One of the problems with this narrative is that fat wasn’t replaced by sugar. Not by a long way. Now it may be that posters on this board recall exactly what and how much they ate decades ago, the evidence on a population wide demonstrates pretty conclusively that for most, fat consumption in absolute terms didn’t drop very much…if at all. The relative amount appears to drop since, when other macronutrients were added, a diet with the same absolute amount of fat suddenly became “low fat”
Ancel Keys never recommended Snackwell cookies or sugar laden, low fat dressing.
Not at all. It depends on how you define addiction. My definition is a compulsive seeking and taking of substances despite significant immediate negative consequences.
Continuing taking a substance at the cost of a job or marriage is an addiction. Choosing to eat a Twinkie rather than jog around the block is a preference.
Human bodies are were highly evolved for survival as a member of a hunting gathering band living in a food sparse natural landscape,NOT for survival as an individual making choices in a bewilderingly sugar salted landscape of hyper delicious appearing easily taken abundance. And anyone that thinks any government, tyrannical or democratic, will ever be able to come up with regulations and enforcements to cure that imbalance needs their head examined.
The solution lies not with each lone individual, nor in government action (har har har), but rather in the intermediate social structures such as families, friendship and civic clubs and groups, including provision of primary school classes constantly being coached in the small potent life skills that lie waaay beyond reading, riting, ‘rithmetic — constant consideration for others, basic kindness, mutual support in making choices, etc… including how what when to eat.
I had the huge enormous advantage of growing up in a “puritanical” family led by parents who were constantly demonstrating, propagandizing, and insisting on our developing inhibition against gluttony (how quaint!!), and the other cardinal sins as well.
Perhaps the crux part of that upbringing was that after infancy, from about four or so on, we lived in the ancient pattern of eating marked by regular patterns of feasting/fasting/normal (normal, for bizarre etymological reasons, is called feria). Feria days (weekdays) we had no desserts nor fancy sauces etc., fasting days less, little, or no food; and feasting was marked by abundance and splendor and active celebration.
Fasting days sometimes resulted from marking something very sad (great grandma’s death….), but also from choosing to extend a backpack for an extra day knowing we would be starving on the way out (good lord a 16 year old hiking 15 miles at 10000 to 14000 feet can get HUNGRY) and then feasting (“Eating like Gods!” Dad would gloat at the table) at a favorite mountain steak and strawberry shortcake joint afterwards.
That was the old normal, and it included learning the mad pleasures of living as if you were a hunter gatherer, wherein moderate hunger was an eagerly engaged relish.
No one in the extended family back through a century (we got photos) down to the present has been obese. And we have almost all been at least decent cooks, and Love Food!
Addiction is a chronic condition that can affect many aspects of your life, including your physical and mental health, relationships and career. There are two main forms of addiction: substance use disorders and behavioral addictions. Addiction is treatable.
It’s crucial to seek help as soon as possible.
You seem to think that it is as easy as turning off the lights at the flip of a switch. I wish it were.
No I don’t for legitimate addictions. But there is no consensus on whether there is such a thing as food addiction. It is not recognized by the psychiatric Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the formal definer of psychiatric disorders, nor is it recognized as a condition by the World Health Organization. There is no agreed upon definition of what food addiction is and how it can be diagnosed. The neurobiological evidence for it is at best weak and controversial.
I will say that the fact that it is so controversial means that the attraction to certain foods is probably fundamentally different than that for alcohol or nicotine.