitter green tea at home.
On the
other hand, this world does not only consist of white people but also many
other races, especially here in the United States, called a multiracial country
or a melting pot. Therefore, even though I mentioned the anthropological
difference between Asian and white people, it is not the only reason for the
differences in health problems between Japanese and Americans. In addition, I
consider that the obesity rate and disease rate is outrageous. More
interestingly and surprisingly, the U.S. government shows that there was no
noticeable obesity problem until the 1980’s. However, from the 1980’s, the
obesity rate has been increasing dramatically (Obesity
Rates and Related Trends Overview). The outstanding increasing ratio of
overweight people in recent years can be one explanation for the
anthropological differences but not the only reason for American people who are
more susceptible to health problems. Also, the following are examples of what
society had to do to adjust to the change. In 2009, one of the famous
attractions of Disneyland, “It’s A Small World”, was remodeled for facility obsolescence.
Of course, the ostensible reason was for facility obsolescence, but the actual
reason was that the boats of the attraction could not tolerate the buoyancy
because of the obesity of American people. Although there was no problem in
1963 when it was built, one of the riders in 2007 before the remodeling stated
that, “the boats frequently bottomed out, overloaded with extra flesh.” In this
construction, the waterway was dug deeply, and the buoyancy of the boats was
strengthened to be tolerated so that they can run smoothly (Marcos). In
addition, since Michelle Obama was inaugurated as a First Lady, she has been
developing the program “Let’s Move” to solve the epidemic of childhood obesity
within a generation. (Obama).
From looking at the
culture here, we can safely ascertain that America has developed its health
problems in a very short period of time. The main reasons for this are the
economy, abundance of food portions and food preferences. Since there are
a lot of people from various countries, there are also a lot of different types
of foods in the United States. However, when it comes to American food, we
can quickly make mention of fast food, such as a hamburgers and French-fries as
they rush to mind. In the background of these developments with fast
food, there are people who think only about profits and economic
strategies. We need to know why fast food restaurants could provide the food
which included large amounts of food and limitless sodas at such cheap prices.
One of the main reasons for this is because the industrial companies developed
and spread all over the United States so quickly. Before the 1980’s in
America, meats, such as beef and poultry were so expensive that common people
could not afford to buy them (Senauer 18). Moreover, people used to buy foods
only in the rations that they could eat the foods. However, because of the
developments of industrial food companies, business oriented people think of
food on only an economy of scale (Rollins and
Bauknight 161). In livestock farming, people started to see
animals as objects, and they treated them cruelly in order to provide customers
with their meat constantly at lower prices. Moreover, “Food, Inc” shows
that chickens were genetically modified in size to satisfy the consumer’s
demands. In addition to meat, because the US government has been heavily
subsidizing the production of corn for decades, this allowed farms to produce
corn below the cost of production. Since cheap corn could be used in a lot of
different areas such as forages for livestock and material for sweeteners, the
price of many food items decreased (Kenner). As a result, fast food that
chemically attracts people and causes minimal financial strains on their
wallets have gained tremendous popularity among American people.
At the
same time, because of the government policy, “Small Government,” after Reagan,
the gap between rich and poor increased. (Boaz) Of course, wealthy people were
able to buy healthy and expensive organic food and spend their time cooking
them for their health. However, lower class people had to depend on the cheaper
fast foods. According to a large national study, “Body Mass Index was higher every
year between 1986 and 2002 among adults in the lowest income group and the
lowest education group than among those in the highest income and education
groups” (Relationship Between Poverty and
Overweight or Obesity). In short, unlike other countries, the obesity
rate has been accelerated not by the rich but by the poor here in American
society. Moreover, it seems that many Americans have a sweet tooth. The author
of “Food Trends and The Changing Consumer” points out that the recent increase
in the consumption of sweeteners is phenomenal, up by 25% between 1966 and 1987
to 152 pounds per capita per year. However, the refined cane and beet sugar
consumption has declined since 1972, whereas the consumption of corn sweeteners
and non-caloric sweeteners has increased. In 1987, for example, 42 percent
of all sugars and sweeteners went from refined sugar, 45 percent from corn
sweetener, and 13 percent from a non-caloric source. This compares with 81
percent from refined sugar in 1966, 13 percent from corn sweetener, and 5
percent form a non-caloric source. This switch is a result of a combination of
factors including government policies which raised the price of sugar, and the
development of an economical way to process corn to make corn sweetener (Senauer 28). From these facts about industrial
farming and corn sweetener companies, I consider that food eaten by American
people is altered by some large companies, and the government policies focus on
the profits of these companies rather than the health of the consumer.
These
factors made it possible for companies to provide people a meal at lower
prices. The lower the cost of food became, the more people started eating
bigger portions, this naturally led to higher rates of diseases and increased
rates of obesity here in the United States. According to the data analysis from
three national surveys involving more than 60,000 Americans researchers at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, it was found that serving sizes
have grown over the past 20 years, not only at fast food places, but at other
restaurants and even at homes (Mckenzie).
For example, the volume of hamburgers have expanded by 23
percent; a plate of Mexican food is 27 percent bigger, soft drinks have
increased in size by 52 percent, and Snacks, such as potato chips, pretzels or
crackers, are 60 percent larger (Mckenzie). We can clearly notice the tendency of people’s psychology
which is, “the bigger is the better.”
In
conclusion, the characteristics of Japanese foods which offer great varieties
of combinations of traditional foods and foreign foods. Preparing a place
of residence according to the availability of ingredients from nature, and
eating various small dishes is very helpful to sustain a person’s health. On
the other hand, even though there are many different kinds of foods available
in America due to the diversity of people, American food culture, especially
the culture of fast food has a negative influence on health. Unfortunately,
food became a target of the profit oriented industries in the U.S. The priority
of safe and healthy foods was lessened as it was replaced by large and cheap
processed meals. Thus, there is an obvious difference in what and how American
and Japanese people eat, and there have to be factors that cause differences to
most people’s health. Therefore, I strongly object to the current systems of
manipulating only for profit and think that all the American people should be
aware of this reality as we work together to effect change. It is very
difficult to lose the lifestyle which is convenient and financially appealing.
However, if this unhealthy diet epidemically continues, people might have to
face serious consequences of these health problems in the near future.
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Buettner, Dan "How to Live to Be 100+." TED Talk, n.d.
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"Enagic
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Griffin, Stuart.
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Richard. “At the Japanese Table.” New York: Oxford UP, 2000. Print.
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<http://www.idf.org/sites/default/files/EN_6E_Atlas_Full_0.pdf>.
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John. "Food Portion Sizes Have Grown -- A Lot."ABC News. ABC
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Greg, and Angus Martin. "The Origins of Agriculture:." The Origins
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