Why Fat, Salt and Sugar Stimulate Our Appetite and Promote Over Eating at Times
pepperoni pizza, and more sweetness than six scoops of ice-cream. By encouraging us to consider any occasion for food an opportunity for pleasure and reward, the industry invites us to indulge a lot more often.
Starbucks learned a basic lesson: make enticing food easily and constantly available, keep it novel, and people will keep coming back for more. With food available in almost any setting, “the number of cues, the number of opportunities” to eat have increased, while the barriers to consumption have fallen, says ,David Mela,, senior scientist of weight management at the Uniliver Health Institute. “The environmental stimulus has changed.”
Of course, when food is offered to us, we’re not obliged to eat it. When it’s on the menu, we don’t have to order it. But this takes more than willpower. As an individual we can practice eating the food we want in a controlled way. As a society, we can identify the forces that drive overeating and find ways to diminish their power. That’s what happened with the tobacco industry: attitudes to smoking shifted. Similar changes could be brought about in our attitudes to food – by making it mandatory for restaurants to list calorie counts on their menus; by clear labeling on food products; by monitoring food marketing. But until then few of us are immune to the ubiquitous presence of food, the incessant marketing and the cultural assumption that it’s acceptable to eat anywhere, at any time.
Another fascinating food chain stores we call them the “taco chip challenge” – the challenge of controlled eating in the face of constant food availability. “Forty years ago, we might face the social equivalent of that taco chip challenge once a month. Now we face it every single day,” David Mela said. “Every single day and every single place you go, those foods are there, those foods are cheap, and those foods are readily available for you to engage in. There is constant, constant opportunity.”
Besides, those fast food companies mentioned earlier, there are small companies which include “Papas”,” Blimpie”, “Pizza Hut”, Taco Bel” ,”White Castle” “Wendy’s” “Wimpy” etc.
All of these companies have the same basic principle is to make money so that they can become rich within shortest possible time. They do not bother to look after the health of the Americans, starting from kids to old ones.
The End of Overeating: Taking Control Of Our Insatiable Appetite, by David A Kessler, published by Penguin,UK.,is acknowledged