food and self-control
hey from the heart readers! I haven't touched this topic in a while and thought it's time to have another conversation about it.
what's this blog about?
Ever heard someone say 'I just don't have self-control around food'.
Something that’s not talked about a lot is the impact of the modern environment on human eating behaviour. Like any responsible person talking about this topic, let me begin with a statistic. According to WHO, in 2022, 890 million adults were recorded as living with obesity. But from my perspective, the real issue is that this statistic itself endorses the wrong message. It suggests that what needs to occur is lower obesity rates, AKA this statistics can scare people and suggest ‘whatever you do, avoid obesity’. Why would that be an issue, you ask?
the issue: who's to blame?
This mentality ignores a key driver of obesity, people’s eating behaviours. But even then, those living with obesity are flagged as ‘not in control’ of their eating behaviour, associated with lack of self-control and treated with less social status. Now, if a quarter of wheat crops started to turn a different colour, we would examine the environment, not blame the plant. So what if we took that perspective in this situation:
focusing on the evolving environment:
It’s no secret that in history, food has never been more available in quantity and convenience to humans than it is now. When living as hunter-gatherers, food was rarely readily available to eat. Even if it was, it would usually be some sort of legumes, berries etc.
The one thing I’ve learnt over and over in cognitive psychology is the importance of attention. Attending to something means registering the availability of it in your environment. For hunter-gatherers, food signalled the availability of energy, energy that would enable better survival and physical capability to do what - fight off predators, hunt for more food. And in this time, food was a scarce resource. How then would the human brain react when it spotted potential sources of food? Ping, ping, ping! There’s a strong drive to obtain food sources - to obtain energy that is necessary for survival. If our brain reacts the same way to food nowadays, no wonder overconsumption has skyrocketed. We’re not motivated to do other ‘more productive’ activities the same way we’re motivated to eat, to buy food, to share food.
You could even argue that those overconsuming are the very humans who would have adapted and survived the best during the hunter-gatherer times. Imagine a situation where famine hits, the ones whose brains responded strongest to food resources and with greater motivation to obtain it will have greater reserves to survive. For the way our brains are wired, it is not normal for food to be always be available at our finger tips. To be so frequently exposed to the availability of food is abnormal.
maybe we're actually normal?
Another basic tenant of psychological experiments; changing the environment means that mental processes will change and an observable change in behaviour will occur. You don’t need to be a scientist to figure this one out. Consider the change in environment from hunter-gatherer times to the modern era. Now predict the change observable in human eating behaviour.
an everyday moment:
I had a dance competition this past weekend and I forgot to bring food. I was there from 1 to about 6pm. I noticed that I did not think about food or eating at all until I started feeling hungry and texted my parents. What strikes me about this is that when something is not in the environment, we don’t consider it as an option. Even if I was bored, stressed or otherwise, I didn’t consider food as a solution or an activity because it wasn’t available in the moment. If I was bored, I could watch other people’s performances, I could talk to my dance team. Sometimes we eat, just because food is there. No wonder being in tune with hunger cues is something that is seen as so counter-cultural these days - people are even concerned that THIS is the abnormal eating behaviour.
food is the modern hospital:
Travelling back to the hunter-gatherer times, food was solely associated with nutrition and energy giving - but also when eating, food would definitely have activated all of the systems in the brain responsible for dopamine and pleasure. Why? Because it’s an adaptation to say to the human brain - see how good this is, you need to be motivated enough to seek and obtain it again so that we continue to have strength to survive.
So food not only has physical consequences, it has major psychological consequences which play a huge factor in the normalisation of dysregulated eating behaviour. As saturated our environment is with food, it is saturated with just as many perceived stressors - social conflicts, work, study, uncertainty, financial stress. So guess what food is associated with now? It’s associated with relief, rest, pleasure, a break from reality.
Food is no longer just a nutrition source that nourishes the body and soul, it can act as a soothing substance. It can act as a drug. Can you expect a drug addict to engage with the substance in a regulated manner? To expect them to, like someone without the addiction, not have cravings? Cravings for food to trigger the psychological consequences that help us cope with life is often associated with hunger.
'I can't tell when I'm hungry'
It’s no surprise why we would struggle to know when we feel hungry, I’ve heard people say ‘I can’t tell when I’m hungry?’ and I’ve often felt this myself. If food is used to fulfil needs beyond hunger, it can be made and marketed for those other needs. Hunger then, for food is no longer just physical. We have developed an appetite beyond what will fuel our body, even at the cost of it's health.
And like I’ve brought up before, it’s even harder to listen to internal hunger cues when food is so ubiquitous. At least, when it’s not available, people can realise the times they tend to use food to satisfy psychological needs because doing other activities without food still help them cope. But if it’s always available, food is the familiar and safe solution - and the lines between one’s hunger cues and one’s cravings to cope become blurry.
what's the point?
My point is, if our brain was developed to survive in an environment where food was scarce, seasonal and not always available; living in an environment saturated with food will inevitably result in overconsumption. And you know what most people think - they think that they’re the problem. I grew up being reminded that ‘food is sayang (precious)’. And yes that is true. It’s true for the environment where food was not always available, where obtaining it, preparing it and serving it was a ritual and a collaborative effort. These days, this society does not engineer food to be ‘sayang’. Should we really treat it with the same cultural practices? To insist on finishing it, to eat it even if we’re uncomfortably full?
what to do?
Or can we retrain our brains to learn that food is precious in this new environment our brains are not adapted for. That food is readily available, that it’s meant to fulfil and satiate hunger (both physically and spiritually) and that it’s meant to promote your health and happiness not cost you these two substrates of survival.
**disclaimer: I have a feeling that this blog can be interpreted as suggesting ‘only eat when you’re hungry (starving)’ and I really don’t want to suggest that at all. This thinking can be one hell of a slippery slop where ‘oh I’m so good because I only eat when I’m hungry etc.’ Reality is, food is a very valid source of pleasure - trying new foods, eating your comfort food and watching a show. That’s not what needs to be demonised. What’s concerning is when food is the only source of pleasure and it becomes that experience of eating without awareness, kind of like doom-scrolling as if a parasite entered your body and you eat compulsively, ending up feeling drunk on food. Too many people think that it's a them problem whilst all having the same experience, normalising disordered eating and continuing the cycle. The problem is much bigger than the individual so have some grace for yourself!
from,
the heart <3
