Psychiatric Annals reports:
The difference between “food addiction” and “food and addiction” will gain public policy significance as the prepared food industry gears up to fight a growing body of data indicating processed foods contribute to negative public health outcomes. The remarks were made by the outgoing director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University.
“If there is an addictive impact of food on the brain, what does that say about the accountability of the food industry for intentional manipulation of ingredients, what kinds of advertising should be permitted, and what products should be permitted for sale in schools?” said Kelly Brownell, PhD, who is leaving Yale to become the dean at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University this summer.
Brownell’s presentation was part of a symposium on hedonic eating, addiction and obesity presented here at the 2013 American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting.
So who is Kelly Brownell? This pic is worth a thousands words.
Is he going to lecture Glen Beck about being overweight?
Yeah, he’s out there, all right.
What better way to explain one’s lack of willpower and responsibility for one’s own health than to come up with yet another bogus mental condition. Now, it’s health problem for someone else to pay for.
This is no different than making disability payments to drunks and dope fiends.
Don’t they have fitness centers in the Ivy League? 😉
Brownell could promote his views with a simple regimen. If he can’t see his shoes while standing, he shouldn’t eat. That will keep him busy for a while.
He who sups with the devil should have a long spoon. Thrown in just because I like the quote, and it is an eating implement. So, bwanajohn, would that be an assault fork, or one of those without the bayonet mount on the front . . .
Howdy Bob and Gamecock
This is a favored method of the nanny-bullies. In order to control our behavior, because that’s the real goal, the nanny-bullies go upstream and blame our choices on those who provide them. People may resist when you tell them they are evil, but they are sometimes more willing to go along if you tell them someone else is evil.
Since food companies do make large profits — earn them, I hasten to say — it’s easy to portray them as evil when they are useful parts of our society. Much more useful than CSPI or Sierra Club.
Just ban forks, that’ll solve it.
Yep, if we eat too much, it’s the food’s fault. Or the people who prepared it.
Well, he is better than being lectured by some skinny 20-something with a metabolism that will keep them from being overweight for another 20+ years. I’ve always been really impressed by those folks.
I love the part about food being manipulated by the (evil) food industry. I believe that’s called adding ingredients to make it more appealing to potential customers. That way we can assuage our guilt by blaming the evil them.
using this logic, should cancer patients/survivors not be allowed to be experts on carcinogens?
Food addiction is real. Every living thing is addicted to food. I myself have severe withdrawal symptoms after 24-48 hours without food. After 72 hours I would commit a crime to get my ‘fix”. Without food I would die.
Hum,, no!
Looks like he’s not missed too many meals, himself.
If I believed in “food addiction”, I’d say this gentleman knows something about it.
Since I’m a loyal reader here, I know that “food addiction” is really just a self-gratifying behavior and that body mass and composition are complex physiological constructs, not just a matter of appetite control and self-discipline to exercise.
I’ve always enjoyed eating but I’ve never been a “comfot eater” — I tend to exercise instead. But that’s a matter of what I like, not a moral superiority or a special commitment.
He’s ‘coming out’ with his addiction.