Diet Habits In America

5.1.3 American Diet With the development of the modern society, there is an undeniable fact that the diet habits of American people have undergone enormous changes over the last decades (Pillsbury 187), especially in the aspects of daily meal structure and the choices of food ingredients. Generally speaking, in recent years, American families spend more money on having meals outside the home (for instance, in the restaurants), which reflects that the conventional eating habit of sharing foods with family members on the table at home has suffered the decrease or even the disappearance in American society, as an estimation shows that at present, Americans only eat with their family members at home once or twice per week on average (Pillsbury

In terms of the lunch, the expansion of quick-service or fast-food restaurants in the United States has reshaped the role of conventional lunch that contains formal main courses for contemporary Americans (Pillsbury 190). In actuality, quick-service restaurants that serve various fast foods, such as hamburgers, hotdogs, sandwiches, and deep-fried foods, have the powerful advantages of saving time for people who only have a short period of noontime break by providing them with these quick-prepared foods and also satisfying the taste of younger generations who prefer delicious sandwiches over formal complicated dishes for lunch (Pillsbury 190-91). When it comes to the dinner, although Americans still address great importance on the family meals during the festivals or other special occasions in which exquisitely prepared foods are essential, there is still a tendency that an increasing number of Americans have begun to choose to have their dinners in the restaurants, especially those who have a high living standard with ample economic conditions, and correspondingly, restaurants have endeavored to prepare and serve dishes of good taste for those consumers

As a matter of fact, as early as in 1980, the American governments have been aware of the detrimental effects of the unhealthy diet on people’s health (Sebelius and Vilsack 1). In the book, Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010 (2010), issued by the U.S. Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS), the statistics demonstrate that due to the improper eating habits, 72 percent of American men together with 64 percent of American women are now suffering from obesity and overweight, and there are 32 percent of overweight and obese children in the United States, for the reason that people have consumed too many foods containing excessive calories while lacking in essential nutrients (Sebelius and Vilsack 1-2), for example, fat and oil in deep-fried fast foods. In addition to the hazard of being obese, the unhealthy eating habits also have generated a series of lethal chronic diseases, such as various cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, as well as cancer (Sebelius and Vilsack 3). To explain more, 37 percent of the American population (approximately 81.1 million people) is diagnosed with cardiovascular disease, and 11 percent of the American population (around 24 million people) is suffering from diabetes (Sebelius and Vilsack 3). Under such circumstances, various experts