The Reasons Why You Can't Stop Overeating
As the waistlines of Americans continue to grow, Dr. David Kessler provides answers to some of my lingering questions about the causation of this epidemic. What is it about food that does not let us stop with one piece of cake or a single slice of pizza? Why do we override our innate fullness sensor and continuously overeat? How can this be stopped? Dr. Kessler tackles all these questions in his recent book, The End of Overeating.
Question 1: What is it about food that does not let us stop with one piece of cake or a single slice of pizza?
Food today has three major additives that have been added to our food in major quantities compared with days of past: sugar, fat, and salt. These three components make manufactured food addicting, as proved by recent studies. A University of Washington researcher added sugar to skim milk, whole milk, half and half, and a heavy cream safflower oil mixture. Participants in the study preferred the cream and oil mixture (containing the most fat and sugar) to all others. Food companies have picked up on the fact that sugar, salt, and fat sell and are using it to their benefit.
Question 2: Why do we override our innate fullness sensor and continuously overeat?
Simply put, sugar, salt, and fat are rewarding. Think about a time when you have a plate of cookies in front of you. You eat one, it is delicious, you eat another and it is still delicious. Before you know it, the plate is half gone. Your control in this situation is damped by the sugar and fat. Continued exposure to overwhelming rewards from foods leads to conditioned overeating, a term used by Dr. Kessler. “Chronic exposure to highly palatable foods changes our brains, conditioning us to seek continued stimulation. Over time, a powerful drive for a combination of sugar, fat, and salt competes with our conscious capacity to say no.”
Question 3: How can this be stopped?
Sadly, we are incapable of changing the manufacturing procedures of food. Therefore, we must learn to control ourselves. First, understand conditioned overeating. No progress can be made in our battle with food if we do not acknowledge that hyper palatable foods are to blame. Next, you must learn to say no. Dr. Kessler reminds us that we have a choice when it comes to what goes into our bodies, and the urges we have for that next cookie can be ignored. We are warned that this is difficult, and there will be times when we slip. After practice, food will lose its captivating power over us… freedom at last!
I encourage you to read The End of Overeating in its entirety. It offers a new perspective on food and our addiction to it.
By Mitzi Dulan with research assistance from Kaylee O’Connell
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"Overly palatable" foods are not to blame. Your fat ass that doesn't have the self control to put the damn cake down is to blame. Take a little responsibility for your actions.
First of all, this article specifically suggests self control and education for the purpose of taking responsibility. So why don't you read the articles you intend to respond to, instead of mouthpiecing the soundbites of the food industry ? Self control is that thing that keeps your foot out of your mouth too.
If companies are making food less healthy with the intent of eliciting further negative health habits, they should be held responsible for that.
While the article does finally recognize that self-control is indeed the only answer, it makes it sound like this is somehow a problem, and that you are a victim of the food industry if you can't stop at the first box of Oreos. It is possible to make food that people won't be tempted to eat more of, but I have eaten such food, and trust me, you don't want that.
A lot of healthy food is not that savory, but there are infinite healthy diets that are completely palatable.
The fact is the food industry has become a behemoth of profiteering that is destroying private farming, endangering our capacity to feed ourselves, and producing less and less healthy food stuffs with intentionally more and more addictive substances.
For example, the glutanous additives have been shown to specifically act on nuerochemistry comparable to other psychoactives currently illegal or prescription only.
The genetically modified products have been particularly harrowing failures, exposing the corporations behind them as willing to risk farming armageddon, let alone thousands of e. coli infections.
If these companies are willing to behave this way, why give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to junk food?
I didn't say healty food cannot be savory, but even healthy food that satisfies the American palate I think could be described as "overly palatable," and will cause overeating, according to this article. This article basically wants food producers to make food that won't make you want to go back for seconds.
The food industry produces vast quantities at minimal expense, allowing a larger number of people to be fed at a lower cost than ever before. This does not endanger our capacity to feed ourselves, in fact, it is the only thing that makes feeding our current population possible! Their reward for doing this is profit. The Marxian idea that profits are the problem has no basis in reality. The "behemoth of profiteering" that you describe is in fact a good thing, because as they desire more profit, they must find ways to make more food available at a lower cost. The tradeoff, of course, is quality. Factory farming and processed food is of lower quality than organic, family -farmed goods. As a result of that, we are seeing a resurgence of organic produce and pasture-raised meat . The word "private" that you used to describe non-industrialized farming is incorrect, as factory farming is also private. Fortunately, beyond subsidies and regulations (which can and should be done away with) the government has not tried its hand at food production. Still, your point that factory farming will drive out small-scale family farming is incorrect, as there is still a demand for the latter, and people are willing to pay more to get it. I predict that in the coming years factory and family farming will coexist, one providing cheap, low quality food, and the other providing more expensive, higher quality, and healthier food.
The genetically modified products that have been defamed by the likes of Greenpeace are actually a great thing. They have saved millions of lives and greatly improved the health and well-being of people living in Third World countries. They can be grown with less chemicals , and can provide better nutrition . Irrational fears of "farming armaggedon" in the face of such great benefit to humanity is not just foolish but dangerous.
Companies are in it for the money , just like everybody else. I doubt you go to work in the morning because it's the right thing to do. You go to get a paycheck. This is a good thing. Because they want money, and do not have the power to acquire it through force or coercion, they must provide goods that the consumer wants at a price that is appealing to them, or they will not make any money. The food industry produces what they do because that's what the people demand. If the people want something different, all they have to do is put their money where their mouth is and buy it.
First paragraph: Baseless accusation. Please explain how "This article basically wants food producers to make food that won't make you want to go back for seconds."
Second paragraph: Wrong on a number of accounts. Foremost, the meat industry is shamefully expensive, consuming much more than it produces. Further, please show me where prioritizing profit margin was responsible for anything turning out better than not prioritizing it - note that this is the main difference between family farms and factory farms. Also, "demand for the latter" is not really a factor. Healthy or not a lot of people can not afford organic food . In Hawaii for example, most farmers can not do organic farming because people are not willing to pay the extreme difference.
Third: GMO's and the food stuff from them have not been defamed. Large due to corruption, conflict of interests, and large corporate interest groups, these products have been snuck into food when not ramrodded down our throats. In fact, most of the claims citing higher productivity have been called into question, especially recently. Largely the public has rejected genetically modified food, and some states have even enacted laws to protect farmers from factory-farm corporations trying to dominate the industry. Genetic modification so far has mostly relied on modified bacteria and virus as a vehicle for the modification, responsible for a huge increase in e. coli reactions, including death . It has also caused an increase in fillers that containing chlorine and other chemilas used to kill the mutated bacteria. This concern is slight compared to some companies engineering genes to sterilize plants - using methods it has been show can not be controlled.
Even if this assinine design is not carried out, factory farming and GMO's have already greatly reduced the viability of sustaining our population from farms by tremendously reducing diversification in seed and plant. These things took thousands of years for us to naturally develop and are quickly being vanquished for our miserable shortsighted search for profits.
They are NOT grown with less chemicals , and suggesting so (since it is opposite the actual case) is really begging ridicule. The three most prevalent crops (Soy, Canola, Corn) actually rely on a great deal more pesticides being used. In turn the meat industry is being intoxified by poor controls of the GMO's.
Fourth: Here you suggest that it is better we all be mercenary's than to expect people to do things because they are the right things to do. I can not imagine a sound philosophical or even rational argument that supports such an idea. It's Santa Claus for adults. Obviously the profit based capital market does not work . We have bent over backwards trying to make it work for a century. It's a failure of epic proportions that has lingered this long based on our ability to hide debt throughtout the world.
Incidently, I don't come to work for money . I'm a submariner and I love my job . I take what money they give me because I can't take my family off the grid and still function in the Navy. I can think of a bunch of ways I could provide for my family, have a carerr, and continue my education that would be preferable to penny-picking nonsense that is required of 95% of the workforce.
You suggest that the government would be worse at food production with no explanation. The assumption that competition takes care of itself is either a blatant lie or an abject admission of ignorance. This fantasy does not excuse a bunch of lazy idiots that just resent being told what to do or chastised for their delusions.
I suggest we all start private family farms and try for sustainable diversity and interdependence, but that's not practical in this society with an increasing load of dead weight intent on self destruction.
I suggest that the government would be worse at food production based on all of the governments that have tried that and met with massive starvation, for example: the USSR, China, Cuba, and North Korea. People die. A lot of fucking people die. I guess it fixes the problem of overeating, though, so that's good!
Also, we haven't had a free market in this country for a LONG time. In fact, it is largely a result of regulations on quality, ironically, that led to factory farming. Businesses of greater size were able to get around the regulation better, and so prospered. Even the corporatist, crony-capitalist (which bears no resemblance to true capitalism ) system that the US currently has manages to vastly outproduce your idea. Also, your idea of every single person owning a small family farm is retarded. As romantic as the idea is, it would result in an entire population barely subsisting when it could be thriving.
is no better than the USSR, China or North Korea? Like the name of the government has more bearing on it's fate than the people that make it up? There's a dozen examples of the opposite for each of those examples. Even in the Dark Ages...
What are they teaching you guys these days? If not for the government you would still be getting force fed poison and disease by free market adventurists. Thank you, Teddy, we miss you...
Your right, capitalism never got a fair shake, but neither did anything else. And even in theory it leaves a lot to be desired. We can do better in the 21st century; maybe even exercise some foresight.
Not every single person, silly, every family . We obviously gotta make time for some journeyman action, military tours, and sports teams, of course. Point is, we are not getting extra food our of factory farming, for all its efficiency (read: cutting corners), we just get fatter fat cats.
Yes. I don't buy into this USA supremacy idea, that the US will be dominant no matter what because Americans are just better. The USA is no better than the USSR, China, or North Korea. If government attempts to take control of industry, they will be unable to efficiently allocate resources. They have no gauge for what is wanted by consumers and what isn't. The market does, it's called demand. That's why all attempts at Communism have failed. It isn't a flaw in the host country, though that certainly did not help, it was the theory itself. I also appreciate your vague mention of counter-examples coupled with your failure to provide some.
Don't worry, the State is still trying to force feed the same bullshit that you obviously guzzled, the difference is not all of us are buying, and we're looking at the facts of history , rather than the glossy, shiny stories that the State run schools present us with of its history.
I never said capitalism never got a fair shake. Free societies with free markets have existed, and they have all thrived. Take California during the "Wild" West period, or Ireland in the Dark Ages, for example. Government engineering of the economy always has and always will produce sub-par results. It has no method for measuring it's success or failure until people are literally starving, and then it is slow to change .
Your plan is still retarded. You basically think that we should abolish cities , industry of any kind, and revert back to an agrarian, subsistence society . Goodbye central heating, indoor plumbing, electronics of any kind, prefabricated clothing, replacable parts, complex machinery, all of it. You say we need sports teams, (way to prioritize) but without specialization there would be no one to build the stadium. We might get the same amount of food as we currently do, but the agricultural sector would consume the ENTIRE WORK FOCE! Without that, you have problems even with agricultural production. Bye-bye veterinarians, tractors, balers, the whole lot. If that's what you want, go join an Amish community and leave the rest of us the hell alone.