"I love you like a fat kid loves cake."
--Scott Adams, creator of comic strip "Dilbert"
 |
| Kids attending recent Growing Healthy Kids' workshops |
Sugar, salt,
and fat are highly addictive. Fast food
is intentionally engineered to use sugar, salt, and fat to get you addicted to foods like a
McDonald’s Big Mac or Fish Filet, a Chic-fil-A sandwich, and the fries, sodas, and
milkshakes paired together in combo meals so you get the ”big 3” in one meal
and have to keep coming back for more.
Cheese, a
concentrated source of animal fat and salt, is highly addictive to people. It contains growth hormones given to cows
to increase milk production that can have negative health consequences in
humans. Cheese causes an opiod-like effect on the
brain. Dr. Neal Barnard, founder of
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and author of The Cheese Trap,
calls cheese “dairy crack” because it is so additive.
The issue with
eating addictive foods like sugar, salt, fat, and cheese is that the pleasure
center of the brain is triggered by these foods, the same as an addiction to
cocaine. The release of dopamine in the brain makes you want more pleasure from the addictive foods.
Food
addiction plays a key role in obesity. I
recently watched an interview on the Rich Roll Podcast with Chef AJ, a woman in
her 50s who said she was overweight at the age of 5 and obese most of her life.
She struggled with food
addictions to sugar, salt, and fat until she finally learned how addictive
these processed foods can be. She ate
cookies, crackers, pies, and cakes but no fruits or vegetables. She accidently learned about the direct relationship between her addiction to
sugar, salt, and fat and her obesity. With help, she emerged victorious from a lifetime battle so she is now in control over what she eats and is finally at a healthy weight.
Americans
have always taken great pride in having freedom of choice. We need to realize that our freedom to
enjoy good health has been taken away by food manufacturers who have taken
advantage of us to addict us to sugar, salt, and
fat for their own financial profit. And now our
children are obese - almost 1 in 5 kids. According to Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, for children and adolescents aged 2-19
years, the prevalence of obesity was 18.5% and affected 13.7 million children
and adolescents.
We have to
stop buying and feeding kids foods loaded in sugar, salt, and fat. We can break the cycle of food addiction. In our workshops for Growing Healthy Kids, we
show kids how to prepare real foods and they get so excited by how good real
food tastes. We teach parents that you
can prepare real food (fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes) for a whole
lot less money than eating meat, cheese, and milk.
Knowledge is power. What foods will you buy for your kids?
With love,
Nancy
Heinrich, MPH
Founder and
Wellness Architect
Growing
Healthy Kids, Inc.
