This evening, we're scheduled to continue a group read of David Kessler's The End of Oveating.
WHEE is a group of Kossacks who are into health, fitness and weight control. Click on the WHEE tag for earlier diaries. You'll find the diary schedule in the last diary previous to this one. Among them, you can also find find Ch. 30 by Kessler series founder Edward Spurlock, with links back to the whole Kessler series.
I must apologize for a perfunctory diary this evening. I have a house full of sick pooties and am feeling none too chipper myself.
Kessler's been describing what he calls "conditioned hypereating," which he thinks has infected our whole society to our detriment.
Basically, for biological reasons we find high-fat, high-sugar, high-salt food items rewarding. At least some of us can react to them like addictive substances on a par with nicotine and cocaine. Food marketers have made such "highly palatable" food -- high in fat, salt sugar and additives, relatively low on vitamins, minerals, fiber and protein -- cheap and ubiquitous, resulting in lots of opportunities to get hooked. And to develop the habit of reaching for these food items.
The reward value of fat, salt and sugar, the emotional attachments and habits of consumption that we develop conspire to keep us coming back for more poison even as our bodies suffocate and grow sick, mired in caloric excess.
In Ch. 32, Kessler looks at two older theories of why so many Americans are so fat and concludes that they are nothing but "two different manifestations of one thing: conditioned hypereating."
I'm not sure his logic holds. I think they could be two different contributors to conditioned hypereating rather than two different corollaries. They could also act independently on some people, because we have learned in WHEE that by no means everybody is vulnerable to conditioned hypereating.
Theory one: Externality. Overweight people are overweight because their eating is more driven by external cues.
Theory two: Restraint. When we restrain ourselves from eating all we want, we feel increasingly deprived. Eventually our will power breaks down and we eat even more than before.
Yes, both of these patterns exist. We have read about them from fellow contributors on WHEE. But I think they can exist independently of conditioned hypereating, or they can contribute to it, depending on the vulnerabilities of the particular person.
What do you think?
Again, please excuse the brevity and my shortcutting the usual housekeeping. If I have to sign off, it's because I'm not feeling so hot, and I will be back to read all comments in the a.m.