While the trigger that causes us to eat excessively may be unique to each of us, there are some underlying common causes, which when addressed, can greatly impact our health.
1. Addiction
In the late 1960s to early 1970s, cigarette manufacturers added more nicotine to cigarettes in order to make them addictive. Certain foods today are addictive in much the same way - people know why they shouldn’t eat them, but then have no idea why they can’t stop eating them. Addictive food agents include:
- Sugar: Many products advertised as “Fat Free” or “Low Fat” tend to be loaded with sugar. The fact that once we eat the sugar-filled product, it turns to fat in the body, unsurprisingly does not appear on the label.
- Food Additives: While food additives and preservatives undergo a required series of pre-market testing, often involving lab animals being fed these additives, there are fewer tests on what happens when all the different additives break down and interact within our body.
- Caffeine: While there may be zero calories in diet soda, a recent study showed that a combination of caffeine and aspartame kill off brain cells, but before they die, they trigger a chemical reaction in the brain that creates a momentary buzz, making us crave more. Migraines, visual problems, brain damage, breathing problems, concentration issues and many other severe health conditions have been linked to two harmful ingredients: caffeine and aspartame.
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