cooking, eating, and obesity

I really enjoyed the movie Julie&Julia and would recommend it to all. I love Meryl Streep, and she is great as Julia Child. Since my area of interest is obesity, stories about food are always interesting. There was an interesting article in the NYTimes a few weeks ago about cooking and eating. Here is the link

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/magazine/02cooking-t.html

It is written by Michael Pollan who wrote the book "In Defense of Food" and "The Omnivore's Delight." He argues that we need to go back to eating real food, things that we can actually identify, as opposed to manufactured and processed food. This fits well with Julia Child's desire to have people learn how to cook with real ingredients.

Over time there has been an increased emphasis on food that is easy to prepare and easy to eat. We have Campbell's "soup at hand" that can be prepared and eaten from the same container. We have bite size cookies, crackers, and other snacks. If this link still works, there was an interesting article in the NYTimes, feb. 12, 2006 "Twelve Easy Pieces" that discussed the need for foods to be "snackable" now to be marketed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/magazine/12apples.html?_r=1&scp=13&sq=february%2012%202006&st=cse

One quote..."True convenience now means being eaten with one hand, no utensils, outside the home and alone." As a sociologist, what does this say about our connection to other people? The use of mealtimes for social bonding?

Women's increased participation in the labor force becomes an implicit, sometimes explicit, culprit in these changes. Are there other possible explanations?