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The term Sociological Imagination was coined by C. Wright Mills and refers to seeing sociological

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The term Sociological Imagination was coined by C. Wright Mills and refers to seeing sociological situations from a broad point of view, going beyond one’s thoughts and feelings, and by seeing it how others would see it. In the textbook Introduction to Sociology by Giddens, et. al Mills argued that we needed to “overcome our limited perspective…[and have] a certain quality of mind that makes it possible to understand the larger meaning of our experiences” (4). Therefore one should look at the overall social problems and not at a specific individual’s situation. With this concept in mind I am going to analyze the Guardian online 2012 article “Why our food is making us fat,” by Jacques Peretti. The article mainly speaks about the rapid rise …show more content…

al. the Centers for Disease Control found that “roughly 60 percent of adults are now overweight” (530). From this fact we can learn two important things: i) a fairly large number of people suffer from obesity, and ii) the reasons for the significant change in weight, with HFCS in the lead.
Another thing about HFCS people would miss were it not for the Sociological Imagination is the political and economic influences it carries. Those that profit from HFCS fight for it to remain in use and in his article Peretti points out that “there was a huge financial gain to be made by fingering fat, not sugar, as the culprit of heart disease.” The companies that gain income from HFCS try to get any bad publicity away from it, because they look at their profit margins and not at the people it affects and how it affects them. People with low income often resort to cheaper foods that tend to have larger quantities of HFCS in them. I am one such person because I try to get a bargain when I can, and often times the products I bought had large quantities of HFCS.
At the same time politicians who are willing to challenge HFCS usage refrain from doing so because as Peretti puts it, the companies are “immensely powerful, and any politician who takes it on does so at their peril.” The government side with these companies because of the income they offer, whether it be through campaigning funds, large amount of tax for the state, jobs

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