http://www.huffingtonpost.com/louise..._b_195676.html
David Kessler (MD at Yale) has a book out about how the good industry supplies and packages food
that excites the
neuro circuitry in our brain. He says knowledge is power.
Quote:
DK: Fifty years ago, the tobacco industry, confronted with the evidence that smoking causes cancer, decided to deny the science and deceive the American public. Now, we know that highly palatable foods—sugar, fat, salt—are highly reinforcing and can activate the reward center of the brain. For many people, that activation is sustained when they're cued. They have such a hard time controlling their eating because they're constantly being bombarded—their brain is constantly being activated.
For decades the food industry was able to argue, "We're just giving consumers what they want." Now we know that giving them highly salient stimuli is activating their brains. The question becomes what do they do now?
If a bear walked in here right now, you would stop listening to me and you'd focus on that bear. We're all wired to focus on the most highly salient stimuli.
For a lot of people, that highly salient stimulus is food. It could be alcohol, it could be drugs, it could be gambling, but for many people, it's food. It's not just people who are obese, or overweight.
Even for people that are healthy weight, food activates the neural circuits of their brains, and they have this conditioned and driven behavior we call conditioned hypereating.
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This guy has some youtube videos explaining his research.
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http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/200...marion_nestle/
Nutritionist Marion Nestle (prof of nutrition at NYU) has a similiar message in her books about the food industry
Quote:
You begin with some simple health recommendations: eat less, exercise more and eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Why is the American food industry so at odds with those goals?
Because they don't want us eating less, of course.
The American food supply produces 3,900 calories a day for every man, woman and child in the country. That's twice as much food as we need.
So, if you're in the food business, you've got to figure out a way to sell it.
The choices are to get people eating your product instead of somebody else's, to get people to eat more in general, or to raise prices.
In that situation, obesity is collateral damage.
What are some strategies food companies use to make us eat more?
Larger portions. If you put a larger portion of food in front of somebody, they will eat more, even if they're not hungry, even if they're on a diet, even if they're a nutritionist. They're going to eat more. That overrides some kind of internal control.
Having food available is incentive to eat more -- just having it around.
And in fact, there's research that shows the closer the food is to you physically, the more you'll eat of it.
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She also says that consumers should be aware of what is being marketed and sold to us.
M.