The Un-Addiction Economy: Rethinking Weight Loss Solutions
Addiction Economy Thought for Today - Here's the un-addiction economy at work. Obese people are to be given weight loss drugs to help them get back to work, oh yes and to be healthy.
First to say when I was a couple of stone overweight I would have taken this like a shot. So no moral high ground here from me.
But we worry this is quick fix which might back fire - here are a few reasons:
1. This again focuses on the person and not the addictive food environment, which will be the same when they come off it.
The food that causes obesity is designed for profit, not for nutrition, and is at the root of this and must be tackled simultaneously. Experts propose not to argue endlessly with industry about the definition of Ultra-processed Food, but clarify the definition of 'what is food' which is not nutritionaly deficient 'industrially produced edible substances'.
Foods which provide dopamine hits using addictive ingredients (sugar), combinations of ingredients (sugar, fat, salt) or product formulations which bring together super palatability and negligible nutritional content (UPF) are at the heart of the problem. These must be regulated. Taxes, restrictions on formulations, classifications, marketing and availability, plus lots more are proposed. Start with the Dimbleby National Food Strategy
https://lnkd.in/eCAqjWf9
2. Addressing 'food deserts' where people, particularly the poor, literally cannot buy healthy food is also central. But local councils with no money, and desperate to let empty shops, together with high street brands decimated by online sales and high rents fleeing town centres, end up having to give leases to those who make the most money - junk food, vape and sweet shops. Lots of thinking happening on that too, but tough.
3. The issues which made people turn to food for comfort will remain and it appears that the weight goes back on if the commercial and psychological reasons for eating too much are not addressed. As James Corden found when he took Ozempic and soon gave it up: ‘Oh no, nothing about my eating has anything to do with being hungry. All it does is make you feel not hungry. But I am very rarely eating [just because I’m hungry].”
We argue that addiction is 'an act of self-care gone wrong'. Consumption of food beyond the point at which it harms you, is no different. Addictive foods give a high dopamine hit to the brain, they are nice, you are feeling a bit stressed, nervous, or just hungry and go for the comfort of food. But as they have no nutritional content, your body is not satisfied by it. So it says 'that was yummy, now when's the food coming' and so you have more.
This prescription-based approach to obesity will back fire and the NHS will be handing these out for ever unless help to (a) understand how to help people turning to food for self-care (b) help people access and afford the nutritional food they need instead.
https://lnkd.in/evu4Jjgs