Adrienne Rose Bitar

Adrienne Rose Johnson received her PhD in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University. She earned her undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley in American Studies in 2008 and her associates degree from San Diego Mesa College in 2006.

Her dissertation combines literary analysis of diet books with a medical history of Western disease. Titled Diet and the Disease of Civilization, 1977-2008, her dissertation analyzes how instructional texts — diet books, nutrition policy, medical research — have measured civilization by the human costs of social progress. Other academic publications include articles on competitive eating, Paleo diet mythologies, dude ranches, locavorism, and grocery store couponing.

Diet and the Disease of Civilization will be published by Rutgers University Press in June 2017.