Excerpt

...industrial and post-industrial societies are changing people~Rs lives rather drastically,
and not always to our benefit. As many do not like to hear, progress is not always
positive. After all the word pro-gress means moving forward to reach a goal, but does
specify in which direction. The ways we work and commute, the air we breathe, the
environment in which we live would seem by pre-industrial societies standards un-natural
or artificial, and they often are. If a hunter and gatherer from the rainforest of Brazil
became transplanted overnight to downtown Phoenix and were explained how to survive, that
is how to obtain and prepare food, the hunter and gatherer may just not get it. Why, would
the hunter and gatherer observe, do the people leave a big box (their house), get into a
small box (their car), leave their box on marked squares (the parking lot), get into a
very big box (the supermarket), get a box with rollers (shopping cart), put boxes into the
rolling box (packaged food), take this boxes back to the other boxes (car and house),
where then the small boxes can be put into other boxes (refrigerators, oven, microwave
oven) to store or cook that food? I do not see any live games, trees with fruits where
food can be picked, I just do not understand the correlation between all these boxes and
the food I need to survive. These people seem indeed "boxed in" would the hunter and
gatherer remark.

That particular boxed in condition and the nature of our technology and service
oriented society undeniably has changed the way we regulate our weight, and has altered
the way we used to maintain this not-so-delicate balance between food intake, energy
expenditure, and physical level of fitness. And as one would argue, the aforementioned
artificial lifestyle generated by increased urbanization and the environment in which
we live calls for un-natural remedies such as diet-food, and whatever products make us
feel good purchasing. This continued era of materialism and consumption has lead many
indeed to spend more money on these quick remedies to maintain or regain a good figure,
than many can afford buying food to stay healthy and able to work in the developing world.