‘the designer as ambassador at large is an area of essential development’

I always reject dualistic questions/ answers, prefering at least three options. I don’t accept either alternative. The cultural is a familiar slam at Americans as dumb slobs who don’t know what’s good for them, the same elitist view that sees mass culture as trash, only here it’s American food, not TV. The limited access option has some merit, except that it does not begin to explain the extent of the obesity “epidemic,” since it would suggest that only people who live in “food deserts” get fat, which just isn’t true. For the most part Americans have access to far more food, healthy and not, than they know what to do with.

I personally am intrigued by the evolutionary hypothesis, i.e. that we were designed to gain weight in order to store up fat against frequent famines, only now we don’t have the famines, so we just gain weight, especially now that we’re no longer chasing goats over mountains… But I’m also tempted to add a fourth hypothesis, that there really isn’t an “epidemic” in the first place. All of these possibilities are dealt with quite rigorously by Julie Guthman in “Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism” (California 2011).

As for why I eat the way I do: my food choices are the product of a negotiation among three main determinants: identity (my heritage, roots, cultural tastes), convenience ( can I find, afford, and cook it?), and responsibility (is it safe for me and my family, is it sustainable?).

I understand that there is no lack of good Design today, but that there is a shortage of Resources and Customers to bring them to life. To access resources and “customers,” a need for so many good causes, again and again I find myself saying that we must make the values and actions we seek “fashionable”—i.e. to become something that everyone decides they want to have, to make or do…

In science education, we are promoting scientific inquiry, its products, and technology design fashionable by engaging everyone in them. As a science educator, I try to illuminate how and why a useful understanding of how the world works, within and around us, can promote actions to help them work better—i.e.healthier. Following this Conversation, I will be including a useful understanding of the technologies of healthy and beautiful spaces within definitions of technological and environmental literacy. This is, at least, one way to advance support for improved human-made environments.