An Addictive Aspect to Obesity?

Following is a news brief which I am quoting in its entirety, longer [and better written] articles can be found here and here.

Obesity Expert: 'Processed Food' Causing Obesity
August 20, 2006 9:00 a.m. EST

San Francisco, CA (AHN) - Dr. Robert H. Lustig, renowned obesity expert at the University of California, San Francisco says that 'processed foods' like potato chips and cookies, are causing obesity amongst consumers.

In his proposed hypothesis, he said the pattern of sugar consumption is similar to nicotine addiction and it takes more than just will-power to change it.[emphasis mine]

According to Lustig's hypothesis, large amounts of sugars increase insulin secretion, which in turn floods the hypothalamus, which regulates energy use in the body. In this way, insulin blocks the path of another hormone, leptin, which tells the brain about the energy requirement. This ends up with the body going into starvation mode -- the brain thinks it isn't getting enough energy, so it needs more calories and it needs to save energy.

However, some obesity experts showed disagreement over Lustig's hypothesis.

Just to be clear, a) this article presents a hypothesis, and b) some experts disagree [like that's news]. And, we have heard this rap on refined carbohydrates before from the Harvard School of Public Health, although they did not call it an addiction.

But just considering for a moment that over eating is an addiction, several thoughts come to mind as I review what was important to me when I was finally able to give up smoking.

It took many tries (7 as I recall) over several years to actually stop smoking - brings to mind the many diets that just faded away....

The physical addiction to nicotine lasts only 3 days - this was important to me at the time because it allowed me to really focus on not smoking for those three days, and gave me a sense of accomplishment when those 3 days were up. I wonder what the physical addicition to high glycemic foods is?

Then of course, there is the really bad part of the addiction to smoking: habit. I am reminded that those of us who tried to quit smoking frequently talked of our nicotine cravings. WoW! How many blogs could we turn up where dieters are talking about binge eating and food cravings? Are all cravings created equal? Hmm, I remember from "stop smoking class", sponsored by the AHA , a discussion that smoking was in large degree an oral craving. And the instructor warned us not to satisfy that craving with food. (I must have missed the class that offered an alternative.) (By the way, is there a "stop eating class" from the AHA?)

So how did former smokers handle the cravings? Well, every single person I knew who successfully quit smoking - including me - had a mental slogan used to diffuse each craving. My own was: "Having this cigarette won't change anything." Doesn't sound like much, but to me it was the one meaningful thing they said in the entire two weeks of the "stop smoking class" . The other thing we all did was get rid of any and all cigarettes - the temptation was just too great if they were left laying around, slogan or no slogan.

So anway, if over eating is at least partially a question of addiction and habit then maybe some of the strategies used to quit smoking will work:

1. A mental slogan to combat the cravings: "Eating this ____ won't change anything" might work for me.
2. A bottle of water (or something) to combat the oral addiction.
   
3. Getting rid of, and keeping away from, all foods that I find I can't control.

None of these ideas are original thinking, but together they are proven methods to fight addiction, and thinking of overeating as an addiction might just add fresh insight and new focus to an otherwise stale and unrelenting battle.

And just recently I had a lesson in #3. We hosted a picnic for some volunteers, and in spite of he fact they all knew I was trying to lose weight, they refused to cooperate and eat all the food. After spending a day thinking I could eat "just some" of the leftovers on some sort of reasonable basis, I found I had to take it all to the compost: butter, ice cream, rolls, cheese, etc. There was no way I could not eat all that food. The dog was happy though - he got the hot dogs and sliced ham.

I guess I have not yet successfully quit overeating!