Answer to Critical Thinking Activity - Chapter 12

1. If a person is overweight there are several things to do.
   • A. Get more exercise. This requires a certain amount of personal discipline.
   • B. Reduce calorie intake.
   • C. Reduce fat intake.
   • D. Eat moderate portions of a variety of nutrient-rich foods.
   • E. Include fruit, whole grains, and vegetables in your diet.
   • F. Eat regular meals.

2. Answers
   • A. Get rid of the deep fryer.
   • B. Buy leaner hamburger.
   • C. Offer veggie-dogs and veggie-burgers.
   • D. Sell only low-fat, low-sugar cookies and other such items.
   • E. Offer more real fruit juices.
   • F. Offer a salad bar with a wide variety of choices.
   • G. Use much less salt in cooking.
   • H. Use no food additives, such as monosodium glutamate.

3. People vary widely in their tastes for particular foods, especially fatty foods. Some people crave high-fat foods. Others pour heavy doses of salt on already over-salted food. Still others can't get along without something sweet during or after their meal. For some people, these preferences are more by genetics than by choice, making these desires very hard to control.

4. Cultural preferences for certain foods would appear to be much easier to control than biological preferences. However, our cultural inheritance is nearly as certain as our genetic inheritance, and perhaps as difficult to constrain. Such preferences are based on traditional behavior of families and populations, and the social pressures to defer to them are enormous. What is good to eat is culturally defined for absolutely everybody. If these foods happen to not be healthy, it requires great conviction and determination to change these behaviors.