Why Do We Overeat?

at 2:42 AM

Have you ever noticed that you really can't overeat broccoli or spinach or eat too much of a  grilled chicken breast, but turn the above choices into cheese fries, M&Ms and fresh glaze donuts, you can easily overeat.  Well it turns out that the answer is much more complicated that just the fact that donuts are SO GOOD or you just can't stop at eating one M&M!  The manufacturers of processes foods have done years of research and hire food scientists and flavor scientists to optimize the taste of these foods so they can be 'hyperpalatable'.

These facts and other eye opening ones which may not be obvious at first glance are discusses in a book called 'The End of Overeating' by David Kessler,MD.  A high level food executive told Kessler that higher sugar, fat, and salt make you wan to at more.  Then a food industry consultant who did not want to be identified said to his that the food industry create foods that hit the 'three points of the compass'.  Sugar, salt and fat make a food compelling, and they make it indulgent.

Take cheese fries for example.  Cheese fries take  high-fat food and put more fat n top of it. The potato base is a simple carbohydrate, which quickly breaks down into sugar in the body,  Once it is fried and layered with cheese, we are eating salt on frat on fat on sugar.  Buffalo wings start with fatty parts of chicken, which get deep-fried.  Usually they are par-fried (partially fried-this is an industry term) at the production plant then again fried at the restaurant which basically doubles the fat and finally served with some sort of sauce.  This makes sugar on salt on fat on fat on fat!!!  An industry source joked that chicken tenders so loaded with fat that they are basically a UFO-an unidentified fried object.

In time, as a result of over stimulation and rewarding our selves with these types of foods, overeating becomes a habit and basically it rewires our brains where we no longer respond to being full and as a result we keep eating past that point.  Therefore we no longer can control those impulses, every time the stimulus presents itself-the presence of hyperpalatable food- we overeat.

Notice that this type of overeating behavior does not occur with basic healthy foods such as a spinach salad with carrots and broccoli topped with grilled chicken.  Or steamed squash seasoned with a little salt and pepper. The overeating behavior happens with highly processes foods that are cheap, and easily accessible.  Let's think about foods that we eat and stop the shoveling-in-the-mouth behavior.