Are You Addicted To Food? Find Out If You Are Addicted to Food?
There is overwhelming evidence of a relationship between healthy old age and low body weight – or to put it another way, the relationship between being overweight and a shortened lifespan. There are also the multitude of illnesses and conditions associated with being overweight that anyone striving for optimal health will want to avoid. Food addiction can also result in low body weight and the ensuing health problems related to sub-optimal nutrition.
The obvious truth is that people are finding it more and more difficult to either remain slim, or to successfully lose weight over the long term. The incidence of obesity is increasing with each passing year – despite the abundance of diets and slimming aids on the market.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful in one sense if the drive in us to eat were linked purely to survival, as it is in the rest of the animal kingdom! But somehow, for humans, food has come to hold meanings and comforts that go far beyond merely satisfying the physical appetite.
To add to the problem, we live in a society with a readily available and abundant supply of food (in our fridges, fast-food joints and restaurants around every corner) – something that certainly never plagued our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Often, this food is nutritionally deficient yet high in calories – and manufactured to appeal to the appetite and taste buds, and therefore encouraging us to eat more. We also may have conditioning messages deeply ingrained in us, like ‘finish your plate’.
This website is for those people who have an immense desire to change their bodies, but are tired of the endless yo-yo dieting, the continuous feelings of guilt and sense of failure and have resigned themselves to being overweight for the rest of their lives.
It is also written for those people who are tired of hiding their relationship with food and perhaps have come to understand that being skin-and-bones thin is not healthy.
Having said the above, it must also be said that food addiction is not something to be taken lightly and often has its roots in psychological traumas or childhood upbringing. Many books have been written on this and it is not the intention of this site to cover the subject fully. Many people find the help offered by groups such as Overeaters Anonymous to be crucial to living a successful life. These groups offer a level of support and understanding not able to be found anywhere else – and this is often what the food addict needs, to move on to a more healthy way of living.
On the other hand, many people have got into a state of food addiction that has to do with other factors, have become aware of it and want to change, and it is these people I hope will benefit from this website.
‘But it’s in my genes to be overweight!’
There are many examples of obesity being almost completely unknown in indigenous cultures, until western culture invades with the burger-and-fries, soda pop, Twinkies and baby formula mentality. An excellent case in point is the Pima Indians of South-eastern Arizona, USA, who now have an exceptionally high incidence of obesity and the highest incidence of adult-onset diabetes in the world – from being almost completely free from these plagues before the introduction of Western culture.
This does in many ways address the ‘obesity as genetics’ argument. Every single person on this planet has a unique make-up and personal baseline of health, and some people do have a greater tendency to obesity than do others. In fact, addictive personalities are often addicted to chemical substances and/or other things such as chocolate, alcohol, cigarettes, gambling, excessive exercise or work. But we also know that indigenous cultures don’t suffer obesity until exposed to junk food. So, the fault does not seem to lie in genes: but rather in the modern way of life.
Many obese people have unsuccessfully tried dieting time and again, and eventually resign themselves to the fact that they have a metabolic disorder and cannot lose weight. A common problem, however, is that most people underestimate their intake of calories. Obese people also tend to eat as a reaction to tension, boredom, anxiety and stress rather than because they are hungry. 'Ultimate Health'
Eating excesses often begin in early years, and these excesses frequently lead to food addiction. A way past this (parents, note!) is for children to attain a balanced lifestyle at an early age, so their gratification comes from many other sources such as sport, good relationships, creativity and challenge, rather than solely from food. Eating to Cope With Stress