What's wrong with the diet? Physiological component of the diet.

Chapter 12. Neglect of health

What we explore: What is the essence of modern Western culture?

What's new: What is the source of energy for Western culture?

What we will learn: How does radical hedonism manifest itself?

1. Cultural factors, especially materialism or consumerism, are also associated with adverse social trends such as increasing obesity and inactivity, which in turn are associated with a wide range of physical health problems, including heart disease, diabetes, and cancer (Eckersley R. 2006) * [1].

* Eckersley, Richard - social analyst, writer, and research fellow at the National Center for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University, Canberra.

2. And it is not surprising that against such an economic background [where the main goal is to have as many benefits as possible, ed. author] selfishness and an openly materialistic attitude to life are no longer considered moral problems and are increasingly becoming the meaning of human existence (Kasser T., 2015.) * [2].

* Kasser, Tim - American professor emeritus of psychology, specialist in materialism. Author of four books on consumer psychology, materialism, and goal achievement. Author and co-author of a large number of scientific articles. An active participant in movements against the consumer lifestyle, the commercialization of society, and the zombification of children's consciousness with materialistic ideas.

3. The essence of modern Western culture. As experts show, the reason for neglecting one's health lies in modern Western culture. Its essence boils down to a "frankly materialistic attitude towards life," or, to put it in other words, the very existence of a person depends entirely on the quantity and quality of material things, hence the desire to consume – "to have as many benefits as possible." If a person's life is represented in the form of a vessel, then the contents of this vessel will be filled only with material things, therefore materialism "is increasingly becoming the meaning of human existence" [1, 2, 3].

4. Materialism is the meaning of human existence. Materialism is a theory about matter (substance) as the basis of all existing reality. According to the worldview of materialism, the entire world around us consists of matter as the root cause of all things. The psyche or soul, consciousness, thinking, spirit, and other non-physical phenomena and processes are derivatives of matter, and therefore secondary *. However since it is impossible to prove this using natural scientific methods, science has made the theory of materialism a dogma. As a result, a person perceives the material world only with the help of bodily sensations (physical sense organs). What cannot be seen, heard, smelled, touched, tasted, or experimentally proven by science does not matter, which means it is invalid and cannot exist in the physical world [4]. All other phenomena and processes are subjective since they are physically impossible to know, observe, and measure, therefore science classifies them as supernatural, that is, metaphysics (literally "after physics"). Consequently, the concept of the existence of God (gods) and the associated concepts of soul, conscience, morality, breath of life, faith, freedom, being, life, etc. are alien to materialism. [5]. Thus, materialism reflects a system of values, which is characterized by an external and superficial perception of the surrounding world with the help of physical laws and bodily sensations [1].