I read awhile back that food was the number one addiction in this country, more than all drugs and alcohol combined. They got the number from counting the number of obese. We seem to be moving in a direction that treats the obese like we do drug addicts and I see many links between food addicts and drug addicts. If the Gov can regulate drugs, what is stopping them from doing the same with junk food? You don’t need junk food to survive nor does it provide any nutritional value.
I wonder how many drug war pimps would support the same treatment and classification of taco bell or candy. Can you imagine Nestle being shut down and treated like we do drug dealers? If the costs we pay as a society for the obese are equal to or more than that of drugs, what really is stopping the war on food?
So you read something and you believed it?
Personally, I don’t care who is obese and who is not. My husband’s family has some fat people and all of them are hard-working, decent members of society. Much better than a lot of skinny marathon runners who are always dropping dead from heart attacks at 45.
It’s unbearable to me that Conservatives buy into these obviously Left-wing concocted factoids. The Left is on the warpath about food and health because - as at least 3 other freepers have written - they want to control the food supply.
I'm not so sure it's "food is an addiction" compared to "look how people are eating today (and how much.)
If you compare today's "modern" diet with that of the 40's, 50's and 60's you'd see that today we eat more refined and processed foods than we ever have.
Back in the 40's - 60's meals were made at home "from scratch", we didn't have all these prepared foods high in salt, carbohydrates, and all kinds of chemicals going through our digestive systems. We also didn't have an obesity problem in this country.
It's been pretty well known that the instances of heart disease and intestinal cancer for example were far less "back in the day" than they are today. Much of that, along with our society getting fatter is directly correlated with the refined/heavily processed "foods" we eat.
Want to lose weight? Stop eating refined/processed foods, (junk food) and sugary drinks or drinks high in empty calories. For most people, simply switching to a natural food diet does the trick in losing weight.
Those that can't will likely have some form of metabolic disorder, or something else related to medication (prednisone, steroids for example cause rapid weight gain.) Beyond that group --- those are the people who get fat through eating crap.