Guest Post: Food Abstinence for Food Addicts: Deprivation or a New Freedom?
Today’s guest post comes from Dr Vera Tarman, addictions specialist and Medical Director of Renascent, Canada’s largest drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility. She has spoken internationally on the subject of food addiction and is the co-author of Food Junkies: The Truth about Food Addiction (reviewed here). Her website is addictionsunplugged.com. Countless times during my public talks, the question comes up: “You have to eat! If food is addictive, what can you eat?” “Yes”, I agree. “ You do have to eat, but not desserts, bagels, pastries, or any junk food. You don’t need sugar, honey, maple syrup or molasses to survive.” How about vegetables, fruits, meats and fish? For most people, even end-stage food addicts, these foods are not addictive. Food abstinence is not about being on a diet, restricting calories, counting points, eating specially packaged foods – it is a recommendation that we eat the foods our body was metabolically designed to eat and enjoy with satisfaction. Our evolutionary hormonal and neurochemical “checks and balances” have been designed for the natural foods of our ancestors. In other words, we are programmed to desire food when we are hungry and are satisfied when we have sufficient energy reserves from that food. In a perfect nutritional ecosystem, most people can stop with satisfaction when they are full. Willpower, the front-lobe strongman of the brain, is actually quite short-lived and fragile, but works sufficiently well under normal conditions. The food industry has created foodstuffs that provide an highly efficient delivery system to our brain’s reward center. This manipulation gives us a copious amount of delight immediately: the quick fix. The fiber from fruit and vegetables has been peeled away, the hovering bees that discourage an overly eager hand from taking gobs of honey have been removed, the bark of a maple tree or sugar cane that would have made it impossible to get more than a lick of sap or sugar have been stripped. Our primal brain which is accustomed to moderate pleasure is overwhelmed with the euphoric bliss of highly palatable foods. Willpower sags under the strain. This is why you choose the apple cheese cake over the apple. Foods have become irresistible, even to a normal eater. To a food addict, they are the kick-start of a downward spiral to endless overeating, misery and self-loathing. The question that typically follows is, “If you restrict your foods, aren’t you encouraging abnormal… Read More »
Obesity Weekend Roundup, February 13, 2015
As not everyone may have a chance during the week to read every post, here’s a roundup of last week’s posts: Does Food Addiction Require Abstinence? Severe Obesity Is Easier To Manage in Kids Than in Teens Does Physical Activity Calorie Equivalent Labeling Make Sense? Obesity In Cardiovascular Disease – A Canadian Perspective Canadian Obesity Network To Engage People Living With Obesity Have a great Sunday! (or what is left of it) @DrSharma Edmonton, AB
Obesity In Cardiovascular Disease – A Canadian Perspective
Anyone interested in the issue of obesity and cardiovascular disease may want to get a copy of the latest edition of the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, which includes a number of review articles and opinion pieces on a wide range of issues related to obesity and cardiovascular disease. Here is the table of contents: Lim SP, Arasaratnam P, Chow BJ, Beanlands RS, Hessian RC: Obesity and the challenges of noninvasive imaging for the detection of coronary artery disease. Després JP. Obesity and cardiovascular disease: weight loss is not the only target. Kramer CK. Weight loss is a useful therapeutic objective. Garcia-Labbé D, Ruka E, Bertrand OF, Voisine P, Costerousse O, Poirier P. Obesity and Coronary Artery Disease: Evaluation and Treatment. Lovren F, Teoh H, Verma S. Obesity and Atherosclerosis: Mechanistic Insights. Sankaralingam S, Kim RB, Padwal RS. The Impact of Obesity on the Pharmacology of Medications Used for Cardiovascular Risk Factor Control. Piché MÈ, Auclair A, Harvey J, Marceau S, Poirier P. How to Choose and Use Bariatric Surgery in 2015. Valera B, Sohani Z, Rana A, Poirier P, Anand SS. The Ethnoepidemiology of Obesity. McCrindle BW. Cardiovascular Consequences of Childhood Obesity. St-Pierre J, Poirier P. What nature used to allow to die, don’t let modern habits damage after repair: preventable obesity risk in congenital heart disease. Poirier P, McCrindle BW, Leiter LA. Obesity-it must not remain the neglected risk factor in cardiology. Lang JJ, McNeil J, Tremblay MS, Saunders TJ. Sit less, stand more: A randomized point-of-decision prompt intervention to reduce sedentary time. @DrSharma Edmonton, AB
Canadian Obesity Network To Engage People Living With Obesity
Since its inception in 2006, the Canadian Obesity Network (CON) has grown into a 10,000 member strong organisation of researchers, health professionals, policy makers, and anyone working in the private or public sector with an interest in obesity. In short, CON as we know it, is a professional network – all you have to do to become a member is to sign up on the website and state your professional expertise and area of interest. While CON has undeniably changed the landscape of obesity research, practice and policy in Canada, the most important voice in this dialogue has been missing – the voice of people living with obesity and their families. As decided by CON’s Board of Directors, this is about to change. It is now time for CON to engage directly with people who have the problem – not just experts who study or treat it. To help guide CON on this new venture, anyone living with obesity or working with individuals living with obesity (of any age and in any setting) is requested to complete this brief survey (4 questions – takes less than 2 minutes). Your response will help inform a Bariatric Patient Engagement Workshop to be held on April 27, 2015 at the upcoming 4th Canadian Obesity Summit in Toronto. The purpose of the Bariatric Patient Engagement Workshop is to hold a focused conversation and seek insights about the need for and function of a public engagement strategy to inform, support, and empower individuals affected by obesity in Canada. This workshop is CON’s first step towards building a Canada-wide community of individuals affected by obesity that is willing to participate in public engagement initiatives in support of patient-oriented research, practice, and policy. Your help and support is very much appreciated as CON prepares itself for this next chapter of its commitment to engage all relevant stakeholders towards its mission to prevent and reduce the physical, mental and economic burden of obesity on Canadians. To take the survey click here. @DrSharma Edmonton, AB
Does Physical Activity Calorie Equivalent Labeling Make Sense?
One of the most common misconceptions in the simplistic “eat less – move more” narrative, is equating the calories in a food with the amount of work that would be needed to burn those calories (e.g. X potato chips equal y minutes of riding your bike). Not only are things rarely that simple (given that individual “fuel efficiency” varies widely based on size, age, conditioning, fitness, and probably countless other variables), but these messages just serve to reinforce the notion that exercise (or for that matter any form of physical activity) is indeed a viable strategy to “burn off” excess calories. For what it’s worth, a study by Viera and Antonelli from the University of North Carolina, published in Pediatrics, shows that physical activity calorie equivalent labeling (PACE) has no more impact on parents’ fast food decisions than showing calories only. The study was conducted as a national survey of 1000 parents randomized to 1 of 4 fast food menus: no labels, calories only, calories plus minutes, or calories plus miles needed to walk to burn the calories. After excluding implausible answers, the researchers were left with 823 parents, with the mean age of the child for whom the meal was “ordered” being about 9.5 years. While parents whose menus displayed no calorie label ordered an average of 1294 calories, those those shown calories in any form ordered about 200 calories less, irrespective of whether they were shown calories only, calories plus minutes, or calories plus miles. Despite this lack of difference, when parents were asked to rate the likelihood each label would influence them to encourage their child to exercise, 20% of parents reported that calories-only labeling would be “very likely” to prompt them to encourage their children to exercise versus 38% for calories plus minutes and 37% for calories plus miles. From these findings the authors rather enthusiastically conclude that PACE labeling may influence parents’ decisions on what fast food items to order for their children and encourage them to get their children to exercise. Both of these conclusions are rather optimistic at best. As for influencing the parents choice, there was clearly no difference between wether or not calories were shown alone or equated to time or miles – calories alone did the job. And as for whether equating calories to activity would do anything at all in terms of parents actually getting their kids to do more, I would… Read More »
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