Perceptions of "Healthy"

In my lazy Sunday morning mode, I was craving something that would be easy and fast for breakfast. So I hopped in my car and drove to Dunkin' Donuts. I know, I know. There are so many things wrong with this, from my consumption of sugary and processed foods to my financial support of an industry that doesn't do a lot of good for our society. But, this morning, all I really cared about was waking myself up with some sugar water that was labeled as coffee and a microwave-heated, prepackaged egg white sandwich. YUUUMMM.

I had already condemned myself to eating something that I was well aware would not be good for my health based on the amount of processing this food had gone through. While I should probably give more thought to my own personal choice here, what I have been thinking about since I purchased this meal was the comment the woman working at Dunkin' made to me:

After I had ordered my medium coffee with copious amounts of sugar and whole milk and flavoring syrup as well as my heavily processed egg white meal that would be insta-heated in a microwave, I went even further and began to look at all the "pastries" and donuts on display. When she saw me eye-balling all the sweets, she remarked, "OH you've got to go for a pastry now. After ordering all of this healthy stuff, you've got to balance it out with something not-so-healthy." I smiled and agreed with her, but inside, I was baffled at what she was considering to be "healthy." I mean, the amount of artificial preservatives and ingredients that I had just ordered for myself was astounding in my own opinion but, to her, because they were "egg whites" and "whole milk" rather than cream, they were considered good for me.

Since that exchange today, I can't help think how different people's views on what foods are "healthy" for you are. I think this moment really drove home a lot of thing we have been talking about in class, namely how drastically uninformed people can be about their food choices. In my opinion, it really speaks to one of the main origins of the climbing amounts of obesity in this country stems from a lack of nutritional education. Obviously, there are also factors such as financial means and genetic predisposition. However, it's clear that education about something as important and elementary in people's lives as their food consumption and resulting health needs to be addressed more in this country.