THE THIN LINE BETWEEN ENJOYMENT AND FOOD ADDICTION
The difference between enjoyment and addiction can be a very fine line. Let’s face it, food is delicious, and we all thoroughly enjoy eating it. But at what point does that enjoyment become an addiction?
Prior to the ’70s, eating all the time was rare. In general, people ate 3 meals a day. They didn’t think much about it, that’s just what they did, and that is what they needed to feel and function well. Was the food good, of course! Were they obsessed, not at all.
Today, it is common to eat up to 6 meals a day, and many of us never really stop, we’re always grazing. And food is always at the front of our minds. We’re thinking about when we’re going to eat next, what we’re going to eat, the donuts that are waiting in the break room, and we’re thinking about what we’ll fix for dinner. Food is never far from our thoughts.
How did we go from hardly ever thinking about food, to obsessing over it constantly?
In recent years, we’ve been conditioned that we need to eat and snack all day. We’ve been made to fear skipping a meal thinking it will wreck our metabolism. Kids get snacks at school, as soon as they get home, and sitting on the couch watching TV in the evening.
When I was growing up, snacking wasn’t a thing. If I tried to eat something before dinner, my mom stopped me and told me it would ruin my appetite.
So what changed? Why have these beliefs and habits crept in? What has it done to our health and our relationship with food?
Roughly 50 years ago, when people were barely thinking about food, being overweight was rare, and many of the chronic health conditions that are prevalent today barely existed.
Now, we think about food all day, we eat all day, and we’re chronically overweight and diseased.
It used to be that we ate for nourishment, we craved foods that gave us energy and sustained us throughout the day. We innately knew when we were full, and we simply stopped eating. If our paleolithic ancestors became fat, we as a species would have died out and wouldn’t be here today. They couldn’t have caught their prey and they wouldn’t have been able to escape predators.
Our body is brilliant, and it has natural mechanisms that tell us when we’re full and it’s time to stop eating. Just imagine sitting down to eat a gigantic 60 oz steak. Do you think you could finish it? Do you think you’d be following it up with pie a la mode? Heck no! Your body would love the steak and energize and nourish you with it, but it would also signal you exactly when it had enough. It would say stop, and you’d be good and ready! Both the protein and fat in that steak would cause the body’s natural satiety hormones to kick in and let you know enough is enough.
Even if you love steak, you’ve likely never said you were addicted to it. It’s delicious, it nourishes you, and you feel amazing when you eat it. But you are definitely not addicted to it.
We live in a very different world today than our paleolithic ancestors did. We are not running from lions, tigers, and bears, and most of us aren’t hunting for our next meal. Instead, we’re roaming around the grocery store, picking up foods that are nicely packaged in a box with the promise of dinner in less than 30 minutes. We’re sitting in front of the TV with a bowl of popcorn and sipping on a soda.
Highly processed food is everywhere! You are never far from chips, crackers, pastries, candy, bread, and soda. It is everywhere and most of society is highly addicted.
Foods that have been processed are stripped of their natural nutrients, including protein, fat, and fiber. This process allows us to eat in large quantities and never feel full. Because there is little fat and protein, the satiety hormones peptide YY and cholecystokinin aren’t activated, and we can literally eat and eat all day long and never feel satisfied. And with no fiber there to bulk things up, our stomach never feels full either.
After the food is processed, pretty much all that is left is refined carbohydrates and sugar which the body processes quickly, causing our blood sugar to skyrocket leading to a huge rush of insulin from our pancreas. And next, the crash leading to intense cravings for more sugar. Rinse, cycle, repeat.
On top of these foods bypassing our natural satiety hormones, they also hit our reward center the same way a drug like heroin would. It causes the release of the pleasure neurotransmitter dopamine, signaling our body we want more more more! It forms new memories in our brain letting us know that food led to satisfaction. Now we’re in an addictive state where our brain will signal us all day long that it wants more.
None of this is an accident. The food industry spends billions every year, researching the exact combination of sugar, salt, and fat that will maximize this response in our brain. It’s a smart business decision for the food industry, but deadly for us!
We can become addicted to almost anything, but I would argue that food addiction is one of the hardest to overcome, we can’t live without it after all. If we have an addiction to alcohol, we can stay away from bars, people will typically respect that we’ve given it up. If we’re a drug addict, in general, it’s not going to be out and ready for the taking anywhere we go. Mom isn’t going to encourage us to have a hit after Thanksgiving dinner.
The answer cannot be to stop eating, obviously. The answer instead is to eat food that nourishes us and makes us feel full and satisfied. This takes time and effort, but it is possible and it is so worth it.
Here are some steps you can take to start to break the cycle of food addiction.
Consider that your addiction is in part a habit and find a way to break that habit. If you are in the habit of stopping at Starbucks for a sugary drink and cake pop on your way to the office, try going another route. Make it inconvenient and you are less likely to make the stop.
If you use food as a reward, find a new way to reward yourself. Try taking a hot bath or getting a massage. Go for a walk in the sunshine. Make a coffee date with a friend. Get a manicure or pedicure. My favorite is to curl up in a chair with a book and a cup of tea. Use this same trick if you use food to deal with stress or soothe a bad mood.
When you have a craving, first try drinking water. We often mistake cravings for thirst. Next, distract yourself for 15 minutes, go for a short walk, call a friend, work on a project, if after 15 minutes you are still craving something, try a snack that is a whole food fat, like avocado, olives, nuts, or seeds, rather than sugar. This will tell your brain it is satisfied and turn off the craving.
If the time spent with family and friends revolves around food, try taking up a new hobby together. Go for a hike, play games, go to the park and play frisbee, or put a puzzle together. So many fun things that we can do together that do not involve food!
The most important thing you can do is not to beat yourself up when things don’t go as planned. Addiction is real and it is hard. Take it one day at a time and do the best you can. Try and be aware and conscientious about your choices. It is possible to overcome and have a healthy relationship with food. I am here cheering you on!