I am convinced it's not a problem of willpower, but the food just being engineered to be addictive and overly flavourful at any cost.
This is where I'm at with our processed food in the US, and I agree with this as an actual recovering addict (opioids). Massive lucrative businesses have been built on addiction and making things more addictive. We allowed this trend to continue in our culture by voting with our dollars, and I suppose wr could point fingers all day, but I also land back on the question of how do we, as a society, fix it and do better moving forward?
Australia and New Zealand have similar obesity problems as the US and Canada.
Europe is just catching up to the mistakes the US has made since the 1980s. Some nations are faring better due to their culture (strongly ingrained behaviors) holding back the mistakes, such as eg France.
[0] WHO report: Europe can reverse its obesity “epidemic” | https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/03-05-2022-new-who-repo...
"The report, launched at a press event on 3 May and presented at the European Congress on Obesity, reveals that in the European Region, 59% of adults and almost 1 in 3 children (29% of boys and 27% of girls) are overweight or living with obesity. Obesity prevalence for adults in the European Region is higher than in any other WHO region except for the Americas."
It's hard to find data, but America had an early, meteoric rise in obesity starting in the 90s (after a slow rise in the 80s) that I believe is far worse than what Europe saw. Europe is catching up, however, and I imagine there's at least some "americanization" of food to be blamed here.
Now there's a full sauce menu everywhere and I suspect coleslaw defeats the point of having a salad completely.
I just looked at the ingredients of a premade coleslaw (Safeway). The second and third ingredients are mayonnaise and sugar respectively.
Locally sourced vegetables can be much more flavourful, reducing the need for additional sauces. I always enjoy making a "tomato, cucumber, olive oil" salad and watch foreigners coming to Bulgaria ask "oh wow what sauce did you use" and I go - none, that's how those veggies are supposed to taste.
But you only get those kind of supplies by going to a bazaar/market and pick them out individually yourself.
This is an interesting thought. I agree, but I also agree, in a sense, when people say we need to have more willpower in order to overcome the problem. Yet, I agree with it in the same way I agree I need to have stronger muscles if I want to beat a grizzly bear in a wrestling match. Of course I do. But is it practical or even humanly possible? Not really and almost certainly not. I'm worried that the engineering we're doing to food is essentially that grizzly bear, and we're at a point where it's becoming borderline inhuman to tackle that problem.
Humans are not islands, and as individuals, we depend immensely upon the decisions others make around us in order to thrive. At the moment, our food industry expressly undermines our ability to thrive in order to ensure it thrives instead. In terms of health outcomes, it appears to me that some of the best things that can happen to you as a child are a) not being exposed to much sugar, thus not developing much of a taste for it, b) not having access to convenience foods such as fast food, instant meals, to-go items, etc, and c) being introduced and accustomed to whole foods early in life such that they're appealing and gratifying later in life. In North America, we seem to actively work against this happening.
I know people have a lot of willpower. We've survived this far because of it. Today we still have as much as our ancestors did, but our attention and energy is so broadly divided and absorbed so intensively. The project of not eating unhealthy food is—bizarrely—an intensive and demanding one for those of us who have been pulled into its grip. To say no to the craving, or to delve into the science of what's harming us and how, or why such delicious food is unhealthy even though so many people insist otherwise, is a serious job in and of itself. Frankly I don't fault anyone for struggling in that battle.
So, sure, willpower would help. But most of us are tapped out. We need to reduce the need for willpower at a systemic level. Suggesting otherwise often ignores one's good fortune of not needing that willpower in the first place, or having the opportunity to focus one's willpower for one reason or another. This good fortune is rare for many, many people.
I know the debate between big and small government is endless, but there are some cases of choice removal that are good.
The recent headlines that "CA are banning Skittles"[1] are emblematic of the power of the food lobby. They are in no way banning Skittles. They are banning 3 chemicals, 1 of which is banned for putting on your skin but not in your stomach. All are banned in the EU (I believe).
Google results for the quoted string above are littered with results that don't say one thing about the truth.
[1] https://www.today.com/food/news/california-bill-ab418-skittl...
I agree that the industry is too good at setting the narrative and "flooding the zone" in the US, however.
As someone who has had these kinds of issues in the past, I think it's important to acknowledge the effect food has on "willpower". I wanted to eat less, but some foods made it nigh impossible to stop once I'd started. And I've noticed that they also make you not want to eat anything else, so when you run out, you'll buy the same crap again.
This compounds in other areas of life, too: I was a lazy slob because I had no energy to do anything, even though I was consuming massive amounts of calories.
So in that light, I think GP very much blames the stressors: the companies overwhelming the willpower.
I have struggled with a sugar addiction my whole life. I've read that sugar is in nearly every packaged food. It's just too hard to avoid, unless you make all your own food from scratch.
Also, sugar is everywhere. Trying to avoid it is nearly impossible. People bringing sweets to work, going to the store, bakery (obvious, but sometimes you go to pick up bread), coffee shop, etc. It's literally everywhere.
Companies definitely intentionally overwhelm our willpower.
This worked to the point that I stopped identifying those as food, and would actually not want to eat any when encountering them, although two years prior I'd buy Snickers bars by the truckload.
Of course, later I more or less relapsed, by trying just this piece of cake when eating out. Which became more and more regular. Of course, eating out is terrible for this, as I'm pretty sure they put tonnes of sugar in their sauces. Otherwise, I can't explain why eating a steak in a restaurant will make me hungry two hours later, whereas eating the same-sized steak at home, but without the sauce, will have me satiated until evening.
MSG occurs naturally in some foods but they tended to be really expensive (e.g. highly matured cheeses) so it was not such a big deal. But now it's added to everything.
Also mushrooms, tomatoes, etc. especially dried.
Mainly staying away from too much processed foods helps, but MSG content isnt' the main problem with them, it's a combination of flavoring agents + very high calorie density.
Sometimes I'm not hungry at all but I take a small bowl of potato chips with a movie. Then after that I get a real craving for MORE. And I end up eating the whole bag. It's weird. I don't have it before I start.
Maybe other more natural snacks would be better yes but they are just so nice.
It was more crumbly and a darker orange colour. Also much stronger taste.
They had it in the supermarket but it was not the wrapped-slice stuff but sold in bricks.
I'm surprised they're allowed call that stuff Cheddar actually.
Not only. Highly palatable foods are also designed to bypass and confuse our satiety response so that we consume vastly more of it than we would if we were eating "regular" food.
(too late)